Exodus 21:25

Burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

21:22-36 The cases here mentioned give rules of justice then, and still in use, for deciding similar matters. We are taught by these laws, that we must be very careful to do no wrong, either directly or indirectly. If we have done wrong, we must be very willing to make it good, and be desirous that nobody may lose by us.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The rule would seem to refer to a case in which the wife of a man interfered in a quarrel. This law, "the jus talionis," is elsewhere repeated in substance, compare the marginal references. and Genesis 9:6. It has its root in a simple conception of justice, and is found in the laws of many ancient nations. It serves in this place as a maxim for the magistrate in awarding the amount of compensation to be paid for the infliction of personal injury. The sum was to be as nearly as possible the worth in money of the power lost by the injured person. Our Lord quotes Exodus 21:24 as representing the form of the law, in order to illustrate the distinction between the letter and the spirit Matthew 5:38. The tendency of the teaching of the Scribes and Pharisees was to confound the obligations of the conscience with the external requirements of the law. The law, in its place, was still to be "holy and just and good," Romans 7:12, but its direct purpose was to protect the community, not to guide the heart of the believer, who was not to exact eye for eye, tooth for tooth, but to love his enemies, and to forgive all injuries.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

23-25. eye for eye—The law which authorized retaliation (a principle acted upon by all primitive people) was a civil one. It was given to regulate the procedure of the public magistrate in determining the amount of compensation in every case of injury, but did not encourage feelings of private revenge. The later Jews, however, mistook it for a moral precept, and were corrected by our Lord (Mt 5:38-42).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

No text from Poole on this verse.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe. This is to be understood of burning a man's flesh with fire; of wounds made by any means, so that the blood is let out; and of blows, and the prints and marks of them; of stripes and weals where the blood is settled, and the part is turned black and blue: the Targum of Jonathan is, the price of the pain of burning for burning, &c. and indeed, in everyone of these cases, the law could not be well literally executed; for it would be very difficult to burn and wound and mangle a man exactly as he had done another: and as Favorinus (h) objects against the law of the twelve tables of the Romans concerning retaliation, how can a man make a wound in another exactly as long, and as broad, and as deep as that he has given? nor would he suffer a larger to be made, as it was not just it should; and to which may be added, that all constitutions are not alike, and burning and wounding and striping, especially in some parts, might prove mortal, and the person might die thereby; to them the law of retaliation would not be observed, the punishment would be exceeded; and it is much more agreeable to justice and equity that it should be lessened rather than increased; and it may be observed, the law of the twelve tables with the Romans, concerning maiming of members, only took place when the parties could not come to an agreement; and with respect to the Jewish law, Josephus (i) himself says, that the man that has his eye put out may receive money for it, if he is willing, which the law allows of.

(h) A. Gell. Noct. Attic. l. 20. c. 1.((i) Ut supra. (Antiqu. l. 4. c. 33, 35.)

Geneva Study Bible

Burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

25. wound] Genesis 4:23 c (lit. for my wound). Isaiah 1:6.

stripe] Genesis 4:23 d (lit. for my stripe), Isaiah 1:6 [EVV. bruises], Isaiah 53:5.

The talio is a principle of punishment which was anciently, and still is, current widely in the world: Kn. quotes examples from the Thurians and Locrians (an eye for an eye), the Indians (Strabo, p. 710) the XII. Tables (‘si membrum rupit, ni cum eo pacit, talio esto’): Rhadamanthys was said to have declared that it was a just punishment when a man suffered what he had done (Arist. Eth. N. v. 8. 3); and there are several cases in the code of Hạmmurabi, §§ 116, 196, 197, 200, 210, 219, 229, 235, 263, &c.: see Cook, p. 249). For numerous instances is modern times, see A. H. Post, Grundriss der ethnol. Jurisprudenz (1894–5), ii. 238 ff.

Exodus 21:25

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

If men strove and thrust against a woman with child, who had come near or between them for the purpose of making peace, so that her children come out (come into the world), and no injury was done either to the woman or the child that was born,

(Note: The words ילדיה ויצאוּ are rendered by the lxx καὶ ἐξέλθη τὸ παιδίον αὐτῆς μὴ ἐξεικονισμένον and the corresponding clause יהיה אסון ואם by ἐὰν δὲ ἐξεικονισμένον ᾖ; consequently the translators have understood the words as meaning that the fruit, the premature birth of which was caused by the blow, if not yet developed into a human form, was not to be regarded as in any sense a human being, so that the giver of the blow was only required to pay a pecuniary compensation, - as Philo expresses it, "on account of the injury done to the woman, and because he prevented nature, which forms and shapes a man into the most beautiful being, from bringing him forth alive." But the arbitrary character of this explanation is apparent at once; for ילד only denotes a child, as a fully developed human being, and not the fruit of the womb before it has assumed a human form. In a manner no less arbitrary אסון has been rendered by Onkelos and the Rabbins מותא, death, and the clause is made to refer to the death of the mother alone, in opposition to the penal sentence in Exodus 21:23, Exodus 21:24, which not only demands life for life, but eye for eye, etc., and therefore presupposes not death alone, but injury done to particular members. The omission of להּ, also, apparently renders it impracticable to refer the words to injury done to the woman alone.)

a pecuniary compensation was to be paid, such as the husband of the woman laid upon him, and he was to give it בּפללים by (by an appeal to) arbitrators. A fine is imposed, because even if no injury had been done to the woman and the fruit of her womb, such a blow might have endangered life. (For יצא roF( to go out of the womb, see Genesis 25:25-26.) The plural ילדיה is employed for the purpose of speaking indefinitely, because there might possibly be more than one child in the womb. "But if injury occur (to the mother or the child), thou shalt give soul for soul, eye for eye,...wound for wound:" thus perfect retribution was to be made.