In contrast to verse 31, this verse gives an exception. If the ox gores a slave does not say that the slave dies, but this is clearly implied. So Good News Translation has “If the bull kills.” As in verse 20, slave, male or female is literally “male-slave or female-slave”; but in some languages one may simply say “a slave.” The owner shall give is literally “he shall give,” but the context makes clear that the “he” refers to the owner of the “bull,” and that give really means “pay” (Good News Translation). To their master means, as Good News Translation expresses it, “to the owner of the slave,” or the “slaveowner” (New Revised Standard Version).

Thirty shekels of silver specifies the definite amount of money for the fine. The shekel was a weight measure that averaged about 11.4 grams, or 0.4 ounces. The total amount, thirty shekels, would be about 12 ounces, or 342 grams. This should not be given the same value as silver today, however. In ancient Israel one shekel could purchase ten pounds (three kilograms) of the best wheat or twenty pounds (six kilograms) of barley. (See 2Kgs 7.16 in Good News Translation.) Shekels of silver is specified, since shekels were sometimes measured in gold, bronze, and even iron. Since silver was much more common than gold, the word later came to be used for “money” (see verses 11 and 21). Both Good News Translation and Contemporary English Version translate this as “thirty pieces of silver.”

And the ox shall be stoned means, of course, that “the bull shall be stoned to death” (Good News Translation). (See the comment on stoning at verse 28.)

Quoted with permission from Osborn, Noel D. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Exodus. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1999. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .