Eye for Eye, Tooth for Tooth

And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life,
Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot,
Burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.

-- Exodus 21: 23-25 (KJV)

Law-and-order types are fond of citing the Israelite penal code, which is indeed no day at the beach. This passage quoting God's instructions to Moses (along with its restatement in Leviticus 24) is a particular favorite, especially among advocates of the death penalty. But it's never quoted in full -- it does get out of hand -- and nobody really follows through on the logic, which seems to demand stealing from thieves and raping rapists.

In fact, Yahweh isn't averse to such sentences, if they are practical. Nor does he object to capital punishment, which he demands not just for murder but for striking a parent or stealing a slave (but not for killing one of your own). In general the law seeks parity and restitution: what you take from a man, you must replace or else forfeit, be it an eye, a tooth, an ox, or a life.

It is a mistake to read the present verses too figuratively, as a poetic version of Cicero's "Let the punishment fit the crime." Yahweh means what he says -- he's talking about real eyes and teeth and hands and lives. The problem is that we now use the phrase "eye for eye, tooth for tooth" only metaphorically and would condemn as barbaric its literal observance. So whatever the justifications for capital punishment, it's unwise to quote them from the Bible, which can be a real Pandora's box. Be-sides, Jesus will have a few things to say about "eye for eye, tooth for tooth."

One should not be too horrified by what one finds in this chapter of Exodus, which forms part of the "Book of the Covenant," a collection of divinely sanctioned laws. In certain respects Yahweh's code is much less harsh than many others prevailing at the time. Manslaughter, for example, is distinguished from murder and punished differently; causing a woman to miscarry, furthermore, does not call for death, as it apparently did elsewhere. Finally, you only had to lose an eye if you put out someone else's -- which, believe it or not, was getting off easy.

Speaking of getting off easy, Ernest S. Bates shows us how to interpret Exodus in a truly Christian manner in his American Faith (1940). "Immorality and crime may be expiated by finite punishments: an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth," he hopefully begins; "but sin demands an infinite punishment."

 
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Michael Macrone is Associate Site Producer of GraceCom and the author of nine books on language, literature, and ideas, including the best-selling Brush Up Your Shakespeare!