Verse Lens · Expanded explanation
Leviticus 24:20 Explained in Context
Use this verse as a doorway into the larger passage—not as an isolated saying.
Verse 20. 20Breach for breach, eye for eye, tooth for tooth: as he hath caused a blemish in a man, so shall it be done to him again.
King James Version — public domain in the United States · Bible text and permissions
Quick Meaning
This verse illustrates proportionality with fracture, eye, and tooth formulas.
Homicide, livestock, and injury are not one crime
This verse is one part of that explanation in Leviticus 24:17-23. The complete section carries the connected meaning and how it should shape life.
Read It With
- Leviticus 24:17-23
Read through 24:17-23 and watch how each actor, material, status, or command relates. Leviticus 24:20 illustrates proportionality with fracture, eye, and tooth formulas; the whole unit establishes this: Human killing receives death, animal killing restitution, and injury receives the eye-for-eye proportional formula; one law applies to resident outsider and native before the reported execution.
Why This Verse Appears Here
Leviticus places this unit within the chapter's deliberate shift from continual lamp and bread service to a named legal case, custody, divine judgment, proportional injury law, equal resident law, and execution. Its particular contribution is: Human killing receives death, animal killing restitution, and injury receives the eye-for-eye proportional formula; one law applies to resident outsider and native before the reported execution. Within that movement, this verse illustrates proportionality with fracture, eye, and tooth formulas.
Follow the Context
- The unit opens the particular procedure, case, scene, or instruction named “Homicide, animal loss, bodily injury, and equal law are distinguished.”
- Human killing receives death, animal killing restitution, and injury receives the eye-for-eye proportional formula; one law applies to resident outsider and native before the reported execution.
- The unit closes with this interpretive boundary: Lex talionis limits proportionality within an ancient court; it does not authorize personal revenge, mutilation, execution, or anti-immigrant violence.
Phrase-by-Phrase Explanation
“eye for eye”
In plain language: The formula states proportionate equivalence for bodily injury.
It appears in a judicial sequence distinguishing homicide, animal loss, and injury.
Why it matters: It limits response and does not command private mutilation.
How certain? strongWhat This Verse Is Not Saying
Leviticus 24:20 does not turn its distinct contribution—illustrates proportionality with fracture, eye, and tooth formulas—into a free-standing rule; lex talionis limits proportionality within an ancient court; it does not authorize personal revenge, mutilation, execution, or anti-immigrant violence.
What Remains True
Eye-for-eye language limits injury response to proportionate equivalence in an ancient judicial setting rather than commanding personal mutilation.
How It Can Shape Life
- Pursue proportionate, evidence-based justice and repair; reject revenge, torture, collective punishment, and punishment that exceeds proven harm.
Teach It Back
Explain Leviticus 24:20's contribution to Leviticus 24:17-23. Name the category involved, what the surrounding verses add, any material uncertainty, and what the verse does not authorize.
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Continue in Context
Read the complete section for the connected explanation and how it should shape life. This verse is a doorway into that passage, not a saying that stands alone.
Read Leviticus 24:17-23 — Homicide, animal loss, bodily injury, and equal law are distinguishedSources used for this Verse Lens
How certain is this explanation? probable
Where care is needed
Interpreters disagree over Priestly and Holiness composition, legal scope, ancient enforcement, kinship structures, sexual acts and rationales, moral versus ritual categories, resident-outside status, and how Jews and Christians should reason from these texts today. Material alternatives are stated without pretending the ethical stakes disappear.
These are the sources used directly for this lens. Language, grammar, disagreements, and the complete source shelf remain attached to the full thought-unit research record.
Biblical text
King James (Authorized) Version — eng-kjv2006
eBible.org and CrossWire Bible Society
USFM archive eng-kjv2006_usfm.zip; source files dated 2026-08-19; downloaded 2026-08-24; archive SHA-256 aec1b3b26c622fd3d963d2bbac963016b9513246ffbfa20da00bb100372ea007; normalized corpus SHA-256 09aef51d90488aa7b9722b3fd9a93f4b25f6bf2064c5fd798fb39673c300ddf2.
Supports: Exact reader-facing KJV wording, paragraph metadata, supplied-word markup, and complete verse coverage for this thought unit.
Exact location: Leviticus 24:17-23, pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM corpus
Open source ↗hebrew text and morphology
Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible: Leviticus
Open Scriptures
Open Scriptures, release 2.2
Supports: Hebrew wording, morphology, ritual and legal vocabulary, names, clause relationships, KJV language controls, and translation limits.
Exact location: Open Scriptures MorphHB v.2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/Lev.xml, Masoretic words and morphology for 24:17-23
Open source ↗translation and translator notes
NET Bible: Leviticus with translators' notes
Biblical Studies Press
eBible.org distribution of the NET Bible, PDF generated 2025-12-31
Supports: Unit-bounded translator notes on Hebrew, syntax, ritual vocabulary, measures, textual questions, and older-English wording; silence is not treated as evidence.
Exact location: NET Bible Leviticus PDF, complete PDF pp. 1-99, translation and translator notes for 24:17-23
Open source ↗