Exodus 21:24 · World English Bible
Exodus 21:24 Meaning Eye for Eye
eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot,
What does Exodus 21:24 mean?
Every faculty answers to its own kind within the body. The eye is the seeing power of consciousness, and what one takes from it is repaid only in seeing; the tooth grinds and takes in nourishment, and its debt is paid in the grinding.
From the Esoteric reading below.
Exodus 21:24 through 1 lens
The same verse, read by one tradition.
Esoteric
ESOTERIC
Esoteric
Every faculty answers to its own kind within the body. The eye is the seeing power of consciousness, and what one takes from it is repaid only in seeing; the tooth grinds and takes in nourishment, and its debt is paid in the grinding. This is the law of exact return worked out through the members: nothing crosses over. The hand that acts is measured against another hand, the foot that carries the walk against another foot, each energy of the body matched precisely to itself.
The reckoning is inward and even. What is done through one center of the self comes back through that same center, weighed against nothing but its own equal, so the whole body stays in balance.
Eye: the seeing power of consciousness, the inward vision by which a person perceives Tooth: the grinding faculty that breaks down and takes in experience for nourishment Hand: the acting, working energy of the body that reaches out and shapes Foot: the moving power that carries the whole walk and understanding of a person forward
Esoteric lensGo deeper in the app
Esoteric lens
Live Exodus 21:24 today
- Pick one thing you have been paying for in the wrong currency. If you have been short on sleep, no amount of extra work fixes it, and if you have been short on honesty, no amount of being nice does either.
- When you owe someone, pay in the same kind you took. If you took their time, give time back, not a gift card. If you cut them off in a conversation, give them the floor, not a compliment.
- Under pressure, answer what was actually asked. In a tense email or a meeting, a question about money gets a number, a question about trust gets the truth, and swapping one for the other is what people always remember.
Where am I trying to settle a debt with the wrong kind of payment?
The same truth in other traditions
Dhammapada
Every deed carries its own kind home. A seed returns as its own plant and nothing else, so the quality of an act is what comes back, not more and not other.
Bhagavad Gita
Do the work that belongs to your own nature. Each power in you has its own duty and its own account, and borrowing another's measure brings only confusion.
Judaism · Pirkei Avot
Measure for measure. What you hand out comes back in the same currency you spent, no exchange rate, no substitution.
Free · No account needed
Read all of Exodus 21 through 17 lenses
Lensightful opens every verse of the Bible through the traditions you choose. Save readings, ask a follow-up question, and get one verse a day.
Get Lensightful on the App Store