Loving Your Neighbor: A Broader Perspective (Exodus 21:28-36) Series

Now, if your dog isn't just mean, but actually psychotic, and possibly demonized, loving your neighbor as yourself means seriously consider putting your dog down. I know a number of people who used to have mean dogs, and who made the loving decision to get rid of them. A dog is far less useful than an ox, and there's far less reason to put up with its violence.

(3) Loving your neighbor as yourself, means taking warnings seriously. You don't brush off warnings about rotting boards, or exposed electrical wires, or bald tires, or missing safety guards on assembly lines. There are always risky things in life. We don't in a bubble. But not all risks are necessary, and we reduce them when we can. [A great example of this, is when Ford (apparently?-- don't want to get sued myself) knew that the Pinto had an engineering flaw built into it, that created an unnecessary explosion hazard from small accidents, and didn't fix it. That's unacceptable, and the kind of thing that would've gotten whoever made that decision killed under the Mosaic covenant. If they'd fixed it, immediately, when they found out, it would've been tragic, but not deserving of death].

(4) Loving your neighbor as yourself, means compensating them when you've caused them financial loss. If you break something, or lose something, you replace it. You make them whole.

So that's my encouragement to you today. Broaden your perspective, on what it looks like to love your neighbor as yourself. And, above all else, if you have a mean dog, "deal" with it.

Translation:

(28) and if an ox gores a man or a woman,

and he dies,

the ox shall surely be stoned to death,

and its meat shall not be eaten,

while the owner of the ox [is] innocent,

(29) while if a goring ox, it is, from three days before,

and it was warned to its owner,

and he wasn't watching/guarding it,

and it kills a man or a woman,

the ox shall be stoned,

and, what's more, its owner shall be put to death.

(30) If a ransom/redemption price is set upon him, he shall give redemption money for his life -- in accordance with all that was set upon him,

(31) or [if] a son he gores, or a daughter he gores, in accordance with this law (mishpat) it shall be done to him.

(32) If a male servant the ox gores, or a female servant, thirty shekels of silver he shall give to his master,

while the ox shall be stoned,

(33) and if a man opens a pit, or when a man digs a pit, and he doesn't cover it, and an ox or donkey falls into there, the owner of the pit shall make whole.

(34) Money/silver he shall return to its owner,

while the dead animal shall belong to him,

(35) and if it strikes/injures (different word) the ox of a man-- the ox of his neighbor-- and it dies, they shall sell the living ox,

and they shall divide its silver/money,

and, what's more, the dead animal they shall divide,

(36) or [if] he knows that an ox, a goring [animal] it is in the past, and he didn't guard/keep it, its owner shall surely make whole an ox in place of the ox,

while the dead [animal] shall belong to him.