Digest of Biblical Civil Law

By extension of Exo. 21:33-34, if a human being fell into the well and died, the owner would be liable to the death penalty, as in the case of the notorious ox (Exo. 21:29). Since deliberate murder was not his intention, the man would be allowed to ransom his life if the family of the dead person were amenable.
- James Jordan, The Law of the Covenant 129 (1984), at http://www.garynorth.com/freebooks/: HTML, DjVu.