1 Yahweh spoke to Moses and said,
2 “Command the Israelites to bring you oil from pressed olives for the light, that a lamp may be kept burning continually.
3 Aaron shall keep the flame in order from evening until morning in the Tent of Meeting, outside the veil of the Statement. It shall be a lasting ordinance for all generations.
4 He shall set the lamps on the pure gold lampstand to burn continually before Yahweh.
5 Then you shall take fine flour and make twelve cakes, two-tenths of a measure in each cake.
6 Place them in two rows, six in each, on the pure gold table before Yahweh.
7 On each row put pure frankincense, so that the bread may be a memorial, as an offering by fire to Yahweh.
8 Every sabbath Aaron shall set the bread in order before Yahweh on behalf of the Israelites as a lasting covenant.
9 The bread will be for Aaron and his sons; they are to consider it as a most holy portion of the sacrifices by fire to Yahweh and they shall eat it in a holy place. This is a lasting law.”
The blasphemy
10 The son of an Israelite woman quarreled with a man of Israel in the camp and
11 the son of the Israelite woman blasphemed the name of Yahweh with a curse, so they brought him to Moses. (His mother was Shelomith, the daughter of Dibri of the tribe of Dan).
12 They put him under guard until a decision from Yahweh would be made known.
13 Yahweh said to Moses, “Take the man who has cursed out of the camp.
14 All who have heard him curse will lay their hands on his head and the entire assembly shall stone him to death.
15 Then say this to the Israelites: The man who curses God shall pay for his sin
16 and whoever blasphemes the name of Yahweh shall be put to death. The whole assembly shall stone him; the alien, like the native, shall be put to death when he blasphemes the Name.
The law of retaliation
17 Whoever kills a man shall be put to death.
18 Whoever kills an animal shall replace the loss, life for life.
19 If a man injures his neighbor, as he has done, so shall it be done to him.
20 Fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, just as he has injured another, so shall it be done to him.
21 He who kills a beast shall make up for it, and he who kills a man shall be put to death.
22 There shall be one law, the same for the alien and the native, for I am Yahweh, your God.”
23 So Moses spoke to the Israelites and they brought the man who had cursed outside the camp and stoned him. In this way the Israelites did as Yahweh had commanded Moses.
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Comments Leviticus, Chapter 24
• 24.17 Eye for eye. In 24:19 we have the so-called “Law of Talion.” This law seems cruel. It appears to accept vengeance as normal. But, in fact, it was an attempt to limit violent impulses such as resentment or the desire for retaliation. This law establishes that an enemy should only be hurt in proportion to the harm suffered: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. This was a way of civilizing people who were quite far from the Christian ideal. For give ness, as Christ preached it, is something radically new