Exodus 21:22–23
If Any Mischief Follow
Where the Greek went wrongTwo men fight, a mother is struck, and the Greek asks a question Moses never asked.
Side by Side
The Hebrew
The source text
If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished, according as the woman’s husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine. And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life.
The Greek
Septuagint, where it went wrong
And if two men strive and smite a woman with child, and her child be born imperfectly formed, he shall be forced to pay a penalty: as the woman’s husband may lay upon him, he shall pay with a valuation. But if it be perfectly formed, he shall give life for life.
Your KJV reads: the Hebrew. The child comes out, and the only question is whether harm follows.
See what changed and why ↓What Your Bible Says
If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished … And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life.
Exodus 21:22–23 KJV
Men fight, and a woman carrying a child is struck. Her child comes out before its time. If no further harm is done, there is a fine. If harm follows, life answers for life.
What the Hebrew Says
The Hebrew says her children come out. The word is yeled, the same word used for a child already born. The word for harm, ason, does not say who is harmed. Mother or child, the same law of life for life applies.
The test is simple: was anyone harmed?
What the Greek Says
And her child be born imperfectly formed, he shall be forced to pay a penalty … But if it be perfectly formed, he shall give life for life.
Exodus 21:22–23, Septuagint
The Greek drops the question of harm. It asks instead whether the child had taken shape. Not yet formed: a fine. Fully formed: life for life.
What Changed
“Harm” became “form.” The Hebrew test, was anyone hurt, was replaced with a Greek medical test: did the child look human yet?
Nothing in the Hebrew sets one value on an early child and another on a later one. That line comes from the Greek.
Where the Idea Came From
Greek doctors and philosophers taught that what grows in the womb is shapeless matter at first and takes form later. Aristotle put it at forty days for a boy and ninety for a girl. The Greek of Exodus speaks that language. Philo of Alexandria, a Jewish writer of the first century, read the Greek verse and taught the same split between the unformed and the formed child.
Purpose of the Change
The effect is a two-tier child: an early one worth a fine, a later one worth a life. Church teaching that followed the Greek kept a line between the early child and the formed child for centuries.
The Bottom Line
The Hebrew asks only whether harm was done. The Greek asked whether the child looked human yet.
Scripture counts every life, from the least to the greatest: “And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God” (Revelation 20:12).
Dig Deeper The evidence, for anyone who wants it
Known Before Formed
Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee.
Jeremiah 1:5 KJV
Yahuah knew Jeremiah before his forming began. The Greek measure, formed or not formed, is not His measure.
Her Fruit Depart
The Hebrew verb behind “depart” means to come out or go out. It is used for an ordinary birth, as when Esau “came out red” at his birth (Genesis 25:25). The verse pictures a child born early, and the Hebrew calls it a child.
Where the Greek Led
The Greek rendering became the Old Testament of the western church through the old Latin. Teachers who read it built on its split, and later debated when a soul enters the formed body. That debate starts from the Greek, not from Moses.
The site page “Words Your Bible Borrowed” traces other Greek ideas that came into the churches through translation.
An Honest Note
Many modern translations read verse 22 as a miscarriage, which makes the fine about a lost child and “life for life” about the mother only. The Hebrew can be read that way, and the King James words “her fruit depart” do not settle it alone. But on either reading, the Hebrew draws no line by the shape of the child. The formed and unformed test comes from the Greek alone.