"Eye for eye"

"Eye for eye" is gravely misinterpreted by most people.  Almost all scholars would agree that "eye for eye, tooth for tooth" is a severely misunderstood and misrepresented phrase, but few actually arrive at the true conclusion of the matter.  One large misconception is that Jesus overturned it in Matthew 5.  For an explanation of why, see here [1].  Simply put, it has nothing to do with anything except permanent physical injury in specific situations, as I will demonstrate.


--Exodus 21:22-25--"If men who are fighting hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman's husband demands and the court allows.  But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise."

--Leviticus 24:19-21--"If anyone injures his neighbor, whatever he has done must be done to him: fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth.  As he has injured his neighbor, so he is to be injured."


First of all, this does not mean to do to someone whatever they have done to others, only that whatever serious injuries they have inflicted on others may be legally inflicted on them.  There is an enormous difference, as I will show.  Any legitimate theologian will notice that this, like all other punishments, must not be carried out in an act of private revenge but instead is reserved for the hands of a qualified government agent, for the same Law that says "eye for eye" also says to "not seek revenge" (Leviticus 19:18) and to bring offenses to the judges (Exodus 21:6, 22:8, Deuteronomy 25:1, etc).  Civilians must not pay back someone for wrongs (Proverbs 20:22) or say "'I'll do to him as he has done to me'" (Proverbs 24:29).

Exodus 21:23-25 and Leviticus 24:19-21 are case laws.  If the scenario occurs as recorded, then a particular legal action can be taken.  There are laws that are not framed like this, and they do not say that "if someone does (whatever sin is referred to), do to them as they have done to others".

Here are some examples:


--Exodus 20:14--"You shall not commit adultery."

--Exodus 21:2--"If you buy a Hebrew servant, he is to serve you for six years.  But in the seventh year, he shall go free, without paying anything."

--Exodus 22:22-24--"Do not take advantage of a widow or an orphan.  If you do and they cry out to me, I will certainly hear their cry.  My anger will be aroused, and I will kill you with the sword; your wives will become widows and your children fatherless."

--Leviticus 19:14--"Do not curse the deaf or put a stumbling block in front of the blind, but fear your God.  I am the Lord."

--Leviticus 19:18--"Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people . . ."


Things like these are universally sinful, as evidenced by the "Do not . . ." instead of the "If someone injures you, he must be injured" structure of the Lex Talionis laws in Scripture.  If a husband or wife commits adultery, the betrayed spouse is absolutely not to commit adultery in return as a way to get back at the deviant spouse.  If someone ridicules the deaf, he is not to be ridiculed if he loses his hearing.  Some things are by nature objectively wrong and unjustifiable; God has simply revealed that cutting off a hand or foot isn't always evil.  The Bible does not say never to injure someone in the same way that it says never to curse the deaf, but it says that IF someone maliciously destroys a neighbor's eye then destruction of his or her own eye is at least an option as a judicial penalty.  This clearly does not apply to all things.  If God wanted mirror punishment for every offense, he would have plainly stated so instead of always limiting Lex Talionis to a very specific class of injuries, and only certain injuries within that class.

For instance, if a man, say, kidnapped a man or woman and abused him or her for a few days and then raped and tied the victim to a tree, slowly flogged him or her to death with more than 100 lashes, and after he had tortured and murdered the victim he then nailed or fastened the corpse to the tree and left it exposed for a week, the Biblical punishment would not at all be a mirror representation of what the criminal inflicted on the victim.  Allow me to prove my point with several verses:


--Exodus 21:16--"Anyone who kidnaps another and either sells him or still has him when he is caught must be put to death."

--Deuteronomy 24:7--"If a man is caught kidnapping one of his brother Israelites and treats him as a slave or sells him, the kidnapper must die.  You must purge the evil from among you."

--"Deuteronomy 22:25-26--"But if out in the country a man happens to meet a girl pledged to be married and rapes her, only the man who has done this shall die . . .  This case is like that of a man who attacks and murders his neighbor . . ."

--Deuteronomy 25:1-3--"When men have a dispute, they are to take it to court and the judges will decide the case, acquitting the innocent and condemning the guilty.  If the guilty man deserves to be beaten, the judge shall make him lie down and have him flogged in his presence with the number of lashes his crime deserves, but he must not give him more than forty lashes.  If he is flogged more than that, your brother will be degraded in your eyes."

--Deuteronomy 21:22-23--"If a man guilty of a capital offense is put to death and his body is hung on a tree, you must not leave his body on the tree overnight.  Be sure to bury him that same day, because anyone who is hung on a tree is under God's curse.  You must not desecrate the land the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance."


See?  "Eye for eye" has nothing to do with any scenario other than someone permanently injuring or mutilating an opponent in a malicious assault.  The man in the example I provided above would not be kidnapped, abused, raped, flogged to death with 100 or more lashes, and then displayed on a tree for multiple days.  To do so back to him would be to violate many inflexible requirements of God's Law and would descend into unspeakable cruelty and barbarism that God never once permitted or tolerated.  Since some translations of Exodus say "stripe for stripe", it is interesting that elsewhere God limits the legitimate number of stripes/strokes someone can receive.  Kidnapping, degrading treatment, excessive flogging, and prolonged corpse exposure were all prohibited universally and would make horrendous criminals out of anyone who thought they could repay these evils with the same evils in the name of justice.  Cutting off someone's hand may deserve removal of a hand, but kidnapping and rape and extreme torture deserve death, not more kidnapping and rape and torture.

As another example, if someone forced a person to have sex with an animal (which has occurred before, unfortunately), the penalty was not mirror punishment but death:


--Exodus 22:19--"Anyone who has sexual relations with an animal must be put to death."

--Leviticus 20:15-16--"If a man has sexual relations with an animal, he must be put to death, and you must kill the animal.  If a woman approaches an animal to have sexual relations with it, kill both the woman and the animal.  They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads."


Deuteronomy 22:25 and basic moral reasoning prove that when someone has sin forced upon them, the victim is innocent.  So a person forced to commit bestiality would not be punished, but the offender would be executed in accordance with the laws in Exodus and Leviticus and would not be forced to have sex with an animal himself or herself.  This is yet another example that proves irrefutably that Lex Talionis had nothing to do with anything except select physical injuries.

Those who try to remove Lex Talionis from its context and place in Exodus 21 often overlook the passages in the very same chapter which clearly assign penalties to various assaults or injuries that do not involve returning injury or mutilation:


--Exodus 21:15--"Anyone who attacks his father or his mother must be put to death."

--Exodus 21:18-19--"If men quarrel and one hits the other with a stone or with his fist and he does not die but is confined to bed, the one who struck the blow will not be held responsible if the other gets up and walks around outside with his staff; however, he must pay the injured man for the loss of his time and see that he is completely healed."

--Exodus 21:22--"If men who are fighting hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman's husband demands and the court allows."

--Exodus 21:26-27--"If a man hits a manservant or maidservant in the eye and destroys it, he must let the servant go free to compensate for the eye.  And if he knocks out the tooth of a manservant or maidservant, he must let the servant go free to compensate for the tooth."


So it is clear that Lex Talionis never was related to assaults (which are different than mutilations, like cutting off a hand) and does not even apply to all permanent injuries.  Permanent injury to a slave requires emancipation for the slave, not Lex Talionis.  Any assault on one's parent(s), no matter how severe, is not punished with injury but with execution.  And note Exodus 21:18-19.  It is a case law just like the "eye for eye" passages.  It says that a man who strikes another man must reimburse him for any lost time and injuries, not that the court will sentence him to physical assault in turn.  If someone assaults another, compensation is due, not mutilation.  "Eye for eye" is not the central principle of justice in Mosaic Law, despite the almost universal insistence of theologians and scholars, but is one of many context-limited principles.  It is only mentioned in three locations and in six verses.  There are just as many verses in Exodus 21 alone that give penalties besides injury or mutilation to various assaults and injuries as there are verses in the entire Old Testament that talk about literal Lex Talionis in limited circumstances.  There are almost as many separate condemnations of kidnapping as there are passages allowing Lex Talionis, yet somehow "eye for eye" became more popular and misunderstood than other concepts spoken of just as often or far more frequently.  Immediately after the phrase "eye for eye" is introduced in Exodus 21:23-25, the next verses (Exodus 21:26-27) blatantly give a scenario where someone's eye or tooth is destroyed and compensation in the form of freedom is said to be justice, not further mutilation of the offender.  So why is "eye for eye" so renowned but not all of the surrounding qualifications and exemptions from it?

In limiting the severity of punishments like flogging the Bible is not extending mercy to criminals, as mercy is not giving people what they deserve.  The clear meaning of the text is that there is an objective line beyond which punishment becomes inhumane, degrading, cruel, and excessive.  Sadistic and dehumanizing punishments are a form of horrific injustice and horrendous evil that the entire Old Testament Law avoids quite entirely.  So the command of Deuteronomy 25:3 is not merciful, but just. There is always a maximum punishment beyond which a penalty cannot be justified no matter what the crime.  If a thief has to become a servant to repay a debt (Exodus 22:3), he or she must be released after seven years regardless of the status of the debt (Exodus 21:2).  If a man or woman is flogged, the judge must never allow more than forty lashes (Deuteronomy 25:3).  If the corpse of an executed criminal is displayed, it must never be exposed past the evening (Deuteronomy 21:22-23).  If a man or two men hurt a pregnant women while they are brawling, the financial damages are limited and held in check by whatever "the court allows" and not just what the woman's husband demands (Exodus 21:22).  There is always a maximum limit to just punishment that must never be crossed.

People who leave Lex Talionis in its proper place honor the divine revelation in Scripture, but those who extrapolate it to other areas or disregard other fixed punishments are guilty of the "two wrongs make a right" fallacy.  Exodus and Leviticus say "eye for eye, tooth for tooth", not "adultery for adultery, betrayal for betrayal, rape for rape, kidnapping for kidnapping, abuse for abuse, revenge for revenge, torture for torture, and punch for punch".  All permanent injury to an eye inflicted with intentional malice may be abuse, but not all abuse is strictly permanent physical injury.  There are some things that must never be done, not even to those who have carried them out.

It's time to correct misrepresentations and distortions of Lex Talionis.


[1].  http://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2016/07/jesus-and-paul-on-mosaic-law.html