Does Exodus 21.22 Support Abortion?

In my morning reading, I came across this verse about an incident where a man strikes a pregnant woman. Here’s the text in the Hebrew followed by my literal translation.

Exodus 21:22

וְכִֽי־יִנָּצ֣וּ אֲנָשִׁ֗ים וְנָ֨גְפ֜וּ אִשָּׁ֤ה הָרָה֙ וְיָצְא֣וּ יְלָדֶ֔יהָ וְלֹ֥א יִהְיֶ֖ה אָס֑וֹן עָנ֣וֹשׁ יֵעָנֵ֗שׁ כַּֽאֲשֶׁ֨ר יָשִׁ֤ית עָלָיו֙ בַּ֣עַל הָֽאִשָּׁ֔ה וְנָתַ֖ן בִּפְלִלִֽים

When men fight and they strike a pregnant woman, and her offspring go out, and a fatal accident does not happen, he will surely be fined just as (the) husband of the woman will put upon him, and he will pay according to the assessment.

This is a hard verse to interpret because it has rare vocabulary and because it is grammatically ambiguous. Let’s go through the obscure vocabulary first and then consider the grammar.

The word אָס֑וֹן (ason) only occurs five times in the Hebrew Bible. Most translations render it “harm,” though the HALOT (Hebrew Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament) says it means, “fatal accident.” Perhaps they are following the BDB (Brown Driver Briggs Lexicon), which says, “mischief, evil, harm.” Since the HALOT is more recent and more highly regarded than the BDB, I went with the HALOT definition in my literal translation above. This also fits nicely with the “life for life” statement that follows in v23. Still, it’s not clear whom this word applies to: the pregnant woman or her child.

The next word of note is פָּלִיל (paleyl), which only occurs three times in the Tanakh. The HALOT offers glosses of (a) judges and (b) assessment. The BDB says it means “judges, umpires.” Note that this is not the normal word for judges (שֹֽׁפְטִ֑ים), but an obscure word requiring some interpretation. In our text, the husband of the pregnant woman has already been identified as the one who will set the fine. If we render פָּלִיל as a “judge,” then we have a second party who is also deciding the fine. However, if we think of פָּלִיל as an “assessment,” then the last clause is just adding that the man who caused the injury must pay (lit. “give) the assessed fine. This makes more sense to me.

Does the fatal accident or harm happen to the pregnant woman, to the child she is carrying, or to her ability to bear future children? The translation I gave above is, “they strike a pregnant woman, and her offspring go out.” This word for “go out” (וְיָצְא֣וּ) is extremely common, occurring 1,069 in the Old Testament in one form or another. It’s a neutral term that does not specify whether the “going out” is good or bad. Furthermore, it’s plural here, as well as the word for child (יְלָדֶ֔יהָ), literally “her children.” This is why we have three possible scenarios rather than two.

Scenario 1: premature birth where her child is born unharmed. This is the view preferred by evangelical translations, including the NLT, LSB, NKJV, NET, NASB20, NIV, etc.

Scenario 2: miscarriage where her child does not survive. This interpretation shows up in NABRE, NRSVUE, and the NASB77.

Scenario 3: the injury prevents her ability to have future children. I added this possibility in light of the fact that the word for child is actually plural (as is the verb). However, it’s likely that the plural just refers to offspring in a general sense so we probably should not read too much into it.

Scenarios 1 or 2 are both plausible. For this text, my preference is for translators to preserve the ambiguity, rather than pushing the reader toward their preferred interpretations. This is what we see in the KJV and the ESV, and it’s what I offered in my literal translation above.

Call me a stickler, but I don’t like it when translators decide for us which way we should interpret an ambiguous phrase. Instead, translators should preserve the ambiguity as best as possible so that interpretation is up to the interpreter (the reader). This prevents two problems: (1) the scenario where a translator picks an incorrect interpretation, (2) the case in which readers use an ambiguous verse as a proof-text, not realizing they are building on an unstable foundation. 

Exodus 21.22 is a great example of a seemingly definitive text (depending on your translation) that no one should use to make a case for or against abortion. Let’s just recognize that this verse can have mean multiple meanings. Therefore, it cannot serve as a proper foundation upon which to build a case one way or the other.

Now, I believe abortion is wrong, but not because a verse in the Torah’s case law equates the unborn child’s life with an adult’s life. (Though if that reading is correct, it would certainly help my case.) I believe abortion is wrong because it is not loving to the child.

As Christians, our primary mandates are to love God and love our neighbors as ourselves. When the Torah expert asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” (Luke 10.29), Jesus told the parable of the Good Samaritan. In that story, we see that Jesus defined the “neighbor” in a flexible way. After telling about the priest and Levite who passed on the other side, he said the good Samaritan helped the injured man. Then he asked, “Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” (Luke 10.36). In doing so, Jesus showed us that being a neighbor is a matter of proximity and opportunity. We are not only talking about the people who live next to us, we’re talking about whoever happens to be nearby.

Who is nearer to a pregnant mother than her unborn child in her womb? Carrying forward the central mandates of Christianity to love God and our neighbors as ourselves, we conclude that a pregnant woman should show love to her baby. Needless to say, it is not loving to the unborn to kill them in the womb.

Now some may retort, should she show love to a growth she finds on her skin? Isn’t she free to have it removed? This analogy assumes the fetus is not an independent human being prior to birth. Perhaps such a way of thinking was possible decades ago when we were largely ignorant of the condition and capability of the unborn child in the womb. But due to today’s level of scientific knowledge, it’s no longer possible to think of the fetus as a potential human or merely a clump of cells like a mole or wart.

From a scientific point of view, the fetus–though dependent–is alive. This is because from an embryo forward, we find cellular organization, metabolism of nutrients, growth via cell division, response to stimuli, and internal regulation. The unborn is a self-directed, internally-coordinated organism with a clear developmental trajectory based on his or her unique DNA (unlike a tumor or body part).

In conclusion, Exodus 21.22 is not definitive for any view of abortion, whether for or against, because of obscure vocabulary and, more importantly, ambiguous grammar. Furthermore, for Christians, even if this text approved of abortion, that would not necessarily mean that Christ’s followers should permit it. The OT permitted divorce for a wide range of reasons, but Jesus narrowed the practice for his followers.

Abortion is a sin that Christians should avoid, because it violates the love command. However, it is not the unpardonable sin. Forgiveness is available for those who recognize their wrongdoing and repent.