nd out whether the master _designed_ to kill.

1. "If a man smite his servant with a _rod_."--The instrument used,
gives a clue to the _intent_. See Numbers xxxv. 16, 18. It was a _rod_,
not an axe, nor a sword, nor a bludgeon, nor any other
death-weapon--hence, from the _kind_ of instrument, no design to _kill_
would be inferred; for _intent_ to kill would hardly have taken a _rod_
for its weapon. But if the servant dies _under his hand_, then the
unfitness of the instrument, instead of being evidence in his favor, is
point blank against him; for, to strike him with a _rod_ until he
_dies_, argues a _great many_ blows laid on with _great_ violence, and
this kept up to the death-gasp, establishes the point of _intent to
kill_. Hence the sentence, "He shall _surely_ be punished." The case is
plain and strong. But if he continued _a day or two_, the _length of
time that he lived_, together with the _kind_ of instrument used, and
the fact that the master had a pecuniary interest in his _life_, ("he is
his _money_,") all, made out a strong case of circumstantial evidence,
showing that the master did not _design_ to kill; and required a
corresponding decision and sentence. A single remark on the word
"punished:" in Exodus xxi. 20, 21, the Hebrew word here rendered
_punished_, (_Nakum_,) is _not so rendered in another instance_. Yet it
occurs thirty-five times in the Old Testament--in almost every instance,
it is translated _avenge_--in a few, "_to take vengeance_," or "_to
revenge_," and in this instance ALONE, "_punish_." As it stands in our
translation, the pronoun preceding it, refers to the _master_--the
_master_ in the 21st verse, is to be _punished_, and in the 22d _not_ to
be punished; whereas the preceding pronoun refers neither to the
_master_ nor to the _servant_, but to the _crime_, and the word rendered
_punished_, should have been rendered _avenged_. The meaning is this: If
a man smite his servant or his maid with a rod, and he die under his
hand, IT (the death) shall surely be avenged, or literally, _by avenging
it shall be avenged_; that is, the _death_ of the servant shall be
_avenged_ by the _death_ of the master. So in the next verse--"If he
continues a day or two," his death shall not be avenged by the _death_
of the _master_, for in that case the crime was to be adjudged
_manslaughter_, and not _murder_, as in the first instance. In the
following verse, another case of personal injury is stated, not
inten