text: The accident could have taken place at any time during the woman's pregnancy, even as late as the eighth or ninth month. In such a case, it is not at all clear whether the net effect of the whole affair would have been to precipitate a live premature birth, with no harm coming to the baby. In such a case, the offender would simply be paying for the inconvenience caused to the woman and her husband for having altered the natural timetable. The verse does not specify the condition in which "her child goes forth." We therefore cannot necessarily assume that the offending party would even be causing the death of the fetus.
  If indeed he did cause the death of the fetus, it would have been accidental, and fall into the legal category of manslaughter. Why then does not the verse say anything about the offender fleeing to the city of refuge (Num. 35:11-15), as was normally the case in manslaughter? The answer is that the flight to the city of refuge was not a punishment for manslaughter, but a humane provision in the Mosaic system to protect the offender from being executed by vengeful relatives and was the custom in the region at the time (and still is to this day among some peoples). We cannot absolutely claim that such an offender might not have availed himself of the city of refuge in such cases as described in Exodus 21:22. Furthermore, the offended husband and wife are recompensed, much the same way as when a person who causes accidental death is sued for a rather large sum of money by the victim's relatives.