Matthew 5:38 known as the principle of "lex talionis", is an ancient statement of the principle of retributive punishment dating back to the Code of Hammurabi. This phrasing appears several times in the Old Testament at Exodus 21:24, Leviticus 24:20, and Deuteronomy 19:21. This was a moderate rule compared with the blood feuds described in Genesis 4:23-24. The New Testament scholar R. T. France notes that by Jesus' era such punishments were no longer in practice, rather they had been replaced with fines judged to be of equal value to the damage caused. Thus, according to France, Jesus is not here condemning
Old Testament theology in the Old Testament book of Exodus 3:13-15. Through this passage, readers can see the personality of God revealed. Because the earliest writing in the Hebrew language did not utilize vowel marks and the Hebrew people revered God so much that they declined to pronounce the name aloud, the true pronunciation of the name of God has been lost due to a lack of use. Medieval Jewish scholars developed a system for inserting vowel marks into the consonantal text. Due to the tradition of reading aloud the word "adonai" (my Lord) whenever YHWH was encountered in the text, scribes inserted