Leviticus 24:20

Study note

Setting — God speaks to Moses and the Israelites in the wilderness, concluding a judicial passage on reciprocal injury. The verse follows the direct command that any harm inflicted must be met with an equivalent penalty.

The words — The text repeats שֶׁבֶר (shever, fracture), עַיִן (ayin, eye), and שֵׁן (shen, tooth) paired with תַּחַת (tachath, for or in place of). This lexical pairing establishes a strict equivalence between the specific injury and the corresponding penalty.

The thread — The same proportional retribution formula appears in Exodus 21:23, Deuteronomy 19:21, and Matthew 5:38. Each citation tracks the identical lexicon of measured justice within its respective legal or teaching context.

Why it lands — The verse demands judicial precision by requiring the punishment to exactly match the nature of the injury. It instructs the community to apply fixed standards rather than arbitrary or escalating retaliation.

Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.