and say, “Who will bid on this slave?” No. Rather, the experts are consulted. If no experts are available, we bring two or three trustworthy people and say to them, “Assess his value for us.”

“If his value as a sound slave is sixty, and his value with the injury is fifty, then he is entitled to one-sixth of his blood-money—unless the judicially assessed compensation concerns an injury for which a fixed amount has been prescribed, in which case it must not reach that prescribed amount.”

His statement, “If his value as a sound slave is sixty, and his value with the injury is fifty, then he is entitled to one-sixth of his blood-money,” means the following:

In another copy, instead of “if,” it reads, “If it is.”

His use of the word “slave” is an implied circumstantial qualification, meaning: as though he were owned. It is like their saying, “Sell it by the mudd.”

For example, a man suffers an injury for which no amount has been fixed in the Sacred Law; judicially assessed compensation is therefore due. We say: “Assess this man’s value as a sound slave, then assess his value as a slave who has suffered an injury and whose injury has healed.” The difference between the two values represents the proportion of his blood-money, and he is given the corresponding proportion of the blood-money. Thus, if we assess this man’s value as a sound slave at sixty thousand, then assess him, after he has suffered an injury which has healed, at fifty thousand, the difference is ten out of sixty—that is, one-sixth—so he is given one-sixth of the blood-money. If, however, his value as a sound slave is assessed at one hundred and his value with the injury at fifty, then he is entitled to half the blood-money, and so on.

His statement, “unless the judicially assessed compensation concerns an injury for which a fixed amount has been prescribed, in which case it must not reach that prescribed amount”: an example is the simḥāq—an injury exposing the thin membrane over the bone—for which no fixed amount is prescribed; judicially assessed compensation is therefore due. If we assess it and find that it amounts to ten camels,