Exodus 21-24

What’s Happening?

Moses is still on the mountain with God. He has received the Ten Commandments, and now God begins to expand and apply them to everyday life. These chapters are not random laws. They are God explaining what life looks like in the world he is creating.

Just as in Genesis, God is bringing order out of chaos. In creation, God separated light from darkness, land from sea, life from death, and called it good. Now, in the wilderness, God is doing that same work again—this time not by shaping land and sky, but by shaping a people. God is creating a new Eden, a rightly ordered world where life can flourish.

That’s why the first thing to notice in these laws is not what they command, but what they reveal about who God is. God is just. He cares deeply about righting wrongs. He opposes oppression, dishonesty, and unchecked violence. He does not allow power to run wild.

This is where the famous phrase “eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth” must be understood rightly. This law is not a command to seek revenge. It is a limit placed on violence. In the ancient world, wrongdoing often led to escalating cycles of retaliation. One injury could result in an entire family or village being destroyed. God draws a firm boundary. Justice must be proportional. No more than what was taken can be taken in return.

If someone steals an animal, you cannot destroy their family. If someone injures another, you cannot retaliate beyond the injury. Violence stops here. God is restraining chaos so that life can continue.

These laws also reveal that justice ultimately belongs to God. Israel’s judges do not act as personal avengers. They act as representatives of God’s order. Even when humans wrong one another, the offense is ultimately against God, because every person bears his image. God alone is the final judge, the one who sets the boundaries that protect life.

But these laws also reveal something else: God is compassionate. He consistently sides with the vulnerable. Slaves, women, foreigners, the poor—those most easily exploited—are explicitly protected. For the ancient world, this is astonishing. God is not building a society that favors the strong, but one that restrains them.

Together, these laws show us what God wants. He wants a world that looks like him—a world ordered by justice and shaped by mercy. And his method for creating that world is not coercion, but formation. God is creating a people who reflect his character, so that through them, his ordered world can exist in the midst of chaos.

Where is the Gospel?

Jesus came as the new lawgiver, who would show us how to reorder the world to prevent chaos and protect life.

Jesus directly addresses “eye for an eye” in his teaching: “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other also” (Matthew 5:38–39). Jesus is not abolishing justice. He is taking God’s intention to its fullest expression. If the law limited retaliation, Jesus goes further and interrupts it entirely.

We see this lived out in Jesus’ ministry. When a woman is caught in adultery—an offense that legally allowed punishment—Jesus does not deny the law. Instead, he disarms the accusers. He exposes their own guilt, refuses to escalate violence, and chooses forgiveness over condemnation (John 8:1–11). Justice had a limit, but Jesus steps below it.

This is most clearly seen at the cross. Humanity commits a profound injustice against Jesus. He is betrayed, mocked, beaten, and executed. If there were ever a moment for “eye for an eye,” this was it. But instead of calling down judgment, Jesus turns the other cheek. He prays, “Father, forgive them” (Luke 23:34).

Jesus takes the violence of injustice into his body without retaliation in order to put death to an end. By refusing retaliation, he exposes the injustice of the world and opens the way for mercy. He shows us what God’s justice has always been moving toward—not endless punishment, but restored relationship.

Through Jesus, God’s new Eden expands. The ordered world the law pointed toward becomes a lived reality in a people shaped by forgiveness, generosity, and love for enemies. This is something the law could describe, but could not create. Jesus creates it by reshaping hearts.

By forgiving us when we were guilty, Jesus forms us into people who can forgive others. By showing mercy where judgment was allowed, he teaches us to do the same. God is still creating his ordered world—but now he does it from the inside out.

See for Yourself

May the Holy Spirit open your eyes to see the God who limits violence and protects life. And may you see Jesus as the one who goes even further—turning the other cheek, forgiving his enemies, and inviting us to live in the new Eden he is creating.