Exodus Chapter 21 verse 23 Holy Bible
But if any harm follow, then thou shalt give life for life,
read chapter 21 in ASV
But if damage comes to her, let life be given in payment for life,
read chapter 21 in BBE
But if mischief happen, then thou shalt give life for life,
read chapter 21 in DARBY
And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life,
read chapter 21 in KJV
And if any mischief shall follow, then thou shalt give life for life,
read chapter 21 in WBT
But if any harm follows, then you must take life for life,
read chapter 21 in WEB
and if there is mischief, then thou hast given life for life,
read chapter 21 in YLT
Pulpit Commentary
Pulpit CommentaryVerse 23. - Then thou shalt give life for life. "Life for life" seems an excessive penalty, where the injury was in a great measure accidental, and when there was certainly no design to take life. Probably the law was not now enacted for the first time, but was an old tribal institution, like the law of the "avenger of blood." There are many things in the Mosaic institutions which Moses tolerated, like "bills of divorce" - on account of "the hardness of their hearts." Verses 23, 24. - Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, etc. Aristotle says in the Nicomachean Ethics, that this was the rule of justice which Rhadamanthus was supposed to act on in the judgment after death (book 5, see. 3), and that it had the approval of the Pythagoreans. Solon admitted it to a certain extent into the laws of Athens, and at Rome it found its way. into the Twelve Tables. There is a prima facie appearance of exact equality in it, which would captivate rude minds and cause the principle to be widely adopted in a rude state of society. But in practice objections would soon be felt to it. There is no exact measure of the hardness of a blow, or the severity of a wound; and "wound for wound, stripe for stripe," would open a door for very unequal inflictions "Eye for eye" would be flagrantly unjust in the case of a one-eyed man. Moreover, it is against public policy to augment unnecessarily the number of mutilated and maimed citizens, whose power to serve the state is lessened by their mutilation. Consequently in every society retaliation has at an early date given way to pecuniary compensation; and this was the case even among the Hebrews, as Kalisch has shown satisfactorily. If the literal sense was insisted on in our Lord' s day (Matthew 5:38), it was only by the Sadducees, who declined to give the law a spiritual interpretation.
