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<< Leviticus 24:18 Leviticus 24:20 >>
Articles, Bible studies, and sermons that contain Leviticus 24:19:
Leviticus 24:19-20
Excerpted from: 'But I Say to You' (Part Six): RetaliationAll of these, Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy, give the same principle of eye for an eye. And it is a principle, Lex Talionis, that lies at the law of retaliation or the principle of retribution. That a punishment inflicted should correspond in degree and/or kind to the wrongdoer's offense. This principle kept a government, or some sort of person in charge, an authority, from terrorizing people for their crimes. For going way beyond; you know, stealing a loaf of bread is a hanging offense. They are just not equal, they are not punishment in kind. I mean, just look how something similar to that ruined Jean Valjean's life in Les Miserable. He stole some bread and I think some silver candlesticks or whatever and he ended up getting a very long sentence and under very horrible circumstances in the French prison.
So that is the sort of thing that Lex Talionis, the law of retribution, tries to keep within bounds so that people are not punished more for offenses that they have done against the state or against someone else. This is also known as equal restitution or proportionate retaliation. Now many nations applied this law literally, as some Muslim countries actually do today. If a thief is caught stealing, he loses his hand. That is appropriate punishment for the act of taking something with the hand. A murderer in many of these codes of justice of these countries is himself killed—a life for a life. A rapist might be killed or emasculated—kind for kind.
However, God's law or God's instructions on these matters, in most cases, was not so cruel as we would see them in 21st century America. The principle under God's law is that often the restitution was a monetary fine of some sort, paid to the victim or the victim's family, and was proportionate to the injury. We saw a little bit of that. If the owner of a slave punched a tooth out of the slave, then instead of the slave getting to slug his master back until a tooth popped out, the slave was freed. In this case, there was not a monetary fine as such, it was not inflicting injury on the perpetrator, but it was making him pay some sort of damages to the victim or the victim's family. This was often a set amount of money that everybody was aware of. And so they would give you so many shekels for a broken arm or double that for a broken head or you know what I mean. It is just a matter of, "Ok, you've done this, you have to pay." It is not as serious as having your head chopped off or being stoned or hanged or what have you. So you have to pay a certain amount of money as restitution for this.
Leviticus 24:19-20
Excerpted from: Amos (Part Ten)This is something coming from God. It is the way to administer justice in the courts. I want you to notice that this is His court justice system.
Now this is the basis for rendering court decisions or judgments. It is the safeguard of equal-handed, even justice: eye for eye, tooth for tooth. What it is saying is that crime and punishment must be equally balanced. Now, it is wrong to think that they literally gouged a person's eye out if that person indeed caused the loss of an eye in another person. That is not what they did. If somebody caused a person to break his leg, they did not put that person's leg over a stump and then whack it with a baseball bat and break his leg. They did not do that kind of thing.
They did basically the same things as we do in our courts. The judge made a decision based upon damage done that was equal to the damage done. That is, he fined the person, or he sentenced the person; he caused that person to have to pay a price or to be incarcerated, or whatever it was that they did. The person who was injured was compensated equal to what the judge felt the injury was worth.
Leviticus 24:19-20
Excerpted from: Taking an InsultIn verse 38, it says, "You have heard it said, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth." Now here, Christ is quoting the law from back in Leviticus.
This is also covered in Exodus 21 and Deuteronomy 19, so it was Jesus Christ Himself that established this law. And again, we know this common term, "eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth." But the question is, did Christ literally mean that we were to go and knock out somebody's eye if they knocked out your eye? Or if someone accidentally knocked out your tooth, were you supposed to go and knock out their tooth as well?
No, that is not what this law meant. The purpose of this law was meant to bring fairness and stop the revenge and preventing more violence. There would be put a monetary value for that victim who had suffered that loss, much like our courts today will award a settlement to an injured party involved. And that is the way Christ intended. We must refuse to fight back.
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