NOTES for Лев 24:1-23
On the basis of these words, many criminals and heretics were killed. The expressions "tooth for tooth" and "eye for eye" became symbols of "human justice." Yet this position is only one step out of three.
The first of them, the judicial system of ancient society, prescribed not equal retribution but always took into account the difference in estate and class position between the injured person and the offender, and often repaid an eye not with an eye, but with death, and death with the destruction of an entire family or clan. The next step in the divine regulation of our relations is the Old Testament statutes that we read today. Finally, the picture is completed by the Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel (Matthew 5-7), where the Lord speaks of the blessedness of those who love their enemies and do not repay evil for evil.
Exactly which system we should be guided by is a question addressed not only to today's governments and lawmakers, but above all to each of us.