Leviticus 24:17-23--An Eye for an Eye

Leviticus 24:17-23
English Standard Version
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An Eye for an Eye
17 “Whoever takes a human life shall surely be put to death. 18 Whoever takes an animal's life shall make it good, life for life. 19 If anyone injures his neighbor, as he has done it shall be done to him, 20 fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; whatever injury he has given a person shall be given to him. 21 Whoever kills an animal shall make it good, and whoever kills a person shall be put to death. 22 You shall have the same rule for the sojourner and for the native, for I am the Lord your God.” 23 So Moses spoke to the people of Israel, and they brought out of the camp the one who had cursed and stoned him with stones. Thus the people of Israel did as the Lord commanded Moses.

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This is a phrase that many of us familiar with the Bible may already know, specifically Jesus' teaching about it in The Sermon on the Mount.  So, how is Jesus' teaching so different than what appears to be said here and how does this passage fit with other verses like Leviticus 19:18 that we read recently studied, Deuteronomy 32:35, and Hebrews 10:30 and Romans: 12:19 which both cite Deuteronomy 32:35.  God declares Himself to be the God of vengeance for his people in places like Psalm 94:1, Isaiah 1:24, Isaiah 59:18, and Nahum 1:2.  Let's try and address that today and talk about what this passage does and doesn't say, and how the people of Jesus' time had gotten it wrong (and we similarly get it wrong most of the time) and how Jesus corrected the original intent of the Law on the Sermon on the Mount.

This passage is talking about the consequences that would be given out by the courts or by the assembly as they judged those who had been accused of a crime (violation of the Law) where the punishment needed to fit the crime.  That's the general principle at play here.  The damages awarded should fulfill the requirement of the Law, but the people should not for instance give the death penalty where it was not required by law.  Life for life was the rule when it came to human life (and sometimes when it came to killing of innocent animals), but usually the life of an animal which is not as valuable since that animal is not an image-bearer of God does not require as significant of a punishment and the penalty can therefore be a fine imposed in the amount of full replacement value (either replacing his neighbor's animal with one of his own from his own herd or flock or paying the full price as determined by the court, plus an additional 20% of the value in monetary damages if the death happened as a result of carelessness or negligence).  For cases of personal injury, the same kind of rule applied and this is where we get the phrase "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth."  That did not mean that people should go around gouging out each others' eyes or knocking out each others' teeth.  It meant that the fine that was to be issued should be just and proportional to the actual damages that occurred.  Knocking out someone's tooth would not be something that should incur the death penalty for instance, but some restitution should be made for the fact that the person now no longer had that tooth for the rest of his life.  It would probably be a greater punishment to permanently disable someone by making them lose an eye as this would mean that the person could not work, and in such a case the Law may require that the man and his family now became dependents of the one who caused the man to go blind since the blind man would no longer be able to provide for his family.

Our courts today are very different and probably would be wise to return to this kind of model that the LROD laid out for His people in the Law.  Note this rule here would also somewhat apply to periods of incarceration today that need to fit the crime, though God had no provision for incarceration in the Law for His people at this time in their history.  Since they were wandering in the wilderness and needed to move when the pillar of cloud or pillar of fire moved, there were really only a few options:

1) Restitution for petty crimes
2) Exile for major crimes that were not capital offenses
3) Death for capital offenses (usually stoning, though we've seen exceptions where the person was to be burned alive)

So God lays out that the punishment for manslaughter of any kind, even involuntary manslaughter or what people may want to call "justifiable homicide" is "life for life" (the rules will get a bit more nuanced as the people approach the Promised Land and we'll revisit this topic in the book of Deuteronomy).  Any animal lost or maimed to the point where it could no longer do its work was to be replaced and there was possibly a fine that was supposed to be imposed in addition to this of one-fifth (20%) of the animal's value for carelessness or negligence.  This number of one-fifth the value or 20% seems pretty consistent across the Law as the maximum penalty that should be awarded in additional damages above and beyond the actual costs.  There was no allowance in the Law for damages for "mental anguish" or "pain and suffering" for instance.

Remember here the context of this story is that there were two men, one a Hebrew and the other an Egyptian man that was married to a Hebrew woman, who had gotten into a fight with each other, and in the process the Egyptian man blasphemed the Name (God's covenant name probably) and the people were inquiring of Moses and God what a just punishment was for blasphemy.  The principle here is that the taking of human life is more valuable than the taking of animal life because humans intrinsically have more value since they are made in the image of God.  How much more then is it necessary to have a more severe punishment for when the crime is directly against God Himself?  The people there didn't seem to miss this as they didn't ask the man to put money into a "swear jar" for his blasphemy, they put him to death, because his offense was against God--there was no monetary restitution that could made to make the offense right.  Things would look a lot different in our culture today if we had the death penalty for people taking the LORD's name in vain.  We would be careful to teach our children to honor His holy Name and we would have the same rule for the citizen as for the visitor and immigrant or the person just passing through and everyone would know that our nation is one who honors God.

We don't live in this kind of a land here in the United States of America though, and there are not many countries around the world where blasphemy is a capital punishment anymore--possibly some of the Islamic states and Arab nations--even the more secularized ones like Saudi Arabia probably still have strong blasphemy laws.  We look at those laws as being "backwards," "antiquated" and "regressive," but those countries look at what comes out of our nation as "entertainment" and how entertainment follows culture and and culture follows entertainment and they are disgusted by the profanity, vulgarity and blasphemy that they see coming out of "Hollywood" (using that generically to talk about our entertainment industry)  When I speak to students from these nations at my school this is their biggest complaint about our culture--that we are morally debase and that it starts with no respect for God and that it has turned into little to no respect for each other, and they know that those two things are very connected to each other.  I'm not at all saying that we should look to Islam for any sort of truth here, or that they are in some way more righteous because we know that ultimately it comes down to the righteous of Christ that we are covered in, but as God's people we should love His Law and we should love His Name, and we should never engage in blasphemy, and it should be offensive to us when others engage in it.  We have the ability to let culture change us, or we can try to change the culture.  Maybe we no longer put people to death because the Church is no longer in control of the State (we see that in the New Testament several times), but we can still do our part to encourage people to follow God's Law, not thinking that they are saved by their works, but especially for those who have been saved by His finished work because "If you love Me, you will keep My commandments."  (John 14:15).  One of the greatest ways that we show that we love God is by our obedience.