Does Numbers 35:31 imply that all crimes except murder can be ransomed?

⮜ Answered Questions

No. In fact, it upholds Biblical teaching on the mandatory death penalties.

Introduction

Let's look at the verse in question:

31 “‘Moreover you shall take no ransom for the life of a murderer who is guilty of death. He shall surely be put to death. Numbers 35:31WEB

The idea behind the question is:

1. This law explicitly prohibits the taking of "ransom" for the crime of murder.
2. Therefore, if we turn the logic around, it must implicitly allow the taking of ransom for all other crimes (rape, kidnapping, bearing false witness, false prophecy, adultery, idolatry, homosexual acts, bestiality, disobeying the lawful order of a judge, etc.).

We can call this inference: "Ransom Allowed For All Crimes Except Murder", which I will shorten to RAFACEM. This is a widespread view among Christians. For example, Tremper Longman III writes:

Numbers 35:31-32 suggests that in most instances the death penalty was a maximum penalty. To insist that death is the one and only penalty for murder implies that the judge and perhaps the victim could allow for a lesser penalty for other crimes.

Steve Schlissel says: "There could have been negotiated settlements for various offenses. The one area where God said you must execute is murder. The murderer shall surely be put to death." Ligonier Ministries uses Num. 35:31 to support their statement: "... premeditated murder was the only crime for which capital punishment was always required...".

An attractive interpretation for modern Christians

The idea behind the RAFACEM inference is that a crime usually involves some form of "damage" to a (human) victim. If the victim is still alive, they can assess the damage and convert it to some monetary value which they will accept instead of the punishment. In fact, this does correspond with the idea behind the talion penalties in scripture: "an eye for an eye" sets a maximum punishment, which is the literal bodily equivalent, against which a monetary ransom would usually be negotiated. The Jewish historian Josephus explains:

He that maims anyone, let him undergo the like himself, and be deprived of the same member of which he has deprived the other, unless he that is maimed will accept money instead of it; for the law makes the sufferer the judge of the value of what he has suffered, and permits him to estimate it, unless he will be more severe.

Under Biblical talion, the law allows the victim to accept monetary damages (e.g. Exod. 21:30) instead of supervising the loss of the perpetrator's eye. Although the talion is given as guideline for specific bodily injuries, why not allow this method of ransom for all crimes (except murder)?

RAFACEM is an attractive interpretation for those people who are otherwise committed to God's law, but do not like the "harshness" of all the mandatory death penalties ("he shall surely be put to death"). We all interact with Christians who have been trained by modern culture to react with shock and horror at the idea that God would still require the death penalty for certain offenses. If only these death penalties could be converted to a simple cash payment, we could avoid the harshness of condemning those criminals to death, right? We could tell all the sensitive modern Christians, "But only murder actually requires the death penalty: all the other death penalty offenses can be converted into a cash payment. Numbers 35:31 proves it."

And to all of those people who have been victimized by a (death penalty) crime like rape, we can say: "Oh, but of course this monetary ransom is completely up to the victim. If the victim insists upon the death penalty, then the convicted perpetrator will be put to death." We thus reassure the (human) victim that their will is sovereign (except in the case of murder, in which the human victim obviously cannot express their will).

RAFACEM contradicts God's expressed motives for the death penalty

In fact, the RAFACEM inference is wrong, and it turns out that this motivation to avoid "harshness" ends up creating much more evil in its wake (as you might expect, when we violate God's rules of justice). How is this? The Bible affirms in its motive clauses that the death penalty is a deterrent to crime in two ways:

1. Causing fear in the people who see the harsh consequences of committing a crime, so that they will never do it: Deut. 13:11, Deut. 17:13, Deut. 19:20, Deut. 21:21.
2. Literally purging the criminal from the people so that they can no longer commit crime or influence others to do so: Lev. 20:14, Deut. 13:5, Deut. 17:7, 12, Deut. 19:19, Deut. 21:21.

The conversion of the mandatory death penalties to cash payments actually subverts both of God's expressed motives for ordering the death penalties:

1. Although a monetary ransom could be considered a type of deterrent, it is not even close to the deterrent effect of a public execution. Biblical justice is carried out publicly -- often at the gates of the city (Deut. 17:5, Deut. 21:19) -- for a reason: so that everyone will see what the consequences are for disobeying God's law. Although there are monetary ransoms allowed for lesser crimes involving merely negligence (where there was no intent to kill: see, for example, Exod. 21:30), we find that these ransoms are never tied to motive clauses like the ones above. Certain crimes (the ones specified as mandatory in scripture) must be deterred publicly, in the strongest possible way.
2. Letting convicted criminals (rapists, kidnappers, adulterers, false prophets, idolaters, etc.) go free, who would otherwise have their careers ended by the death penalty, allows them to commit further evil acts. Look up the recidivism rates for the major violent crimes. Any re-offending percentage above zero crushes the RAFACEM argument by showing the evil reality which the Biblical death penalties were intended to prevent.

Of course, the people who support the RAFACEM inference might protest: "It's not just ransom, they can also be imprisoned for their crime, which will prevent them from committing more crimes." There are three major problems with this protest:

1. The verse says nothing about imprisonment, it only specifies "ransom." The proponents of the RAFACEM inference must be committed to the R ("Ransom") of their view, because that is how they are interpreting Numbers 35:31. Ransom is either the scripturally-acceptable substitute for the mandatory death penalty, or nothing else is.
2. The use of imprisonment as a punishment for crime is nowhere specified or allowed in God's law. It is a modern concept. I find no law code which specifies "prison as punishment" prior to 930 A.D. (from the Anglo-Saxon king, Aethelstan).
3. People who are imprisoned are fully capable of committing further crimes (unless we don't care about what happens to prisoners or guards). Imprisonment does not prevent this further evil, it merely steals from law-abiding citizens to provide a venue for the further evils.

RAFACEM contradicts Scripture

The RAFACEM inference also contradicts multiple scriptures: Exod. 22:18, for example, says '18 “You shall not allow a sorceress to live. Exodus 22:18WEB' Greg Bahnsen used this exact point when responding to Walter Kaiser's use of Num. 35:31:

This says much more than simply that a convicted, practicing witch should be assigned some civil penalty. It specifically forbids allowing such a criminal to continue living (which she or he would do if any other penalty than capital punishment were inflicted).

Sorcery is a different crime than murder, and ransom is clearly not allowed for the sorceress. When you try to argue that Num. 35:31 represents a general rule, and then you find an exception to that so-called general rule, you must withdraw your claim about the rule being general.

Moreover, in Deuteronomy 22:26, the man who rapes a woman is worthy of death because the crime is like murder:

25 But if the man finds the lady who is pledged to be married in the field, and the man forces her and lies with her, then only the man who lay with her shall die; 26 but to the lady you shall do nothing. There is in the lady no sin worthy of death; for as when a man rises against his neighbor and kills him, even so is this matter; Deuteronomy 22:25-26WEB

If murder is a crime worthy of the mandatory death penalty, then so is rape. Thus, Num. 35:31 cannot be interpreted as allowing cash payment for all crimes except murder.

There are a set of crimes (adultery, incest, murder, kidnapping, bestiality, homosexual acts, etc.) concerning which God's law says that the criminal "shall surely be put to death" (Hebrew: מ֣וֹת יוּמָ֑ת, mot yumat). These crimes are not "commutable" to a cash payment, because of their serious and intentional character. These are not crimes that one commits accidentally or even negligently. If witnessed, they must be punished, and neither the victim nor a judge have the authority to abrogate the penalty or convert it to something lesser.

Numbers 35:31 actually shows the above fact in the verse itself:

31 “‘Moreover you shall take no ransom for the life of a murderer who is guilty of death. He shall surely be put to death. Numbers 35:31WEB

Notice how the phrase "shall surely be put to death" (mot yumat) is placed in direct grammatical opposition to the phrase "shall take no ransom for the life"? This actually shows that the Hebrew phrase mot yumat contains the prohibition on ransom in its definition. The prohibition upon ransom therefore applies to all the other death penalties in which the phrase mot yumat is used.

Christopher Wright observes:

... this contrasts with some ancient Near Eastern codes where many capital offences could be commuted to fines. There the system favoured those who were wealthy enough to afford to 'pay' for their crimes.

God's law differs from pagan law codes by establishing a set of crimes that cannot be "fixed" by money.

What about the actions of the Israelite kings?

Often, the RAFACEM inference is combined with an argument about how Israel's kings supposedly did not follow the mandatory death penalties at certain points in Israelite history. The intent of this argument is to try to show that the mandatory death penalties were only maximum penalties, and that God gave the kings the authority to convert them to some other punishment. Even if this were true (which it isn't), this argument would not actually support the RAFACEM inference in any way, because we see _no_ historical examples in which an Israelite king converted a mandatory death penalty offense into a monetary ransom (as the RAFACEM inference asserts).

I will deal with the argument from the Israelite kings in:

Don't the actions of certain Israelite kings show that death was only a maximum civil penalty?.