What does “an eye for an eye” mean in Exodus 21:24?

Was “an eye for an eye” meant literally?

In Exodus 21:24, Yung Suk Kim reads “eye for eye, tooth for tooth” figuratively, as a call to give equal payment for an injury. Most ancient Israelites lived in villages, often of 50 to 100 people. In such a village an eye, a hand or a foot was labor a family needed, so losing one hurt the whole household. Cutting off the offender’s hand would help neither the victim’s family nor the offender’s own.¹

The rule worked first to stop revenge that ran unchecked. It then supported the victim’s family with compensation. Village elders settled such disputes as go-betweens, not as a formal court.¹

Not every hand had the same price, and Kim’s example is a physician’s hand. Cutting one off as a penalty would strike people as unfair, so they would bargain for compensation instead.¹

In Exodus 21:18-19, a man hurt in a fight is paid for lost time and his recovery, with no eye-for-eye at all. In Leviticus 24:18, “life for life” for a killed animal means a replacement, not a second killing.¹

Itzhak Amar finds a limit in the wording of the formula itself. Amar reports an earlier study that traced the repeated “x for x” pattern to rules passed on by word of mouth. That pattern asks for an equal loss, paid in money or in the body, and no more. The other spoken formula answers a deed with a deed of the same kind, and it could run without limit. Samson burned the Philistines’ fields and called it payback, though his answer went far beyond the harm done to him.³

What is Exodus 21:22-25 about?

Exodus 21:22-25 is about men who fight and “hurt a pregnant woman,” and what is owed for the harm.¹ The fight in verse 22 is the backdrop for the eye-for-eye laws of verses 23 to 25.³ Yung Suk Kim counts these verses among the hardest laws to explain.¹

The text on this page says that the woman “gives birth prematurely.” Some translations read a premature birth here, and most read a miscarriage.¹

The eye-for-eye list does not fit the case it follows. Read literally, the list raises odd questions, such as whether the woman’s tooth broke or whether she was burned. Verse 25 goes on, “burning for burning, wound for wound, and bruise for bruise.” The verb behind “take” in verse 23 can express substitution or compensation, an equal price for the damage.¹

In Exodus 21:26-27, a master who destroys a slave’s eye or tooth must set the slave free. The master does not lose his own eye. The same formula returns for a false witness in Deuteronomy 19:21 and for injury in Leviticus 24:19-20.¹ The laws of Leviticus 24:17-21 closely resemble Exodus 21:23-25.³

Did “an eye for an eye” come from the Code of Hammurabi?

The “eye for eye” list of Exodus 21:24 has close parallels in the Laws of Hammurabi. Yung Suk Kim traces its origin to village custom instead.¹

Exodus 21:24 and 25 sit beside laws 196, 197 and 200 of the Babylonian code, on an upper-class man’s eye, bone and tooth. Both collections are case law, cast in the same “if … then” form. The form seems borrowed from the laws of Babylonia written in cuneiform, the wedge-shaped script. The details of Exodus 21:22-25 differ from those laws.¹

The Babylonian laws set prices by class. A man who struck an upper-class woman and caused a miscarriage paid 10 shekels of silver. If that woman died, “they shall kill his daughter.” For a commoner woman who died the payment was 30 shekels, and for a slave woman 20. The eye-for-eye rule itself applied only to the upper class.¹

Kim finds more respect for life in Exodus, which leaves out the death-penalty language of those laws. The Laws of Hammurabi serve an order of upper class, commoner and slave, while biblical law serves the community.¹

When was Exodus 21:24 written?

Exodus 21:24 was probably composed late in the 700s BCE, as part of the Covenant Code, the laws of Exodus 21 to 23. The Code is often dated to that century, because of its links with the Laws of Hammurabi, Assyrian royal inscriptions and Deuteronomy. That dating sets the Code in Judah under Assyrian rule. Ndikho Mtshiselwa reports a study that places the influence of Hammurabi’s laws on the Code between 740 and 640 BCE.²

Mtshiselwa credits the Code to scribes and earlier authors, reworked by later editors. Biblical law codes like this one were teaching texts, not court records. The Code reflects a farming society organized by kin.²

Not everyone agrees on the date. Yung Suk Kim holds that biblical law took its final form later, during the exile, the years of captivity in Babylonia.¹ The first deportation to Babylon came in 597 BCE. Jerusalem’s final destruction and exile came in 587 BCE. Babylon fell to the Persians in 539 BCE. The exiles’ return began in 538 BCE.⁴ Kim also finds that the laws lean on Babylonian law in writing.¹