What Does Exodus 21:7 Mean?

"Whoever strikes his father or his mother shall be put to death. Whoever steals a man and sells him, and anyone found in possession of him, shall be put to death. Whoever curses his father or his mother shall be put to death." Three capital offenses follow the homicide laws: striking a parent, kidnapping, and cursing a parent.

Each offense carries the death penalty because each strikes at a foundational covenant relationship: parent-honor (fifth commandment), human freedom (eighth commandment applied to persons), and again parent-honor. The severity of the penalties reveals the covenant's valuation of the protected relationships: parental authority and human freedom are so foundational that their violation is treated with the same severity as murder.

The kidnapping capital offense extends the eighth commandment's "do not steal" to persons: stealing a human being (genoiv ish) and selling them is death-penalty theft of a person. The anti-slavery thrust of the Covenant Code that limited the Hebrew slave's service to six years now extends to a capital penalty for the slave-trade's founding act: kidnapping a person for sale.

The slave-trade that Amos will later condemn (Amos 1:6-9, selling people "into exile") is already established as a capital offense at Sinai. Genesis 37's brothers selling Joseph into Egypt is the proto-instance of this offense: Joseph's brothers committed a capital-penalty crime when they sold him to the Ishmaelite traders.

Cursing a parent as a capital offense (meqallel, to make light of/curse) is the fifth commandment's negative expression: as the fifth commandment commands honoring (giving weight to) parents, the death penalty for cursing them is the covenantal maximum-weight protection of parental dignity.

Jesus cites this law in Mark 7:10-13 against the Pharisees' corban practice: "Moses said, 'Honor your father and your mother,' and 'Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.' But you say...": the capital-penalty severity of the curse-parent law is used by Jesus to establish how seriously YHWH takes parental honor, making the corban evasion all the more egregious.