Code of Hammurabi
Babylonian Legal Text196 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
Exodus 21:23
22 “If men fight and hit a pregnant woman and her child is born prematurely, but there is no serious injury, the one who hit her will surely be punished in accordance with what the woman’s husband demands of him, and he will pay what the court decides. 23 But if there is serious injury, then you will give a life for a life, 24 eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 25 burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise. 26 “If a man strikes the eye of his male servant or his female servant so that he destroys it, he will let the servant go free as compensation for the eye.
Notes and References
"... Hammurabi’s talion laws appear in two sets: injuries to eyes and bones in Code of Hammurabi 196–199 and injuries to teeth in Code 200–201. The eye/bone laws are graded according to the status of the victim. Injuries to the eye/bone of an awīlum are treated in separate laws. Injuries to the eyes/bones of lesser statuses are treated together in one law for commoners and another for slaves. The tooth laws are socially graded but include only the awīlum and the commoner. The laws about an eye/bone and tooth are delineated separately because the fine in the case of the commoner differs. The body parts in the talion dyads in verse 24 have correspondences in Code of Hammurabi. An “eye” is found in Code of Hammurabi 196, 198, 199; a “tooth” is found in Code 200–201. An “arm” and “leg” can be seen as referring primarily to fractures (not amputations) and thus correspond with Code 197, 198, 199. The other dyads in Covenant Code’s law derive from other laws. The equation “life for life” in verse 23 is an expansion of the cases in the Code of Hammurabi 196–201 and may echo, though only loosely, the verdict in the miscarriage law in Code 210, which requires a form of capital punishment. The Covenant Code has reformulated this requirement to fit the talion wording. The “burn,” “injury,” and “wound” in verse 25 may derive from laws near Hammurabi’s ..."
Wright, David P. Inventing God's Law: How the Covenant Code of the Bible Used and Revised the Laws of Hammurabi (p. 181) Oxford University Press, 2009