Rebbi — Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi — offered an alternative reading of the fighting-men passage. If a man intends to strike one enemy and accidentally strikes a different enemy, the logic of transferred intent should make him liable for that injury. But if he intends to strike his enemy and accidentally strikes his friend, should he not be exempt? After all, the blow against the friend was completely unintended — there was no hostile motivation toward the friend whatsoever.
Rebbi argued that the fighting-men passage does not primarily address criminal liability at all. Instead, it comes to teach rules about civil compensation. Specifically: the payment for a wife's injuries belongs to her husband, and the payment for the death of fetuses also belongs to the husband.
This reading shifts the entire focus of the passage. It is not about whether the striker faces the death penalty for accidentally killing a bystander. It is about who receives the financial compensation when a pregnant woman is harmed during a fight. The husband is the injured party in the eyes of the law — both for the harm to his wife and for the loss of his unborn children.
Rebbi's interpretation reveals that the same biblical passage can be read as addressing completely different legal questions depending on which words the interpreter emphasizes. Where other rabbis saw criminal law, Rebbi saw family compensation law. Both readings coexist in the Mekhilta as valid approaches to the same text.