One last thing becomes very apparent as we study these laws.
Perhaps our own legal tradition owes much to this tradition of Hebrew equity, Hebrew equal justice under the law. There is a constant refrain through out these laws that there is to be equitable justice, that there is to be equal justice for all under the law. The female is to be treated with the same justice as a male. The poor man is to be treated with the same justice as the rich man and the civic leader.
#An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth free
That is, the slave is to be treated with the same justice that the free man is to be treated. Secondly, however, we learn from this passage that equal justice under the law is a principle in God's legislation in Israel. We can't be personally pious and publicly immoral, as much as people would like to convince you otherwise in our day and time, those two things go together and that is very apparent from this study. In other words, He desires a behavior of righteousness in our conduct in society which is befitting our claims as His people and His constant refrain of constant morality in this section reminds us of that. One of the things that this section of God's words makes crystal clear is that God is not satisfied with our simply being personally pious, but He desires us to be publicly moral.
God is very concerned about the public behavior of His people. Before we look at this section, I want to say that it is clear from our studies so far in this book of the covenant, that three things are becoming more and more apparent in our study. Now, we will deal with a set of laws about bodily injuries and due penalty for those bodily injuries. We have already looked at the subject of worship and slavery and capital punishment. I trust that our study of God's word here helped you evaluate that from a biblical perspective.
#An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth pro
Perhaps you read some of the articles pro and con in the newspaper. In fact, it was interesting when we studied the death penalty, it was the very week protests were being planed for the first state execution of a criminal guilty of a capital crime. In the last weeks in which we have been in this book, we have been away from it for a couple of weeks doing some other studies, but in the last three or four times we have been together in Exodus chapter 20 and 21, looking at these laws for public life in Israel, we have looked at the subjects of worship at the end of Exodus chapter 20, we have looked at the subject of slavery at the beginning of Exodus 21, and we have even looked at the death penalty. It gives us a public application of the moral principles which have been set forth in the Ten Commandments. That is a section of Exodus from chapter 20 to 23, and it is often called a covenant code. We are continuing through our summer long study of the book of the covenant. If you have your Bibles I'd invite you to turn with me to Exodus chapter 21. What Does “An Eye for An Eye” Really Mean?
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