“Breaking for broken, an eye for an eye, tooth for tooth. As one gives harm so shall that person be given” (Leviticus 24.20).
There’s a novel called The Bridge on my shelf (alright, shelves) I picked up at a library sale, mostly for its old-style cover. Published in the late 1980s, it features a river with a bridge spanning over it. And upon the bridge, rising up from the waters are dark tentacles or vines. Nature’s out of joint, and looking for revenge.
You know this passage. People who’ve never picked up a Bible know this instruction. Eye for eye, tooth for tooth. Life, in other words, for life. This is what the violent, the murderous bring upon themselves when they harm another human being. This is why we have electric chairs and potassium chloride, to fulfill this instruction.
But let’s step back a moment, look at the chapter from which this verse arises. This is part of a Divine speech that comes when the nameless man we talked about last week is brought forward for his violation of the Holy Name. God begins with pronouncing the punishment due for such an act, but then seems to take a turn, as if there’s something else that’s on God’s mind.
Anyone who takes human life should be put to death, the Holy One says. That seems strange to say in light of this nameless man’s deed—of speaking violently. But maybe it’s what Jesus is thinking of in the Sermon on the Mount when he says that calling someone a fool is just as bad as murdering them. Perhaps, in context, God wanted to remind us that our hearts can be just as deadly, as dehumanizing as our hands.
But then God says something we don’t usually talk about. Whoever kills an animal owes life for that life. An eye for an eye, even if it isn’t a human one, it seems. But animal lives aren’t the same as ours. This is more about property and restitution, don’t you think?
Three times when speaking about animals the Holy One uses the word nefesh. It’s a word that gets translated as living being or as a one’s very self. Many times, however, it’s rendered as soul. Whoever strikes the soul of an animal must make restoration, soul for soul.
How we repay isn’t defined. In a one-to-one context, it might be nothing more than giving of another animal. But what does it mean for our cities, our countries, our world that has taken those lives by changing habitats, destroying food chains, and making the weather unbearable. Do we owe compensation for those souls? Are we liable to the One who made them? Are we liable to them?
And what would it mean to return souls for souls? Surely it’s not in the haunting and hungry tentacles of The Bridge. Creation doesn’t demand life from us. What would that serve, anyhow? What good would our perishing do for the world? What justice is served by being wrapped and squeezed in those vines?
Unless, of course, we’re already wrapped up in them, and the fate of our souls as well.
Creator of All, I have cared for this world as I could have, forgotten that even the lilies and sparrows are precious to you. Help me take better care of this world.