Torah · Case law

Text 01 / 08 · The law

What a man owes

Exodus 21:10 in the Leningrad Codex, the oldest complete manuscript of the Hebrew Bible. The verse sits in the left column.

Exodus 21:10–11

Exodus 21:10 in the Leningrad Codex, the oldest complete manuscript of the Hebrew Bible. The verse sits in the left column.

Verses 7–11 follow a daughter whose father sold her into household service with marriage in view. If the man who acquires her—or his son—makes her a wife and later takes another, he may not reduce her food, clothing, or marital care. If he does, she leaves without paying for her freedom. The law protects a woman with very little power; it is not a complete rule for divorce or modern marriage.

Exodus 21:10–11¶ link: copy a link to Exodus 21:10–11

אִם־אַחֶרֶת יִקַּח־לוֹ שְׁאֵרָהּ כְּסוּתָהּ וְעֹנָתָהּ לֹא יִגְרָע׃ וְאִם־שְׁלׇשׁ־אֵלֶּה לֹא יַעֲשֶׂה לָהּ וְיָצְאָה חִנָּם אֵין כָּסֶף׃

transliteration

im-acheret yiqqach-lo, she'erah kesutah ve'onatah lo yigra. ve'im-shelosh-elleh lo ya'aseh lah, veyatze'ah chinnam ein kasef.

If he takes another for himself, her food, her clothing, and her marital due he shall not diminish. And if he does not do these three for her, she shall go out free, without payment of money.

A close literal rendering; compare ESV, NASB, KJV.

Read verses 7–11 together

Verse 10 begins in the middle of her story

Three verses earlier, a father sells his daughter as an amah, a female servant. Exodus does not tell us why he does it. Poverty or debt is the usual historical setting, but the transaction is still hard to hear: money changes hands, she enters another man’s household under his authority, and the passage does not describe the choice as hers.

This is not a simple purchase of household labor. The next verses show that marriage was part of the arrangement. The man who acquires her may designate her for himself or for his son. If he decides not to marry her, he must allow her to be redeemed. He may not sell her to foreigners, because he has broken faith with her. If he designates her for his son, he must treat her as a daughter.

Then another wife enters the picture. The first woman could be left doing the work of the household while the new wife receives the provision and attention that had been promised to her. That is the danger verse 10 addresses. Whether her husband is the man who bought her or his son, he may not reduce what she is owed. If he does, she goes free. She does not have to buy her way out or repay the price once given to her father.

Now read verse 11 again: “she shall go out free.” If you grew up hearing “God hates divorce,” that can sound like a contradiction. Is Exodus saying that marriage no longer matters when a husband fails? No. It is saying that he cannot keep this woman bound to him while refusing the duties that made her his wife.

Malachi 2:16 is difficult to translate. Some translations say, “I hate divorce.” Others begin, “The man who hates and divorces his wife.” The surrounding passage is clear about its concern: a husband has dealt treacherously with the wife of his youth. Exodus is concerned with the same kind of betrayal. Divorce is not celebrated here. Freedom is the remedy given to the wife when her husband breaks faith with her.

This does not turn Exodus 21 into a complete rule for every marriage. It does tell you what this law protects. The man with power does not get to keep the relationship, the labor, and the authority while withholding food, clothing, and marital care. The woman he has failed is not required to pay for her freedom.

A closer look at the important words

Open any term to see its range and where else Scripture uses it.

  • her food · Flesh, food, or sustenance. The exact scope is debated, but the word names something owed to her that the man may not reduce.
  • her clothing · A covering or garment. Some ancient interpreters understood shelter to be included, but clothing is the word's direct sense.
  • and her marital due · A word that appears exactly once in the Hebrew Bible. Traditional Jewish interpretation and the ancient versions read it as her conjugal right, her marital love, not to be withheld. The derivation is disputed, and that reading is the ancient and best attested one rather than the only one proposed.
  • he shall not diminish · The verb means to reduce, withdraw, or take away. If he cannot care for another wife without cutting what the first woman receives, the law says he may not make that cut.

How translators have handled the wording

One word across the centuries · onah

AD 1008–1009

Hebrew Masoretic Text · Leningrad Codex

שְׁאֵרָהּ כְּסוּתָהּ וְעֹנָתָהּ לֹא יִגְרָע

The oldest complete manuscript of the Masoretic Text. The Hebrew tradition is much earlier; this date belongs to the surviving witness, not to the composition of Exodus.

c. 250 BC

Septuagint (Greek)

τὰ δέοντα καὶ τὸν ἱματισμὸν καὶ τὴν ὁμιλίαν αὐτῆς οὐκ ἀποστερήσει

The Jewish translators of Alexandria render onah as homilia, her companionship, her conjugal society.

c. AD 398–405

Latin Vulgate Pentateuch

providebit puellae nuptias et vestimenta et pretium pudicitiae non negabit

Jerome's Hebrew-based Pentateuch renders the term as “the price of her chastity,” a payment rather than a conjugal right. This is the rendering the Latin West read for centuries.

1530

William Tyndale's Pentateuch

her food, raiment and duty of marriage shall he not minish

Tyndale had already restored the conjugal-duty sense in printed English before the King James Version.

1611

King James Version

her food, her raiment, and her duty of marriage, shall he not diminish

The KJV preserves the English conjugal-duty wording already found in Tyndale's Pentateuch.

2001

English Standard Version

her food, her clothing, or her marital rights

Modern committee translation agrees with the Septuagint, the Talmud, and the KJV: a right belonging to her.

The Vulgate differs from the other translations in this table by rendering the term as a payment rather than a conjugal right. Jerome's Hebrew-based Pentateuch was produced later than his Gospel revision of 384. The wording is clear; this record does not tell us why he chose it.

What does “she goes free” mean?

Verse 11 is not a casual invitation to leave, and it is not a modern no-fault-divorce law. This woman entered the household through a transaction in which redemption money mattered. When her husband refuses the three duties, she is released without paying that money. The household loses what it paid; the woman who was deprived does not carry the cost of its failure.1

Her release is more than the end of ordinary employment. Marriage was part of the arrangement, so the law ends the household’s claim over her when it refuses to honor her place as a wife. Exodus does not give us a divorce certificate or answer every later question about remarriage. It gives us the result that matters in this case: he cannot keep her while refusing to be her husband.

What is the husband forbidden to reduce?

The law makes all three duties belong to the woman it protects. It does not tell us how wealthy a man must be, but it gives him no permission to make her bear the cost of another marriage. Her food, covering, and marital care may not shrink. Anyone who reads the opening as an opportunity while treating the duties as a footnote has reversed the emphasis of the law.

Does this apply to your marriage?

You cannot lift this remedy out of Israel’s case law and use it as a complete Christian teaching on divorce. The passage does not tell you to leave because marriage has become painful, lonely, or difficult. It does show that a husband’s duties are real. He cannot keep the privileges of marriage while deliberately withholding the care that belongs to it.

If your marriage is going through ordinary conflict, illness, financial pressure, or a season of distance, Exodus 21 does not tell you that leaving should be your first answer. It does help you ask concrete questions. Is either spouse being denied basic provision, faithfulness, or marital care? Is the person with more power taking responsibility for repair?

If what you are facing is coercion, deliberate deprivation, abandonment, or danger, “God hates divorce” should never be used to make you endure harm in silence. This law does not preserve a man’s control at a vulnerable woman’s expense. It gives her a way out when he refuses what he owes. This page cannot decide the details of your marriage. If you are in immediate danger, go somewhere safe and contact emergency services or a qualified local advocate. You can also read the site’s fuller answer about submission and abuse.

Why you may reach a different conclusion

You may be thinking that regulation is not the same as approval. You would be right to raise that objection.

The Torah regulates slavery, divorce, warfare, debt, and other realities of a fallen world. Jesus says Moses permitted divorce because of hard hearts. So the existence of this law cannot prove, on its own, that a plural household expresses God’s ideal or remains lawful for Christians. Exodus may simply be limiting harm inside something God tolerated for a time.

Why I reach a different conclusion

The objection is right. Exodus 21 cannot carry the whole conclusion. What it establishes is narrower: Mosaic law recognizes the continuing marital standing of the first woman, describes the additional woman within the same household, and enforces marital duties rather than ordering either union dissolved. Calling that recognition an accommodation is possible, but it is a further conclusion that has to be tested from the rest of Scripture.

Exodus cannot be the last word. We still have to ask how Genesis defines marriage, how the narratives and prophets judge these households, and whether Jesus or the apostles end an earlier allowance. Jesus’s teaching about divorce is considered on its own page.

What I think this passage establishes

Exodus 21 does not command anyone to form a plural household, and it cannot prove a timeless moral permission by itself. It does establish that, in Israel’s law, the first woman remains a wife with enforceable marital claims when another woman enters the household. Whether that legal recognition was temporary accommodation or part of a continuing account of marriage is the question the remaining passages must answer.

Chapter Six, Section Three: Exodus 21:10 and What a Man Owes · coming soon →

1note

The surrounding institution includes debt service, patriarchal authority, and a payment to the woman’s father. Those facts should not be disguised. The narrower point is that designation as a wife changes her legal standing: the text names duties owed to her, and failure releases her without repayment. That is not modern equality, but neither is she treated in this law as an object without claims.

Open the sources

The printable packets are temporarily unavailable while their sources and layout are reviewed. When they return, each packet will match the current page. Any material error reported after launch will also be recorded on the corrections page.

The next passage is Deuteronomy 21:15–17. The law begins, “If a man has two wives,” and protects the firstborn son of the less-loved wife. It establishes his lawful place in the family and limits his father's power. It does not tell us, by itself, whether the household should have been formed.