Leviticus 24:17-23·~1 min

An Eye for an Eye

The LORD lays down laws for homicide, damage to animals, and personal injury, requiring death, restitution, or equivalent injury as the case demands. These judgments are to be applied by the same standard to foreign resident and native alike.

A¹⁷nd if a man takes the life of anyone else, he must surely be put to death. ¹⁸Whoever kills an animal must make restitution — life for life. ¹⁹If anyone injures his neighbor, whatever he has done must be done to him: ²⁰fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. Just as he injured the other person, the same must be inflicted on him. ²¹Whoever kills an animal must make restitution, but whoever kills a man must be put to death. ²²You are to have the same standard of law for the foreign resident and the native; for I am the LORD your God.’”

Moses tells the Israelites, and they take the blasphemer outside the camp and stone him as the LORD commanded.

²³Then Moses spoke to the Israelites, and they took the blasphemer outside the camp and stoned him. So the Israelites did as the LORD had commanded Moses.

Section summaryThe LORD sets measured penalties for killing and injury: human life requires death, animals require restitution, and bodily injury is answered in kind. The same law governs native and foreigner alike, and the chapter closes with Israel carrying out the blasphemer's sentence.

Role in the chapterThis closing section places the blasphemy case inside a wider pattern of public justice. It shows that Israel's judgments are to be proportionate, exact, and impartial under the LORD's authority.