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The Code of Hammurabi establishes the law of retaliation, an eye for an eye, a bone for a bone, but restricts it to the elite class. Leviticus 24 adopts the same principle but extends equal treatment to all, including foreigners.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Code of Hammurabi
Babylonian Legal Text
Ancient Near East
195 If a son strike his father, his hands shall be hewn off 196 If a man put out the eye of another man, his eye shall be put out. An eye for an eye 197 If he break another man's bone, his bone shall be broken 198 If he put out the eye of a freed man, or break the bone of a freed man, he shall pay one gold mina 199 If he put out the eye of a man's slave, or break the bone of a man's slave, he shall pay one-half of its value 200 If a man knock out the teeth of his equal, his teeth shall be knocked out. A tooth for a tooth 201 If he knock out the teeth of a freed man, he shall pay one-third of a gold mina
Date: 1750 B.C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
Leviticus 24:19
Hebrew Bible
17 “‘If a man beats any person to death, he must be put to death. 18 One who beats an animal to death must make restitution for it, life for life. 19 If a man inflicts an injury on his fellow citizen, just as he has done it must be done to him— 20 fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth—just as he inflicts an injury on another person that same injury must be inflicted on him. 21 One who beats an animal to death must make restitution for it, but one who beats a person to death must be put to death. 22 There will be one regulation for you, whether a resident foreigner or a native citizen, for I am the Lord your God.’”
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Notes and References
“... The 18th century BCE retaliation law from the Code of Hammurabi, the King of Babylon, found its way into the Torah of Israel. It is especially the reception of the two lines on the blinding of an eye and the fracturing of the bone of another awīlu that is noticeable in the Torah of Israel. Hammurabi’s Code (circa 1754 B.C.E): §196: If an awīlu should blind the eye of another awīlu, they shall blind his eye. §197: If he should break the bone of another awīlu, they shall break his bone. The retaliation of “eye for eye, tooth for tooth” is quoted in Exodus (21:24), Leviticus (24:20) and Deuteronomy (19:21) ...”
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