TOOTH, TEETH (0 ; Sept. 6.3en, quasi Moi5r, from eSco, `to eat ;' Vulg. dens, quasi edens, eating'). The Hebrew word is usually derived from mv, 'to change' or 'repeat ' because the teeth are changed, or replaced by others. It occurs, first, with reference to the literal member itself in man, the loss of which, by violence, is specified by Moses, in illustration of his law concerning taliones, tooth for tooth' (Exod. xxi. 24). This outrage occurring between freemen (or between an Israelite and a foreigner, Lev. xxiv. 22) admitted, like other cases of maiming, most probably of a pecuniary compensation, and under private ar rangement, unless the injured party proved exor bitant in his demand, when the case was referred to the judge, who seems addressed in Deut. xix. 21. The Targum of Jonathan renders the words, the price of a tooth for a tooth,' in Exod. xxi. 24 ; Lev. XXiV. 20 ; and Dem. xix. 21 (comp. Joseph. Antiv. iv. 8. 35, and the article PUNISHMENT in this work) ; but if a master inflicted this irrepar able damage upon a servant—i.e. slave—of either sex, he was punished by the absolute loss of his slave's services (Exod. xxi. 27). The same law applied if the slave was a Gentile, notwithstand ing the national glosses of the Jewish doctors (Selden, De .ire Nat. et Gent. iv. x, p. 468)• Our Lord's comment upon the law (Matt. v. 38), which was much abused in his time (Horne's Introd. vol. ii. p. 377, 6th ed.), prohibits no more than retaliation upon the injurer (rig x-olinp41), not such a defence of our innocence as may consist in words, but private revenge, and especially with such a disposition as actuated the aggressor vrith impetuous rage or hatred. His exhortations relate rather to those injuries which cannot be redressed by the magistrate, or by course of law : these we should bear rather than resort to revenge (see Rosenmiiller, Grotius, and Whitby, in toe.) Indeed the hermeneutics of our Lord's
precepts in his sermon on the mount require much knowledge, care, and discrimination, in order to avoid a prima facie interpretation of them, which has often been given, at variance with his inten tion, subversive of the principles of natural justice, and productive of false ideas of Christian duty.
In Ps. iii. 7 we have 'w ,n9, for the human jaw bone ; for that of an ass, Judg. xv. 15-17, alay6va, maxillam—i. e. mandibulam' (which becomes emnn ver. 19, T?,11, NCLICKOV TbP molarem dentem in maxilla asini' [SAmsoll ; and for that of leviathan, Job xl. 14, ra xeiXor, maxillam. A broken (or rather bad,' r13/1 —that is, decayed—Vulg. dens putridzes) tooth,' is referred to in Prov. xxv. r9 as furnishing an apt similitude of con'fidence in an unfaithful man in the time of trouble." The teeth of beasts,' or rather tooth,' is a phrase expressive of devas tation by wild animals : tlrus, I will send the tooth of beasts upon them ' (Deut. xxxii. 24), nnro-ry, 636,i-rar Onpiwv, dentes bestiarum (comp. Kings xvii. 25). The word is sometimes metaphorically used for a sharp cliff or summit of a rock (Job xxxix. 28) : thus, The eagle dwelleth and abideth upon the tooth of the rock ;' 6r' leoXg 71-41- par, inaccessis rupibus. So also (I Sam. xiv. 4): a sharp rock on the one side and a sharp rock on the other side ;' lharriefr, bacdis ith-par, quasi in modum dentium seopuli : these eminences were named Bozez and Seneh.