What Does Deuteronomy 19:21 Mean?
And your eye shall not spare; living soul for living soul, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And thine eye shall not pity; but life shall go for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.THE KEY
The repeated body parts place a boundary around consequence: pity cannot erase the harm, and response cannot exceed it.
THE MEANING
Here, judgment is measured against the injury: life answers to life, eye to eye, tooth to tooth, hand to hand, and foot to foot. The command against pity names a refusal to spare the one whose act caused the harm. In the surrounding passage, this measure answers to false testimony.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that pity requires a judge to overlook harm: here, sparing the one who caused it would make the injury disappear from judgment.
THE ROOT
תָחוֹס
taḥōs
GROWS FROM
ח־ו־ס
To spare, to have pity.
“spare” in this verse is taḥōs. The word carries the force of sparing someone, so the verse addresses more than a feeling in the eye: it names the decision to withhold a consequence. Here, pity cannot make the harm vanish from judgment.
ALSO GROWS
ḥûs: Spare; show pity.
חוּס
This verb names the act of sparing that the verse says the eye must not do.
taḥōs: Shall spare; shall pity.
תָחוֹס
This form appears in the verse, making pity a concrete choice about whether judgment is carried out.
נֶפֶשׁ
nephesh
GROWS FROM
נ־פ־ש
The living self, the living soul or person.
“living soul” in this verse is nephesh. The measure begins with a living person, not an abstract unit called “life.” The repeated body parts keep that same concreteness: judgment is attached to the actual person and injury at stake.
ALSO GROWS
nephesh: Living soul; person.
נֶפֶשׁ
In “life for life,” the word brings the living person into view rather than treating life as a detached idea.
vayyinnāphaš: Was refreshed; rested.
וַיִּנָּפַשׁ
This verbal form appears in Exodus 31:17; its connection to the living self adds the dimension of a life that can be restored.
THE PATTERN
The measure of consequence is bounded by the measure of injury.
Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot,Break for break, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. As he has set a blemish in a man, so shall it be set upon him.You have heard that it was said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.THE THREAD
You shall not yield to him, nor hear and respond to him; your eye shall not pity him, nor shall you spare him, nor shall you cover him.The phrase “thine eye pity” uses the same verb as “thine eye shall not pity” here. In both verses, pity carries the force of sparing, making clear that the text concerns withholding judgment as well as feeling compassion.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us