Exodus 21:22-25

22-25. As the woman’s husband will lay upon him The Hebrews threw every possible safeguard about the fruit of the womb, and an injury of the kind here specified was treated as a very grave offence . If death resulted it was punished as a capital crime, and life for life was demanded . If, however, other and less serious damage followed, the punishment was to be proportioned, according to a rigorous law of retaliation, ( lex talionis.)

The woman might be injured in eye, tooth, hand, or foot, or by means of burning, (branding by a hot iron,) or some other wound or stripe, purposely or accidentally given, or the unborn offspring might be harmed in some of these ways, and a corresponding injury was accordingly to be inflicted upon the offender. The lex talionis, or law of retaliation, which appears in this passage and in Leviticus 24:19-20; Deuteronomy 19:21, is one of the most simple and ancient conceptions of righteous retribution. It has often been condemned as barbarous, but it is grounded in the intuitions of justice, and asserted itself in the legislation of many ancient nations, as the Romans, Greeks, and Indians. “It would seem,” says Michaelis, “that Moses retained the law of retaliation from a more ancient, and a very natural, law of usage.” It would naturally tend to prevent personal injuries, and all must see and acknowledge that when a man speedily receives in his own person the same damage he wilfully inflicted on another, he but receives his deserts and has no ground to complain. But, like the law which authorized the nearest kinsman of a murdered man to avenge his death, this law was liable to be abused. It gave too much room for the gratification of personal bitterness and hatred, and hence, mainly, the reason of our Lord’s words in Matthew 5:38-39. The New Testament teaching, as has been so often explained, does not condemn the Mosaic law as unjust, but warns against the feeling of personal bitterness and revenge which is so likely to arise from a sense of injury. That should rather be crucified by a doing good for evil where the public welfare will not suffer thereby.