Why do we say "An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth"?

Well-Known Expressions

An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth

Meaning:

The punishment should match the crime

Background:

The earliest known example of this expression is as one of the 282 laws of the Babylonian King Hammurabi (c.1790 BC).  The Code of Hammurabi was inscribed on huge stone slabs, known as steles - one example of which was discovered in in Iran in 1901 (having been plundered from Babylon in the 12th century BC).  It is now housed in the Louvre museum in Paris. 

The Code of Hammurabi is the oldest example of an almost complete set of ancient laws, but it is by no means the first set of laws. For example, the small sample still in existence of The Code of Ur-Nammu predates Hammurabi by at least 300 years.

Scholars believe that the earliest human legal systems were almost universally based on the principle of the law of retaliation (lex talionis) - that is the law of equal and direct retribution. 

Most scholars believe Hammurabi died in 1750 BC, and that his code was written in about 1786 BC (some scholars speculate that the biblical Nimrod and Hammurabi are one and the same).  This means that that Hammurabi lived about the same time as Abraham, and about four hundred years before Moses.

Which of course brings us back to the reason that this expression is so well known today - although the law itself is likely to date back to well before Hammurabi, the expression is so familiar to us today because of its frequent use in the Torah (the first five books of the Old Testament) where references to 'an eye for an eye' can be found in Exodus, Deuteronomy and Leviticus.

Anyone who kills an animal shall make restitution for it, life for life. Anyone who maims another shall suffer the same injury in return: fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; the injury inflicted is the injury to be suffered."  Leviticus 24:18-20

More expressions and their source

Challenge yourself with BookBrowse Wordplays

BookBrowse Book Club

Book Jacket
Broken Country (Reese's Book Club)
by Clare Leslie Hall
A love triangle reveals deadly secrets in this thriller for fans of The Paper Palace and Where the Crawdads Sing.

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    The Original
    by Nell Stevens

    In a grand English country house in 1899, an aspiring art forger must unravel whether the man claiming to be her long-lost cousin is an impostor.

  • Book Jacket

    The Whyte Python World Tour
    by Travis Kennedy

    Rikki Thunder, drummer for '80s metal band Whyte Python, is on the verge of fame, love—and a spy mission he didn’t expect.

  • Book Jacket

    The World's Greatest Detective and Her Just Okay Assistant
    by Liza Tully

    A great detective's young assistant yearns for glory, but first they have learn to get along in this delightful feel good mystery.

  • Book Jacket

    Angelica
    by Molly Beer

    A women-centric view of revolution through the life of Angelica Schuyler Church, Alexander Hamilton's influential sister-in-law.

Win This Book
Win These Blue Mountains

These Blue Mountains by Sarah Loudin Thomas

"[An] atmospheric tale of unexpected hope." —Lisa Wingate, New York Times bestselling author

Enter

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

E H L the B

and be entered to win..

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.