Biblion Bible Commentary
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Life for Life
Exodus 21:12-27
12 “One who strikes a man so that he dies shall surely be put to death, · WEB
The law distinguishes intent from accident, and the famous formula about an eye is a limit on revenge rather than a license for it.
One who strikes a man so that he dies shall surely be put to death, but not if it is unintentional, but God allows it to happen; then I will appoint you a place where he shall flee Exodus 21:12–13.
The first distinction the law draws is between murder and accident, and it draws it before anything else. A man who kills without intent is given a refuge; a man who schemes and comes presumptuously on his neighbor to kill him is to be taken from my altar, that he may die Exodus 21:14. Even sanctuary does not shelter premeditation. Motive is decisive in a legal system that had every opportunity to judge by outcome alone.
Three capital offenses follow. Striking or cursing a parent Exodus 21:15 Exodus 21:17, and kidnapping: anyone who kidnaps someone and sells him, or if he is found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death Exodus 21:16. That clause is worth holding beside the laws on servitude above it. Stealing a person and selling him is a capital crime here, without exception and without a redemption price, which places the slave trade itself under sentence of death in the same chapter that regulates debt bondage.
If men fight and hurt a pregnant woman so that she gives birth prematurely, and yet no harm follows, he shall be surely fined... But if any harm follows, then you must take life for life Exodus 21:22–23.
The case concerns injury to a bystander, and the penalty escalates from a fine to the full formula when harm results. The English translations divide over whether the harm in view is the woman's, the child's, or either, and the Hebrew does not settle it. What is not in doubt is that harm to an unborn child is treated as an injury with a legal remedy rather than as damage to property.
Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burning for burning, wound for wound, and bruise for bruise Exodus 21:24–25.
The most quoted and most misread sentence in the law. Its function is restrictive. In a society where a family's response to an injury was limited only by its strength, this fixes an upper bound: one eye, and not the offender's household. It is addressed to judges, not to victims — it appears in a paragraph about court-imposed penalties — and the surrounding cases are settled with money, which shows how the formula was actually applied.
Jesus quotes it in a different setting and to a different end: you have heard that it was said, "An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth"... don't resist him who is evil Matthew 5:38–39. He is not correcting the statute. He is taking a rule written to cap what a court may impose and refusing to let it be used as a personal entitlement, which is precisely the misuse the wording invites.
The two verses that close the paragraph apply the same principle where it costs most. A master who destroys a servant's eye or tooth forfeits the servant Exodus 21:26–27. The compensation is not proportional; it is total, and it runs downward, from the powerful to the powerless.
held with reason What this mark means