Ransoms in the Hebrew Bible

The present note contains a number of observations about the OT’s conception
of a ransom. The OT does not, as far as I am aware, contain any exact and com-
prehensive foreshadows of how Christ died as our ransom. But its discussion of
ransoms (particularly in its legal corpus) elucidates a number of important prin-
ciples of divine justice, which can be pieced together to form a helpful backdrop
against which to view Christ’s death.

Sin has consequences

Throughout the Torah’s narrative, a simple and vital principle is brought out:
sin, unless dealt with in some way, has disastrous consequences. Sometimes those
consequences are immediate (e.g., the fall), and sometimes they come in God’s
good time (e.g., the sin of the Amorites).1 But, ultimately, from the fall to the
flood to the crimes of Sodom to those of Nadab and Abihu, sin left unchecked ends
in disaster.2 That fact is brought out just as clearly in the book of Leviticus.
In Leviticus, even unintentional and ceremonial sin has consequences. Unless
atoned for, the end result of unintentional or ceremonial sin is disaster.3 That
same fact is hinted at by the semantic fields of certain key Hebrew terms. The
noun ,āwōn, for instance, denotes ‘iniquity’ (and is normally translated as such),
but it can also refer to the penalty or consequences of sin.4 Similar conflation
occurs in the vb. «PŚM», which can mean either ‘to do wrong (and/or) become
guilty’5 or ‘to bear the consequences of one’s guilt’.6 The concepts of sin and
sin’s consequences are so closely connected as to warrant expression via the same
word. Or, to put the point negatively, the concept of sin without consequences is
foreign to the Hebrew language and (one would assume) to the Hebrew mindset
as well.

A similar point can be brought out from the phrase ‘to bear one’s sin’ («NŚP» +
,āwōn). Given the various nuances of the verb «NŚP» (included among which are
1
Gen. 3.16-24, 15.16.
2
Gen. 3.14-24, 4.10-12, 18.20-21 (cf. Jon. 1.2, Rev. 18.5), Lev. 10.1-2. The tower of Babel attracts
heaven’s attention in a slightly different manner.
3
Where atonement is not an option, a man must ‘bear his guilt’ (Lev. 5.1), which is not a good
thing.
4
Gen. 4.13, 19.15, 1 Sam. 28.10, Isa. 5.18, etc.
5
Num. 5.7, Judg. 21.22, 2 Chr. 19.10, etc.
6
Prov. 30.10, Isa. 24.6, Jer. 2.3, etc., though, in the Torah, «PŚM» seems more likely to mean ‘to
realise one’s guilt’ (cf. my “Short Note on the Levitical Sacrificial System”).

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both ‘to carry’ or ‘to carry away’), the phrase ‘to bear one’s sin’ can be employed
in a number of ways, dependent on who ‘bears’ the sin in question and who has
committed it. Cain, for instance, is made to ‘bear his sin’, as are those who
deliberately bear false witness in a legal context,7 where ‘to bear sin’ is clearly to
suffer sin’s consequences. Meanwhile, the ‘scapegoat’ is made to ‘bear sin’, which
has a very different sense, namely to bear away someone else’s sin (Israel’s) and
hence to spare them from its consequences.8 The same sense of ‘to bear sin’ is
present in certain instructions to the priests, where their activities shield Israel
from the consequences of sin and impurity.9 On a related note, God can be said
to ‘bear men’s sin’, in which case ‘to bear sin’ always means ‘to forgive it’.10
(God, of course, has no sin of his own to bear.)

These senses of the phrase «NŚP» + ,āwōn reinforce the conclusion of our previous
discussion about the consequences of sin. When sin has been committed, someone
has to ‘bear’ it, be it the sinner, a third party, or God. It cannot simply be swept
under the carpet or be treated as if it never happened.

Sin’s consequences are not inevitable

But, while sin has consequences, sin’s consequences are not inevitable. Sin can
be ‘put right’ or ‘atoned for’ in various way. The precise sense of the verb ‘atone’
(Heb. «KPR») is an involved subject. Suffice it to say for our present purposes,
atonement is remedial; it nullifies or at least mitigates the consequences of sin
in some way.11 If a sin is atoneable in theory and atoned for in practice, it
carries either no penalty or a diminished penalty;12 if not, men must bear the
consequences of their sin.13

One way in which sin can be ‘atoned for’ is via the payment of a ‘ransom’ (Heb.
kōper ).14 Each OT reference to a ‘ransom’ brings out different aspects of its
7
Gen. 4.13, Lev. 5.1. The law in fact causes false witnesses to ‘bear their sin’ in a particularly
literal manner, since the charges they have sought to lay upon another man are laid upon them (Deut.
19.15-19). For further examples, see Lev. 19.8, Num. 14.34, etc.
8
Lev. 16.22.
9
Exod. 28.38, Lev. 10.17.
10
Exod. 34.7, Psa. 32.5, 85.2, Isa. 33.24, etc.
11
Exod. 30.11-16, 32.30-34, Num. 8.19, 14.13-19, etc.
12
hence the verb ‘atone’ is often accompanied with a verb like ‘forgive’ (Heb. «SLH
. », alt. ‘release’:
Lev. 4.20, 5.10, etc. cf. Num. 30.5, etc.). For an example of an unatonable sin, see Num. 35.30-31.
13
Lev. 5.1, 17.4, 17.15-16, 19.8, Num. 19.13, 19.20, etc.
14
In addition to what follows, consider how, in Num. 35.30-34, what would, theoretically, be accom-
plished by the payment of a sufficient ransom payment is paralleled with what is accomplished by
means of atonement.

2
function and purpose. The first mention of a ransom occurs in Exod. 21.28-32.15
The context of its mention is important. YHWH repeatedly declares in the Torah
how he has ‘redeemed’ his people from Egypt, but what he has redeemed them
from is the bondage (alt. ‘slavery’, Heb. «QBD») of Egypt.16 The issue of divine
justice is another matter, and, as YHWH’s slaves (Heb. «QBD»), they are very
much subject to it—hence YHWH’s revelation of the Law at Sinai.

Exod. 21.22-27 outlines the well-known principle of ‘proportionality’ in the

Torah—an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, etc. (rather than ‘an eye for a
tooth’, ‘a tooth for a wound’, etc.). But, while Exod. 21.22-27 prescribes require-
ments of justice, it does not make it mandatory to enforce these requirements.
Mercy is able to triumph over justice. If an ox known to gore kills someone, then
justice demands the death of the ox and its owner (‘life for life’) unless a ‘ran-
som’ is paid, in which case no further action need be taken. The payment of the
ransom nullifies the need for the guilty party’s life to be taken. The important
point to note here is as follows: the payment of a ransom is not an option which
the sinner is free to exercise (or not exercise) as he chooses. Rather, the ransom
is (potentially) payable if and only if it is demanded from the sinner (lit. ‘put on
him’ by a third party.). In other words, whether or not atonement is possible is
up to the offended party to decide. If the offended party—e.g., the ‘owner’ of
the person killed by the ox—is happy to accept a payment as compensation for
his loss, then he is free to do so; otherwise, he is perfectly within his rights to
demand the death of the ox’s owner—life for life.

The next mention of a ransom occurs in Exod. 30.11-16, which is important since
it describes an incident where YHWH is the offended party. To take a census
of Israel is a potentially dangerous activity.17 (Why is not stated, but, if any
sin occurs, it would have to be an offence against God rather than against one’s
fellow man, as it was in David’s case: 1 Chr. 21.1-8.) It engenders the risk of a
plague. But the plague can be avoided if a ransom is made to the tabernacle.
To some extent, then, the concept of ‘ransom payments’ is not merely a human
convention; it applies to the divine sphere of justice as well. God himself can
accept a ransom. That thought is stated more explicitly in Psa. 49. Psa. 49.5-9
describes men who think they have no need to fear God’s justice because of their
great wealth and riches—in other words, men who think they can live however
15
The form kōper occurs in Gen. 6.14, but as a cognate accusative of the G-stem of «KPR», which
has a very different sense (‘to cover’) from the D-stem.
16
Exod. 6.6, 13.15, Deut. 7.8, 13.5, etc.
17
2 Sam. 24.15-17.

3
they want and then ‘buy their way out of trouble’ by the payment of ransoms.18
The injustice of such a state of affairs is a grief to the Psalmist. But the Psalmist
comforts himself with an important thought: once the time for a wicked man’s
death has come, neither him nor his friends are able to pay God a ransom in order
to ‘buy him back’ from the dead since the cost of a man’s life is too great. The
cost required to ransom a man’s life from another man19 is potentially infinite,
but the cost demanded by God is actually infinite. (“The redemption of their
soul is a costly [process]; they will never complete it”:20 Psa. 49.8.) It is beyond
man’s ability to pay. God, however, has promised to ‘redeem’ (a verb closely
connected to ‘atone’, though not entirely synonymous with it) the righteous from
the power of death (Psa. 49.15). As above, then, ransoms are potentially payable
in the divine realm.

Isaiah adds a further detail to the concept of ransom payments in the divine
realm. In Isa. 43, God announces, “I am YHWH, your God, the Holy One of
Israel, your Saviour; I have given up Egypt as a ransom for you, Cush and Seba
in place of you; [and] since you are precious in my sight,...I will give [other] men
in your place and [other] peoples in exchange for your life” (Isa. 43.3-4). Here,
Cush denotes the land of Ethiopia, and Seba is closely connected to it (Gen.
10.7-8, Isa. 45.14), and both are lands of great wealth (Job 28.19, Psa. 72.10, Isa.
45.14). The sense of the text, then, is as follows. Since Israel is precious in God’s
sight, God has renounced his claim on other peoples (such as Egypt) in order to
establish a unique relationship with Israel. As such, Egypt has functioned as a
ransom payment. God has given up his claims on Egypt in order to lay claim on
Israel all the more strongly. He has forsaken the riches of Egypt (as well as the
rest of the nations) in favour of the preciousness (in his eyes) of Israel. But to
whom, one might ask, has God paid the nations over as a ransom? The answer
is: to no-one. God has simply abandoned his own claim on the nations, just
as a guilty party might abandon his claim to a ransom price. In one sense, of
course, for God to abandon the nations just is for him to give them over to the
demonic realms (since it is to abandon them to other spiritual forces21 ), though
not because the demonic realms have any rightful claim to them. At least two
important points follow. First, the party who pays the ransom need not be the
18
Israel’s law-courts were notorious for their ‘partiality’; much to the chagrin of the prophets, they
dispensed a very different type of justice to widows compared to nobles (Psa. 94.1-7, Jer. 7.5-7, Ezek.
22.7, Mal. 3.5).
19
When a man takes the life of another man, the murderer’s life effectively becomes the possession
of the relatives of the murdered party, to do with as they choose (Exod. 21.28-32 cf. Num. 35.30-34).
20
more lit. ‘it will remain undone forever’
21
Deut. 32.8-14 (cf. Gen. 11.1-9), Eph. 2.11-12, 4.17-19.

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guilty party. Second, to surrender one’s claim to X in order to reinforce one’s
claim to Y is, in essence, to designate X as a ransom payment. The existence of
an explicit third party is not required. The whole transaction can be worked out
relative to a single party, or at least relative to a single divine party.

Proverbs 6 is also worthy of consideration here. In Prov. 6.32-35, a father warns

his son against adultery because it gives it provokes emotions in her husband
which are so strong as to make the offer and acceptance of a ransom impossible.
It gives him a desire for retribution and vengeance which is too great to be
appeased by mere money. An important detail emerges from the text of Prov.
6.32-35, namely, the mere payment of money cannot always satisfy an offended
party. Ransom payments can, in theory, pacify a man’s anger and satisfy his
desire for vengeance, but, in practice, they are not always sufficient to do so. A
similar point emerges from a consideration of Num. 35.30-34. When a deliberate
murder has been committed, no ransom payment is acceptable, even if the ‘injured
party’ would be happy to accept it. Ransom payments therefore have their limits.
Only the death of the murderer is able to atone for what he has done and hence
to cleanse the land of bloodguilt. Furthermore, only the death of a high-priest
is able to atone for the sin of a man-slaughterer.22 Or, to put the point more
moderately, the death of a high-priest makes permissible what was previously
impermissible.

Summary thoughts
As is well known, the NT describes Jesus’ death in sacrificial terms. Jesus did
not only die a martyr’s death; he also laid down “his life” as “a ransom for many”
(Mark 10.45) and “died for our sins according to the Scriptures” (1 Cor. 15.3).
The OT texts discussed above provide a helpful backdrop against which Christ’s
sacrifice can be contextualised. In particular, they outline a number of principles
of ‘ransom payment’, the first and most fundamental of which is as follows. Sin
has consequences; that is to say, the transgression of God’s law comes at a price.
If, however, an offended party is happy to accept a ‘ransom payment’, then the
normal consequences of the law can be averted. The specified price can be paid,
and the guilty party can go free. These facts are, of course, very relevant to
Christ’s death. In light of the fall, man has a death sentence on him. All of us
are destined to die (Gen. 2.17 cf. Ezek. 18.20-23); we are made from the dust,
22
The verb ‘atone’ is not explicitly employed, but the effect of the high-priest’s death suggests atone-
ment has been made.

5
and to the dust we are due to return (Gen. 3.19). But God has laid out for us
an alternative possibility. As far as man’s fall is concerned, God is the offended
party, and, at his initiative, he has made it possible for a ransom to be accepted
in place of our death. Like the offended party in the Torah, God is free to request
any ransom price he chooses, and the price he has chosen is the death of his Son.
As such, God has accomplished (at least) two important objectives. First, he has
highlighted the immense gravity of sin (Rom. 3.21-26). A trivial ransom payment
would portray sin as a minor offence. Second, he has restricted the payment of
a ransom to his own divine realm (cf. Isa. 43.3-4), which is necessary since we
would never be able to pay a sufficient price to atone for our sin (Psa. 45.5-9).
The question, of course, is often asked: How can Christ’s death and resurrection,
which took place over a finite period of time, be the ‘ransom price’ demanded in
place of an eternal period of torment? One answer can be gleaned from a simple
consideration of the nature of a ransom payment as it is set out in the Torah.
In Exod. 21.28-30, what is required as the ransom payment is not identical to
what would otherwise have demanded had justice run its normal course, namely
the death of the guilty party. That a ransom price must be identical to the
otherwise-payable requirements of justice may sound a reasonable enough idea,
but it is not consistent with the principles set out in God’s own law.

The second important principle which emerges from the texts considered above
has to do with the ‘mechanics’ inherent in the payment of a ransom. The business
of atonement theology is to ask (and to answer) difficult questions. One of the
more commonly-asked questions is as follows: if Jesus’ life has been ‘paid out’ as
a ransom (on our behalf), then to whom exactly has it been paid? On the basis
of Isa. 43.3-4, I am not convinced of the validity of the aforementioned question.
As far as Isaiah is concerned, a ransom—or at least, a ransom paid by God—does
not need to be payed to any third party in particular. That God has relinquished
his claim on a given possession is a sufficient condition for a ransom payment to
have been made. Hence, just as God, when he chose Israel, ‘gave the nations
over’ to whichever powers and principalities would come to acquire them, so God
‘gave his Son over’ to the world’s powers and principalities to be crucified (1 Cor.
2.8) and made his life a ransom for us.

A further point can be inferred from our consideration of ransoms, though only
tentatively. If the Torah’s legal texts bring out one thing very clearly, then it is
the centrality of payments to God’s treatment of sin. Sin cannot be dealt with
by a mere wave of the hand. A price of some kind must be paid. Someone
must bear («NŚP») the consequences of man’s sin, whether through a ransom or

6
through a sacrifice.23 Yet many sins—most notably, intentional ones—are not
covered by ransom payments, nor are they covered by Israel’s sacrificial-system.
Indeed, consider for the moment the nature of Israel’s sacrifices. No sacrifice
at all is prescribed for deliberate lies or for murder or for adultery (apparently
because they are too grievous: Num. 35.30-34), and yet Abraham told lies, Moses
committed murder, and David committed adultery (and more besides), and each
of these men was forgiven of his sins (e.g., Psa. 32.1-2). On what basis, then,
were these men forgiven? If God required a sacrifice in order to rectify ‘minor
transgressions’, such as transgressions of the ceremonial law, then did he not also
require a sacrifice in order to rectify transgressions of the moral law? If not,
why not? Isn’t a deliberate lie a far more major sin than an unintentional one?
And isn’t a deliberate act of adultery a far more major issue than the impurity
brought about by a bodily emission? Why, then, would the central premise
on which the legal texts are predicated suddenly be abandoned when it comes to
man’s most serious issue, namely the forgiveness of man’s deliberate sin? Doesn’t
the sacrificial system lie at the very heart of the Torah? And doesn’t the Temple,
along with its daily and yearly sacrifices, lie at the very heart of Israel’s history?
Could the concept of a sacrifice really, therefore, have been non-essential to God’s
forgiveness of Israel—a nice-to-have but not a show-stopper? I cannot personally
see how, and nor can many Rabbinic authorities, hence the statement recorded
in the Talmud, “There can be no expiation without the shedding of blood”.24

The NT is able to give a plausible account of how the above questions can be
answered. To forgive intentional sin does indeed require a sacrifice, but it requires
a different kind of sacrifice to animal sacrifices—a sacrifice offered in the context
of an eternal Melchizedekian priesthood (Psa. 110.1-2). More specifically, to
forgive intentional sin requires an intentionally-offered sacrifice—a sacrifice of
greater value and dignity than animal sacrifices, a sacrifice offered in love and
obedience to God (as Isaac’s ‘sacrifice’ was), the sacrifice of a truly righteous
man. According to the authors of the NT, that sacrifice was provided in the life
and death of Jesus—an entirely righteous man whom freely laid down his life as
a ransom for Israel’s sins and whom God later raised from the dead (Isa. 53.4-
12).25 Through his life and death, Christ became the anti-type of the high-priest’s
death—the high-priest whose death allows a whole world of refugees with ‘blood
on their hands’ to return to their God and Creator—and simultaneously became
23
or through some equivalent ‘tribute’ detailed in the relevant legal corpus
24
b. Yoma 5a.
25
Consider, by way of analogy, how human life is accepted as an atonement for sin in, for instance,
Num. 25.1-13, 35.30-34, and 2 Sam. 21.1-14, and how Rabbinic literature reinforces the same principle,
saying, “The death of the righteous atones” (b. Mo’ed Qatan 28a).

7
a priest after the order of Melchizedek. He also became a ‘greater than Isaac’.
In Jewish tradition, Isaac’s ‘sacrifice’ on Mount Moriah is viewed as a genuine
sacrifice and is credited with enormous power. “[The] Palestinian Jews”, Vermes
writes, “considered Isaac’s sacrifice [to be] the sacrifice par excellence, [the] lasting
benefits [of which] would be felt for all time”; hence, God is imagined (in Rabbinic
literature) to have said, “When I see the blood, I will pass over you [Exod. 12.13],
[for] I see the blood of the Binding of Isaac”.26 Furthermore, Isaac was seen as
“the prototype of risen man, and his sacrifice followed by resurrection was, in
some way, [seen as] the cause of the final resurrection of mankind. In short, the
Binding of Isaac [is] thought to have played a unique role in the whole economy
of the salvation of Israel, and to have a permanent redemptive effect on behalf
of its people”.27 Of course, Jewish tradition is not necessarily correct in its view
of Isaac, but one thing is very clear: the concept of a human sacrifice is not a
Christian invention. On the contrary, it is deeply rooted in the Hebrew Bible
as well as in Jewish tradition, and forms a highly instructive backdrop against
which to view the life, death, and resurrection of Christ.

26
Vermes 1961 [1973]:206-207.
27
Ibid. 207-208.