The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan renders a heartbreaking case from the civil code. "If men when striving strike a woman with child, and cause her to miscarry, but not to lose her life, the fine on account of the infant which the husband of the woman shall lay upon him, he shall pay according to the sentence of the judges" (Exodus 21:22).
Two men are fighting. A pregnant woman is caught between them. She survives — but she loses the child she was carrying. What does the Torah say?
The Targum is careful. First, the woman must not lose her life. The survival of the mother is the condition that activates this law. If the mother also dies, a different, graver set of laws applies. The Torah's first concern is always the living woman in front of us.
Second, there is a fine — on account of the infant. The Targum names it directly. The lost child is not nothing. The unborn life had value, and that value is measured in a monetary payment.
Third, the husband sets the initial claim — the husband of the woman shall lay upon him — but the amount is not his to decide. The final figure is determined according to the sentence of the judges. This is the Targum's structural genius. Grief alone cannot set the number; a grieving husband might demand ruin. A beth din cools the price. The community mediates.
Why is this law here, in the middle of a legal code dominated by oxen and theft? Because the Torah knows that civilization is measured by what it does when the smallest and most hidden victim is harmed. A code that forgets the unborn in a brawl is not a complete code. The Targumist's careful rendering insists: every life leaves behind an obligation, and the courts exist to make sure the obligation is paid.
The takeaway: the Torah's civil law is not only about fences and oxen. It is about the invisible victims of other people's fights, and the courts that give them a voice they no longer have.