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.

What you don’t get from just that passage alone is that this is prescribed as a limit to vengeance, not a starting point. It was a pre-existing social practice in Israel and all across the world (cf. especially Homeric society in ancient Greece) that if someone hurt you, you hurt them back. If someone takes your eye intentionally and literally, aren’t you inclined to do more than just remove one of theirs? I humbly submit to you that, even today, when we are wounded—emotionally, physically, whatever—we are very tempted to take from the other person more than they took from us. Watch kids on the playground for an unabashed example: all things being equal, if Billy punches Tommy, Tommy will probably knock Billy to the ground, not just punch him in return. Same thing we struggle with today: if someone cheats you out of a few grand, are you tempted to settle out of court (or even in court!) about it “fairly,” or are you tempted to ruin that person professionally? If you are backstabbed, &c.

But taken as a limit, this seems almost as radical to their day and age as “turn the other cheek [when you’re insulted]” does to ours.

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.

What you don’t get from just that passage alone is that this is prescribed as a limit to vengeance, not a starting point. It was a pre-existing social practice in Israel and all across the world (cf. especially Homeric society in ancient Greece) that if someone hurt you, you hurt them back. If someone takes your eye intentionally and literally, aren’t you inclined to do more than just remove one of theirs? I humbly submit to you that, even today, when we are wounded—emotionally, physically, whatever—we are very tempted to take from the other person more than they took from us. Watch kids on the playground for an unabashed example: all things being equal, if Billy punches Tommy, Tommy will probably knock Billy to the ground, not just punch him in return. Same thing we struggle with today: if someone cheats you out of a few grand, are you tempted to settle out of court (or even in court!) about it “fairly,” or are you tempted to ruin that person professionally? If you are backstabbed, &c.

But taken as a limit, this seems almost as radical to their day and age as “turn the other cheek [when you’re insulted]” does to ours.