"An eye for an eye" — the Mekhilta states flatly that this means money. Monetary compensation, not literal blinding. But the text anticipates resistance to this reading: perhaps an actual eye is intended?
Rabbi Elazar resolved the question through a comparison in (Leviticus 24:21): "One who strikes a beast shall pay for it, and one who strikes a man shall be put to death." Scripture places the injuries of a man alongside the injuries of a beast in the same verse. This juxtaposition is not accidental — it creates a legal analogy.
The logic flows as follows: just as injuries to a beast are compensated with money (no one suggests blinding a beast in retaliation), so injuries to a man are compensated with money. The beast comparison makes the point inescapable. If the Torah wanted literal physical retaliation, it would not have linked human injuries to animal injuries in the same breath.
This teaching represents one of the most consequential interpretations in all of Jewish law. The plain text of "an eye for an eye" has been read by many cultures as endorsing physical retaliation. The Mekhilta insists otherwise. The phrase sets the measure of damages — the value of an eye — not the method of collection. What you owe is calculated by what was lost. But what you pay is always money. Jewish law categorically rejects mutilation as a form of justice. The Torah's language of equivalence is about valuation, not vengeance.