שמות, פרק כ״א, פסוק ט״ז

Kidnapping and stripping a person of their freedom is treated as a crime of the highest magnitude, essentially equating to social murder. In fact, the famous commandment "You shall not steal" from the Ten Commandments is understood by the Sages to refer primarily to the capital offense of kidnapping, distinguishing it entirely from standard monetary theft [מלבי״ם, ביאור שטיינזלץ].

The placement of this law between the prohibitions of striking a parent and cursing a parent draws significant attention. The primary approach among commentators [רב סעדיה גאון, רא״ש, דעת זקנים ואחרים] suggests a tragic cause-and-effect relationship. Kidnapped victims are often young children who, raised in a foreign land, forget their true identity. If they ever encounter their biological parents later in life, they might unknowingly strike or curse them. Because the kidnapper is the direct cause of the child eventually committing these severe sins, the crime is positioned alongside them and punished with equal severity. Other perspectives focus on legal parallels. Some note that both kidnapping and striking a parent share the exact same method of execution—strangulation—whereas cursing a parent is punished by stoning [רמב״ן, דעת זקנים]. Alternatively, the sequence reflects a descending scale of physical violence [הדר זקנים, תורה תמימה]. The laws begin with outright murder, move to striking parents (which causes a bruise but not death), proceed to kidnapping (which involves selling a person without necessarily striking them), and conclude with cursing parents (a purely verbal offense). Despite the decreasing level of physical harm, every one of these acts carries the death penalty.

The laws of kidnapping apply universally. The prohibition and its severe consequences apply equally to men and women, whether they are the perpetrators or the victims, and include individuals of ambiguous gender [רש״י, מזרחי]. There are, however, specific exclusions. A minor who commits a kidnapping is not subject to punishment. Furthermore, the victim must be a viable human being, which excludes the theft of a non-viable fetus [גור אריה]. Additionally, capital punishment only applies if a complete person is sold; selling someone who is only half-free and half-slave does not meet the criteria for this specific penalty [תורה תמימה, מלבי״ם].

For the death penalty to be administered, strict legal conditions regarding evidence and possession must be met. Establishing the crime is not a matter of chance discovery, but rather demands concrete legal proof. There must be witnesses who clearly observed both the act of the kidnapping and the subsequent sale [רש״י, מלבי״ם, שד״ל, חזקוני]. This condition also excludes a scenario where the victim is already naturally in the seller's possession, meaning a father who kidnaps and sells his own son is exempt from this specific death penalty [תורה תמימה, רבנו בחיי].

Furthermore, the kidnapper must establish formal possession of the victim. The primary approach among commentators [רמב״ן, העמק דבר, טור, רש״ר הירש] is that the perpetrator must bring the victim into their own physical or legal domain. Similar to the laws of property theft, the perpetrator is only liable if they pull or force the victim into their own property, acting as an owner before executing the sale. If the victim is sold while still standing in their original domain, the kidnapper is exempt from capital punishment. Conversely, another perspective suggests that the requirement of possession simply means the kidnapper is caught red-handed in the very act of selling a free person to others [שד״ל].

Ultimately, the punishment for kidnapping and selling a human being is death by strangulation. This follows a broader interpretive rule that whenever the Torah mandates the death penalty without specifying the method of execution, it always refers to strangulation [רש״י, רמב״ן].