the instrument, instead of being evidence in his favor, is point blank against him; for, to strike him with a rod until he dies, argues a great many blows laid on with great violence, and this kept up to the death-gasp, establishes the point of intent to kill.  Hence the sentence, “He shall surely be punished.”  The case is plain and strong.  But if he continued a day or two, the length of time that he lived, together with the kind of instrument used, and the fact that the master had a pecuniary interest in his life, ("he is his money,”) all, made out a strong case of circumstantial evidence, showing that the master did not design to kill; and required a corresponding decision and sentence.  A single remark on the word “punished:”  in Exodus xxi. 20, 21, the Hebrew word here rendered punished, (Nakum,) is not so rendered in another instance.  Yet it occurs thirty-five times in the Old Testament—­in almost every instance, it is translated avenge—­in a few, “to take vengeance,” or “to revenge,” and in this instance ALONE, “punish.”  As it stands in our translation, the pronoun preceding it, refers to the master—­the master in the 21st verse, is to be punished, and in the 22d not to be punished; whereas the preceding pronoun refers neither to the master nor to the servant, but to the crime, and the word rendered punished, should have been rendered avenged.  The meaning is this:  If a man smite his servant or his maid with a rod, and he die under his hand, IT (the death) shall surely be avenged, or literally, by avenging it shall be avenged; that is, the death of the servant shall be avenged by the death of the master.  So in the next verse—­“If he continues a day or two,” his death shall not be avenged by the death of the master, for in that case the crime was to be adjudged manslaughter, and not murder, as in the first instance.  In the following verse, another case of personal injury is stated, not intentional, nor extending to life or limb, a mere accidental hurt, for which the injurer is to pay a sum of money; and yet our translators employ the same phraseology in both places.  One, an instance of deliberate, wanton, killing by piecemeal.  The other and accidental, and comparatively slight injury—­of the inflicter, in both cases, they say the same thing! “He shall surely be punished.”  Now, just the difference which common sense would expect to find in such cases, where GOD legislates, is strongly marked in the original.  In the case of the servant wilfully murdered, God says, “It (the death) shall surely be avenged,” (Nakum,) that is, the life of the wrong doer shall expiate the crime.  The same word is used in the Old Testament, when the greatest wrongs are redressed, by devoting the perpetrators,