[Avodah] "An eye for and eye," etc.

[Zvi Lampel]

>
> I wrote:
>

 The idea that "tachas" means payment is indeed another explanation the
>> Gemara offers. It doesn't say that this is a drash.
>>
>
I retract. The Gemara's language implies, and the comments of Rashi and
Tosefos explicate, that it is, as you said, a gezeyra shava.

RMB: But, given how often "tachas" does mean payment, *why* is this
>> considered
>> derashah, and not simply idiom? That bothers me.
>>
>
Well, my Concordance does list 186 times that the Tanach uses "tachas" in
the sense of "in place of," or "because of the fact that," and includes
"ayin tachas ayin" as an example. So it /can/ mean payment in some
contexts, such as as with the payment for damages to one's ox, where the
posuk states tashlumin explicitly. But one could say that unqualified,
"ayin tachas ayin" means that as punishment, the criminal must literally
give his eye to the victim "in place of" the eye the victim lost, or
"because of the fact that" he blinded the victim.
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