Scripture Daily

Context No. 2982 of 4322 · Leviticus

Context · Reflection

Leviticus 24:17-23: in context

17“‘He who strikes any man mortally shall surely be put to death. 18He who strikes an animal mortally shall make it good, life for life. 19If anyone injures his neighbor, it shall be done to him as he has done: 20fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. It shall be done to him as he has injured someone. 21He who kills an animal shall make it good; and he who kills a man shall be put to death. 22You shall have one kind of law for the foreigner as well as the native-born; for I am the LORD your God.’” 23Moses spoke to the children of Israel; and they brought him who had cursed out of the camp, and stoned him with stones. The children of Israel did as the LORD commanded Moses.

This is the law of proportional retribution. Whoever strikes a person dead is put to death; whoever kills an animal makes it good, life for life; an injury is repaid in kind, fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. And, pointedly, there is to be one law for the foreigner and the native alike. It should be read soberly.

The eye for eye rule is often misread as license for revenge, but it was the opposite: a limit on vengeance, making sure the punishment fit the crime and went no further, no killing a man over a lost tooth. In a world of escalating blood-feuds, it capped retaliation at strict proportion. And notice the striking equality of it, one law for the foreigner and the citizen, justice that does not tilt toward the insider. These were principles of measured, impartial justice in a harsh age. Jesus would later call his followers beyond even this, to turn the other cheek, but the concern underneath, for proportion and for justice that plays no favorites, endures.

Do I want measured, impartial justice that applies equally to the outsider and to me, and am I willing, as Jesus taught, to go beyond retaliation toward mercy?

Sources