An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth
Torah“An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” is a formula of proportionate recompense: injury answers injury, but the remedy is bounded by the harm established. Its legal settings connect that measure to judicial determination and public accountability, while narratives elsewhere in the book show how claims of redress can turn into wider violence.
Meaning Across the Book
Across legal prescription and narrative, the expression marks a boundary on retaliation and makes the relation between offense and consequence explicit. The legal passages attach that boundary to evidence, inquiry, and judgment; the stories test the distance between a claim of justice and the harm that action in its name may produce.
