What Does Leviticus 24:20 Mean?
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.
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
Breach 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.THE KEY
The Hebrew repeats the language of “giving”: the injury inflicted is matched by a consequence given in the same measure.
THE MEANING
The verse holds the injury and its answer in exact parallel: a breach for a breach, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. The harm is bodily and concrete, and the consequence falls on the one who caused it. Its measure is the same as the injury named.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the claim that one injury licenses retaliation of any scale: the return is measured by the harm itself.
THE ROOT
שֶׁבֶר
shever
GROWS FROM
שׁ־ב־ר
sh-b-r
To break or fracture.
“Breach” can sound abstract, but shever names a break or fracture. Repeating the word makes the measure concrete: the answer matches the break made, rather than widening it into unlimited vengeance.
ALSO GROWS
shavar: To break or shatter.
שָׁבַר
The related verb keeps the verse’s breach grounded in the act of breaking.
mishbar: A breaker or crashing wave.
מִשְׁבָּר
The same break-language can name a force that crashes; here it echoes the physical force behind the injury.
יִתֵּן
yitten
GROWS FROM
נ־ת־ן
n-t-n
To give, set, or place.
“set” in this verse is yitten. The Hebrew uses forms of natan twice: the wrongdoer “gives” the blemish, and the matching consequence “is given” to him. The shared verb makes the return reciprocal in its wording as well as its measure.
ALSO GROWS
natan: To give, set, or place.
נָתַן
This is the verb behind both the act that causes the injury and the consequence that follows.
mattan: A gift; something given.
מַתָּן
This noun from the same root makes the shared give-language visible beneath the verse’s paired actions.
THE PATTERN
The response named for bodily harm is measured against the harm itself.
Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot,And your eye shall not spare; living soul for living soul, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.You have heard that it was said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.THE THREAD
You have heard that it was said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. But I say to you, do not stand against evil. But whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn to him the other also.Jesus repeats the exact eye-for-eye formula, then names a response that does not mirror the blow. The pairing exposes the tension between measured return and the possibility of refusing a cycle of returned injury.
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