Deuteronomy 19 Footnotes

19:1 The Lord’s destruction of the nations of Canaan and Israel’s appropriation of their properties might appear arbitrary and unfair. But these nations were living in the land previously promised to the descendants of Abraham (Gn 12:1; 13:17; 15:18-21), and their possession of it was illegitimate according to the plan of God. Secondly, the Canaanites were a people who had placed themselves beyond redemption through their implacable defiance of God, persisting in their abominable social and religious practices (see notes on Dt 1:30; 2:21; 2:34; 7:2; Rm 1:20).

19:6 Under the system of blood vengeance, a family member of a person whose life was taken by another could pursue and execute the murderer. This was not the random act of a vigilante, for the community had procedures by which it regulated the process (vv. 15-20). Underlying this system was the sense of corporate solidarity, in which every member of a family was considered to be part of the body. That which injures one member injures all. In the modern Western world, in which the individual has come to be regarded as sovereign, the concept of community solidarity is not well appreciated.

19:21 The measure-for-measure justice this directive advocates, known as lex talionis, need not be taken to mean, for example, that if a person should blind another person their eye should be blinded in turn. The principle is that a punishment must always be commensurate with a crime. It should neither exceed, nor be less than, the gravity of the offense (Lv 24:19-20). In the context of surrounding cultures where vengeance had no limits, lex talionis was a standard far more just.