An Eye for an Eye—The Biblical Principle of Proportionality

Biblical genealogies link them to the Edomites, who were descended from Jacob’s brother Esau. William H. C. Propp, Exodus 1–18, Anchor Bible 2 (New York: Doubleday, 1998), 616.

See some discussion in Marc Zvi Brettler, “Destroying Amalek,” Future of the Past.

As Saul spared their king, Agag, and the best of the sheep and cattle to sacrifice them, instead of doing exactly as he had been told, he is rejected from being king over Israel.

See the discussion in, Gili Kugler, “Amalek: A Pawn in the Rivalry Between Saul and David’s Legacy,” TheTorah (2022).

This practice, known as ḥerem, or the “ban,” was thought to be a form of sacrifice, since the people and animals were offered to God. Philip D. Stern, The Biblical Ḥerem: A Window on Ancient Israel’s Religious Experience, Brown Judaica Studies [BJS] 211 (Atlanta: Scholars Press 1991); Susan Niditch, War in the Hebrew Bible: A Study in the Ethics. Of Violence (New York: Oxford, 1993), 28–29; Mordechai Cogan, “Deuteronomy’s Herem Law: Protecting Israel at the Cost of its Humanity,” TheTorah (2022). It is also attested in a Moabite inscription, who offered their victims to their god, Chemosh. Andrew Dearman, ed., Studies in the Mesha Inscription and Moab (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1999).

For the lack of historicity of this conquest, see Mordechai Cogan, “Israel’s Incomplete Conquest of Canaan,” TheTorah (2022). For the moral quandary, see Gili Kugler, “Joshua’s Conquest: A Cultural and Pedagogical Dilemma in Modern Israel,” TheTorah (2021).

John Calvin, The Book of Joshua, trans. Henry Beverridge (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1949), 97.

Calvin, The Book of Joshua, p. 163.

[9] R. H. Bainton, Christian Attitudes, Toward War and Peace: A Historical Survey and Critical Re-Evaluation (Nashville: Abingdon, 1960), 168.

Noah Lanard, “The Dangerous History behind Netanyahu’s Amalek Reference,” Mother Jones (Nov. 3, 2023).

Israel Hess, “The Mitzvah of Genocide in the Torah,” Bat Kol, February 26, 1980. See Karen Armstrong, The Battle for God: A History of Fundamentalism (New York: Ballantine Books, 2001), 346.

See, for example, Eric H. Yoffie, “Promoting Racism in Israel,” Sh'ma: A Journal of Jewish Ideas 13 (1983): 91–93. For later responses, see, Shulamit Aloni, “Losing God's Image,” Haaretz (Sept 15, 2004); Avshalom C. Elitzur, “The Remembrance of Amalek and the Taste of Pork: The Anatomy of Metaphysical Hatred” [זֶכֶר העמלק וטעם החזיר: האנטומיה של השנאה המטפיזית], in In the Furnace of Creation: Jubilee for the Work of Shlomo Giora Shoham [בכוּר היצירה: יובל ליצירתו של שלמה גיורא שוהם], ed. Hami Bin-Nun and Avshalom Elitzur (Hod HaSharon: Michlelet Sha’arei Mishpat, 2004), 118-185 [140–141].

See the Wikipedia entry, “Israel Hess.”

The moral challenge is not unique to Jews and Christians. Muslim terrorists claimed authorization in the Qur’an for their attacks on the U. S. in September 2001.

On the understanding of revelation in Jewish tradition see Benjamin D. Sommer, Revelation and Authority. Sinai in Jewish Scripture and Tradition. AYBRL (New Haven: Yale, 2015).

Moshe Greenberg, “On the Political Use of the Bible in Modern Israel: An Engaged Critique,” in Pomegranates and Golden Bells: Studies in Biblical, Jewish, and Near Eastern Ritual, Law and Literature in Honor of Jacob Milgrom, ed. D. P. Wright et al. (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1995), 461–471 [469–470]. His focus is more on the conquest of Canaan passages, which also make use of ḥerem, but it applies equally to the Amalek law.

Greenberg, “On the Political Use,” 466–68.

For how to understand the phrase “your neighbor” in this context, see John J. Collins, “Love Your Neighbor: How It Became the Golden Rule,” TheTorah (2020). For an alternative view, see Richard Elliott Friedman, “Love Your Neighbor – Only Israelites or Everyone?” Biblical Archaeology Review (Sept-Oct 2014): 48-52; idem, “The Exodus, the Alien, and the Neighbor,” TheTorah (2017).

Mark 12:28–30; Matthew 22:34–40; Luke 10:25–28.

Neither does conquest of the land, as Greenberg (“On the Political Use,” 467) points out.

On the contrary, the Torah, Prophets and Psalms all emphasize the importance of treating one’s fellow human beings humanely. Jeremiah Unterman, Justice for All: How the Jewish Bible Revolutionized Ethics (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2017).

The term means “law of retaliation,” and it comes from medieval legal Latin: lex=law, talionis=from Latin talio meaning “exaction of payment in kind.” The Latin verb derives from the Latin adjective talis, meaning “such,” i.e., such was done and such will be repaid.

The same principle is found already in the Laws of Hammurabi (LH 195–201), except that Babylonian law varies the penalty depending on social status, i.e., whether the injured party is an awīlum (nobleman), a muškēnum (commoner), or a wardum (slave). For example, if someone destroyed the eye of an awīlum, he must lose his eye; if it was the eye of a muškēnum he must pay a fine on mina, and if a slave, half that.

So W. Wink, Jesus and Nonviolence: A Third Way (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003).

Paul is citing Proverbs 25:21–22. Proverbs does not envision punishment after death. In that context the burning coals have been explained as a metaphor for pain and humiliation, possibly alluding to an Egyptian ritual. See Michael Fox, Proverbs 10–31. Anchor Yale Bible 18B (New Haven: Yale, 2009), 787.

Krister Stendahl, “Hate, Non-Retaliation and Love. 1QS X 17–20 and Rom 12:19–21,” HTR 55(1962): 343–55.

Brevard S. Childs, The Book of Exodus; OTL (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1974), 472.

Philo, Special Laws 3. 181–2, trans. F. H. Colson. Philo VII. Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, MA: Harvard, 1984), 589–591.