I believe this phrase is the most misconstrued in the entire Bible. The purpose of this law is to keep vendettas from getting out of hand. In modern parlance, it would have been phrased thus: "If someone steps on your toe, don't escalate the conflict to murdering each other, keep things in perspective. If someone knocked out your tooth, then find a equitable solution as restitution; that is, what should the other party pay you in compensation that is of equal value to having a tooth knocked out. But if it is a tooth that is the matter under discussion don't ask for payment as if he knocked out your eye: an eye is worth an eye and a tooth is worth a tooth."

If someone lost a finger due to someone else's negligence, the law here said that payment should be commensurate with the loss, but not more. Accordingly the huge, disproportionate jury awards ² that we read about in the tens of millions or even in the hundreds of thousands of dollars for having hot coffee burn your thighs is against Jewish law.

Jewish Law is rightly more concerned with restitution than with punishment.

Which brings me to a recent episode of the TV series "Lie to Me" entitled Depraved Heart. *** WARNING SPOILER ALERT *** Do not read further if you haven't yet viewed this episode.

In this show Dr. Gillian Foster (played by Kelli Williams) tries to recover billions of dollars for investors in a teachers' union pension fund who were scammed in a Ponzi scheme by a Bernie Maddoff type named Hollin. Foster suspects that Hollin's daughter is the real culprit and makes a deal with him not to go after the daughter if she divulges where all the bilked billions are banked.

Hollins is pretending that he stole the money to protect his daughter and is willing to go to jail in her stead. But Foster's lead researcher, Eli Loker (played by Brendan Hines) is upset that the daughter won't be going to jail. Foster argues that it's better for the investors to get their money back then for Hollin's daughter to go to jail, that restitution is more important than punishment.

Later we find out that the self-righteous idiot Eli alerted the authorities that the daughter is the true scamster, but in so doing puts the kibosh on restitution. Eli gets his personal satisfaction that Justice in the form of punishment gets done. Unfortunately for the investors, they get to remain penniless and destitute in order for Eli to get his feelings of moral rectitude. Justice in the form of restitution would have been better for the poor investors.

I have met selfish morons like this character Eli many times in my life. They would prefer that a child starve rather than accept food from someone they don't like. They only care about themselves and to hell what happens to others. These are the same kinds of imbeciles who give to so-called 'Africa Aid' just so they can pretend they care without troubling themselves to investigate how their aid keeps the recipients in perpetual poverty and misery. I speak here of Liberals, the most unmerciful, uncompassionate, pretentious dogs on this planet. See my article For Gods Sake - Stop Helping Africa.

What would I do if I were an investor who could have recovered my retirement nestegg but for the actions of a guy like Eli? Why I would misapply the eye for an eye dictum and make sure he paid dearly for his righteousness.

Notes

(1):

Oremus Bible Browser, exodus 21:23-21:27

²³If any harm follows, then you shall give life for life, ²⁴eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, ²⁵burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.

²⁶When a slave-owner strikes the eye of a male or female slave, destroying it, the owner shall let the slave go, a free person, to compensate for the eye. ²⁷If the owner knocks out a tooth of a male or female slave, the slave shall be let go, a free person, to compensate for the tooth.

(2):

Planck's Constant, Tort Reform - We need to stop these idiots from suing

A 14-year-old Travis County girl who said she was sexually assaulted by a man she met on MySpace.com sued the social networking site for $30 million, claiming that it fails to protect minors from adult sexual predators.