Chapter 3 – Since Ancient Israel Believed That the Unborn are Truly Human from Conception, We Should Too: What Does the Bible Really Teach About Abortion?
Jesus and John being truly human from the moment conception teaches us that all embryos are as well, but these truths come primarily from the New Testament. What about the Old Testament? Are Jesus and John the exception to the rule, or do they further the rule? God gives us the answer through Moses in the laws He gave to Ancient Israel.
Ancient Israel’s History
After God freed Israel from slavery in Egypt, He brought them to Mount Sinai and gave them His covenant law, including the Ten Commandments.
Having been in bondage, most of the people probably could not read or write. They were uneducated while living under Egypt, which worshipped many gods. God’s Ten Commandments are detailed in Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5:
1. “You shall have no other gods before Me.”
2. “You shall not make for yourself a carved image or worship them.”
3. “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.”
4. “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.”
5. “Honor your father and your mother.”
6. “You shall not murder.”
7. “You shall not commit adultery.”
8. “You shall not steal.”
9. “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.”
10. “You shall not covet anything that is your neighbor’s” (Exodus 20:1-17; Deuteronomy 5:6-21).
God’s commands are simple and explicit. Israel was His people, and they were to follow and obey Him.
An Eye for an Eye
In the next chapter, God gives more details for applying these commands in every-day life. He even tells them how to care for the most vulnerable among them. One of the most explicit passages is Exodus 21:22-25:
22 “When men strive together and hit a pregnant woman, so that her children come out, but there is no harm, the one who hit her shall surely be fined, as the woman’s husband shall impose on him, and he shall pay as the judges determine. 23 But if there is harm, then you shall pay life for life, 24 eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 25 burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.
Jesus and John being truly human from the moment conception teaches us that all embryos are as well, but these truths come primarily from the New Testament. What about the Old Testament? Are Jesus and John the exception to the rule, or do they further the rule? God gives us the answer through Moses in the laws He gave to Ancient Israel.
Ancient Israel’s History
After God freed Israel from slavery in Egypt, He brought them to Mount Sinai and gave them His covenant law, including the Ten Commandments.
Having been in bondage, most of the people probably could not read or write. They were uneducated while living under Egypt, which worshipped many gods. God’s Ten Commandments are detailed in Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5:
1. “You shall have no other gods before Me.”
2. “You shall not make for yourself a carved image or worship them.”
3. “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.”
4. “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.”
5. “Honor your father and your mother.”
6. “You shall not murder.”
7. “You shall not commit adultery.”
8. “You shall not steal.”
9. “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.”
10. “You shall not covet anything that is your neighbor’s” (Exodus 20:1-17; Deuteronomy 5:6-21).
God’s commands are simple and explicit. Israel was His people, and they were to follow and obey Him.
An Eye for an Eye
In the next chapter, God gives more details for applying these commands in every-day life. He even tells them how to care for the most vulnerable among them. One of the most explicit passages is Exodus 21:22-25:
22 “When men strive together and hit a pregnant woman, so that her children come out, but there is no harm, the one who hit her shall surely be fined, as the woman’s husband shall impose on him, and he shall pay as the judges determine. 23 But if there is harm, then you shall pay life for life, 24 eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 25 burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.
God says that when men fight and, in the commotion, accidentally hit a pregnant woman and she goes into labor, if there is no harm to her or the child, the man who hit her will be fined by her husband and the judges will determine how he pays. But if the mother or child die, the man who caused the death(s) will be executed.
The Old Testament law detailed God’s justice, which was retributive: the punishment must fit the crime, “an eye for an eye” (Lev 24:17-23). And because of the value of man, if you killed a man, your life would be required of you (Lev 24:17). There were examples of grace as well, like cities of refuge for the guilty that accidentally killed someone (Num 35:9-34), but the law said to execute the killer.
The Unborn are Children
In Exodus 21:22, God calls the unborn “children” (yeled). And the payment for the baby being born early, healthy, is a fine, but if the baby is killed, the man that caused the baby’s death, accidentally, is to pay with his life. According to God, the unborn baby has as much value as the man or mother, for the punishment is the same: “a life for a life.”
Exodus 21:22 is the only place in the Old Testament where the Hebrew word yeled is used to refer to an unborn baby, although the word is used eighty-nine times. The rest of the time, when referring to humans, the word is used for newborns, teenagers, and even middle-aged men:
Newborns
The midwives let the male children (yeled) live (Ex 1:17-28).
The Lord afflicted the child (yeled) that Uriah’s wife bore to David (2 Sam 12:15).
Solomon ordered the living child (yeled) divided in two (1 Kings 3:25).
Teenagers
In a poem, Lamech boasted about killing a young man (yeled) for wounding him (Gen 4:23).
Reuben referred to Joseph when he was missing from the pit as “the boy” (yeled) (Gen 37:29-30).
Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah were referred to as four youths (yeled) (Dan 1:17).
Middle-Aged Men
[Rehoboam was 41 years of age when he began to reign (1 Kings 14:21), thus these men must have been near the same age.]
Rehoboam consulted the young men (yeled) who had grown up with him (1 Kings 12:8).
Each of these examples have one thing in common: they are all clearly persons. If an embryo is not a person, yeled would not be used to refer to it in the womb. Out of all the times yeled is used in the Old Testament to refer to humans, it is never used to refer to non-persons. And when you couple this truth with the punishment for the man who accidentally caused the unborn baby to die, that he was to be executed, it negates the possibility of a different interpretation. Therefore, according to Ancient Israel, the unborn are persons, regardless how old in the womb.
Some may object that the baby is referred to as a child because the baby has come out, but the text says “children come out,” referring to the baby as a child (yeled) while still in the womb before it comes out. And if the baby was not valued as a child, the punishment would be a fine, not death, like it was if the baby came out unharmed.
How Ancient Israel Relates to Abortion
These truths should convict us because Ancient Israel, although they lived thousands of years ago without ultrasounds or being able to hear an unborn baby’s heartbeat, valued unborn babies more than developed nations do today.
If the unintentional killing of an unborn child required “life for life,” then the intentional killing of an unborn child is even more clearly contrary to God’s justice. Abortion intentionally ends the life of a human being. The biblical witness, from the use of yeled in Exodus 21 to the consistent value of embryos throughout the rest of Scripture, shows that babies from the moment of conception are not “clumps of cells” or mere tissue. They are children, persons made in God’s image.
If someone claims an embryo is not yet a human person, they must disagree with the language and legal standard God Himself gave through Moses. The same God who said “You shall not murder” also declared that the unborn in the womb is yeled, a child, whose life is protected by the same standard as any other human life. Therefore, if Ancient Israel treated the unborn as truly human persons, then we must as well.
Do you believe, as God said, that embryos in Exodus 21 were really persons from the moment of conception? Then you must believe the same about every embryo today.