Ason (אָסוֹן) refers to harm, mischief, or a fatal accident or injury. It appears three times in Genesis 42–44 in Jacob's speeches about Benjamin, and once in Exodus 21:22–23 in the law regarding a pregnant woman struck and injured. In Genesis, Jacob uses it to express his fear that some disaster will befall his son.
The legal usage in Exodus 21:22–23 is theologically significant: "But if there is serious injury (ason), you are to take life for life." This passage, concerning the life of an unborn child, has been central to discussions of the sanctity of prenatal life. The lex talionis — eye for eye, life for life — applied to the unborn, declaring the unborn child's life as equally protected under God's law. Jacob's anguished use in Genesis reveals a father's protective love mirroring God's own care for the vulnerable.