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Leviticus

About this book
Chapter 24

1 The Lord spoke to Moses: 2 “Command the Israelites to bring to you pure oil of beaten olives for the light, to make a lamp burn continually. 3 Outside the special curtain of the congregation in the Meeting Tent, Aaron must arrange it from evening until morning before the Lord continually.⁠ This is a perpetual statute throughout your generations. 4 On the ceremonially pure lampstand he must arrange the lamps before the Lord continually. 5 “You must take choice wheat flour and bake twelve loaves; there must be two-tenths of an ephah of flour in each loaf, 6 and you must set them in two rows, six in a row, on the ceremonially pure table before the Lord. 7 You must put pure frankincense on each row, and it will become a memorial portion for the bread, a gift to the Lord. 8 Each Sabbath day Aaron must arrange it before the Lord continually; this portion is from the Israelites as a perpetual covenant. 9 It will belong to Aaron and his sons, and they must eat it in a holy place because it is most holy to him, a perpetually-allotted portion from the gifts of the Lord.” 10 Now an Israelite woman’s son whose father was an Egyptian went out among the Israelites, and the Israelite woman’s son and an Israelite man had a fight in the camp. 11 The Israelite woman’s son misused the Name and cursed, so they brought him to Moses. (Now his mother’s name was Shelomith, daughter of Dibri, of the tribe of Dan.) 12 So they placed him in custody until they were able to make a clear legal decision for themselves based on words from the mouth of the Lord.⁠ 13 Then the Lord spoke to Moses: 14 “Bring the one who cursed outside the camp, and all who heard him are to lay their hands on his head, and the whole congregation is to stone him to death. 15 Moreover, you are to tell the Israelites, ‘If any man curses his God, he will bear responsibility for his sin, 16 and one who misuses the name of the Lord⁠ must surely be put to death. The whole congregation must surely stone him, whether he is a resident foreigner or a native citizen; when he misuses the Name he must be put to death. 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.’”⁠ 23 Then Moses spoke to the Israelites and they brought the one who cursed outside the camp and stoned him with stones. So the Israelites did just as the Lord had commanded Moses.

Texts in conversation

Compare Leviticus 24:20 and Jubilees 4:31

Hebrew Bible · Pseudepigrapha, Hebrew Bible Expansions

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Summary

Leviticus requires proportional justice, saying that harm must be repaid in kind. Jubilees applies this retroactively to the story of Cain, introducing a tradition where he dies when his house collapses, crushed by stones, similar to how he killed Abel.

Passages

Leviticus 24:20

Hebrew Bible
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.
750–400 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Leviticus

Jubilees 4:31

Pseudepigrapha, Hebrew Bible Expansions
30 And he lacked seventy years of one thousand years; for one thousand years are as one day in the testimony of the heavens and therefore it was written concerning the tree of knowledge: 'On the day that you eat of it you shall die.' For this reason he did not complete the years of this day; for he died during it. 31 At the close of this jubilee Cain was killed after him in the same year; for his house fell upon him and he died inside his house, and he was killed by its stones; for with a stone he had killed Abel, and by a stone he was killed in righteous judgment. 32 For this reason it was ordained on the heavenly tablets: With the instrument with which a man kills his neighbor with the same he shall be killed; in the same way that he wounded him, in the same way they shall deal with him.'
170–125 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Jubilees

References

"... The book of Genesis does not report how Cain died; the original author of Jubilees similarly skipped the subject. As far as he was concerned, Cain’s story ended with his being cursed and exiled ... The Interpolator saw here another fine opportunity to connect something from Genesis with a law that appears later on in the Torah (and thus to assert that the law had always existed on the Heavenly Tablets). Leviticus 24:19-20 ... the means by which the harm was inflicted. Cain’s invented death through the collapse of his house upholds both halves of the verse: Cain was killed as punishment for Abel’s murder, and he was killed specifically by his house’s stones because with a stone he had killed Abel ..."
James L. Kugel, A Walk through Jubilees: Studies in the Book of Jubilees and the World of Its Creation (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 51.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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  • What is the biblical mean of testimony of the heavens? Jubilees 4:30

    Zodie, April 23, 2024

Leviticus 24:20 and Jubilees 4:31

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