whatever was wrongfully taken, with ample compensation for loss. Certain property was still further protected. As the Israelites depended for food upon their flocks, he who stole a sheep was compelled to restore fourfold. Oxen were still more necessary for their use in agriculture, as the Israelites had no horses until the time of Solomon. A stolen ox, therefore, was to be restored fivefold. These laws might be easily enforced among a simple agricultural people, where the kinds of property were few, and the same possessed by all.
Lest, however, the thief should make way with the property, and then escape by a poor debtor's oath, the law provided that in case he could not make restitution, he should be sold as a slave to indemnify the man whom he had robbed. This may seem a harsh addition; but when it is remembered that no Hebrew could be sold for more than six years, the punishment will appear singularly mild, especially compared with the law of England, which, until recently, punished with death not only highway robbery, and coining, counterfeiting, and forgery, but even petty larcenies.
Last and greatest of crimes in the scale of ordinary criminal law, are those against the person and against life. Here, if anywhere, we shall find the track of blood. The law is indeed rigid and relentless. Here it is in all its severity: "Life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe."[1] This our Reformer designates as "a part of that savage and monstrous lex talionis so abhorrent to the express injunctions as well as to the whole spirit of Christianity." "The law of revenge constitutes one of the very fundamental principles in the code of Moses — its cruel injunctions sanctioning all the most
- ↑ Ex. xxi. 23-25.
