God is clear on the whipping - as long as they don't drop dead on the spot.
Exodus 21:20-21 And if a man smite his servant, or his maid, with a rod, and he die under his hand; he shall be surely punished. Notwithstanding, if he continue a day or two, he shall not be punished: for he is his money.
There are people out there who say God didn't have any scruples where human lives were concerned. That He couldn't care less about how much suffering He caused if He tried, in many cases for no reason. These types will point out that infants or toddlers smashed or chopped up alive, as God commanded, were murdered for no reason. That those of their number not butchered but shorn and taken as booty were enslaved for no reason. And once enslaved could be beaten to death over more than two days (but not struck down where they stood, like poisonous things) just as God commanded.
Many such wretches lost whatever belief they had for this reason, declaring that now we know these lies for what they are. Putrid, barbaric filth. Some will wish their world view had been around before, available to them as they learned about the wonderful world God created so they could adore Him as He deserves. The saddest thing is that those ideas are not new. It was never the case that "everyone believed these things" or that "they were just fitting what they perceived into a received legal or metaphysical framework later refined into what we have today" and there are examples in the source material itself. For example in the Psalms we have:
Psalm 14:1 The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.
Check out the words. There. Is. No. God. Not a desire to worship other deities, not a lack of belief in the divinity you proclaim, an outright statement of atheism. This dates from around 1,000 BC incidentally; it is not a reaction to Roman idols or anything like that. Such a statement would only be made if hard atheism actually existed and was known to the intended readership. Or if sung, known to the people singing. Or listening. These are NOT post-enlightenment ideas. Again we have this earlier record:
Judges 18:7 Then the five men departed, and came to Laish, and saw the people that were therein, how they dwelt careless, after the manner of the Zidonians, quiet and secure; and there was no magistrate in the land, that might put them to shame in any thing; and they were far from the Zidonians, and had no business with any man.
Here we see that far from savage anarchists running around with no legal enforcement, as some suggest would be recorded even if it were not true just for a pretext to chop them up and sequester their farms, they were quiet and secure. Now of course peoples can be quiet and secure yet living on nuts and berries growing in the wild half starved but too bone-headed to do anything about it. There are such populations here and there; very often though they do choose to do something about it and take up piracy which means most of the pirates get shot, some become rich, but most of the population continue to starve. That would be an anarchy. The Bible record this people however as living in
Judges 18:10d ..a place where there is no want of any thing that is in the earth.
This is around 1375 BC - see timelines here:
God's standard is not the result of people coming up with the best explanation they could in the absence of accurate information as is clear from The Bible itself. One would assume that as few column inches as possible would be devoted to suggesting that self regulation or atheism were available even as options to be rejected. None, in fact. And yet that is not the case. Such ideas must have been relatively well known for them to be mentioned at all. The critical element overlooked by humanists is love. God loves us so much that He will go to extraordinary lengths to make sure we understand the consequences of rejecting Him. And just as for the peace-loving denizens of Laish or the wretched heathens God commanded to be enslaved those consequences are severe. Death is too good for them, obviously they do expire eventually but in the meantime, just don't kill them on the spot. Exactly as God commanded, all those years ago.
Malachi 3:6 For I am the LORD, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.