OU TORAH The Parameters of Justice By Britain's Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks
In Deuteronomy 24, we encounter for the first time the explicit statement of a law of far-reaching significance:
“Parents shall not be put to death for children, nor children who put to death for parents: a person shall be put to death only for his own crime. (Deut. 24:16)”
We have strong historical evidence as to what this law was excluding, namely vicarious punishment, the idea that someone else may be punished for my crime:
For example, in the Middle Assyrian Laws, the rape of unbetrothed virgin who lives in her father’s house is punished by the ravishing of the rapist’s wife, who also remains thereafter with the father of the victim. Hammurabi decrees that if a man struck a pregnant woman, thereby causing her to miscarry and die, it is the assailant’s daughter who is put to death. If a builder erected a house which collapsed, killing the owner’s son, then the builder’s son, not the builder, is put to death. (Nahum Sarna, Exploring Exodus, p. 176)
In Deuteronomy 24, we encounter for the first time the explicit statement of a law of far-reaching significance:
“Parents shall not be put to death for children, nor children who put to death for parents: a person shall be put to death only for his own crime. (Deut. 24:16)”
We have strong historical evidence as to what this law was excluding, namely vicarious punishment, the idea that someone else may be punished for my crime:
For example, in the Middle Assyrian Laws, the rape of unbetrothed virgin who lives in her father’s house is punished by the ravishing of the rapist’s wife, who also remains thereafter with the father of the victim. Hammurabi decrees that if a man struck a pregnant woman, thereby causing her to miscarry and die, it is the assailant’s daughter who is put to death. If a builder erected a house which collapsed, killing the owner’s son, then the builder’s son, not the builder, is put to death. (Nahum Sarna, Exploring Exodus, p. 176)
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