The phrase “an eye for an eye” is most famously associated with the ancient legal principle known as lex talionis (“law of retaliation”), which appears in the Babylonian Code of Hammurabi and later in the Bible.

Who first said “an eye for an eye”?

Historically, we can’t pin it on a specific individual “speaker” the way we do with a modern quote, but we can point to where it first shows up in writing.

  • The oldest known written form of the idea appears in the Code of Hammurabi , created by the Babylonian king Hammurabi around the 18th century BCE.
  • In that law code, the principle is basically: if someone causes you a specific injury, the punishment should match the harm done—“an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.”
  • The same lex talionis formula later appears in several places in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament , for example in legal sections that limit retaliation to a proportionate response.

So if you’re asking who “said” it in the sense of earliest known source, the answer is: it comes from the Babylonian king Hammurabi’s law code , and was later echoed and adapted in biblical law.

Why it mattered

The idea wasn’t originally about encouraging brutality; it was actually meant to limit revenge.

  • Before such rules, people often retaliated with punishments far worse than the original offense, which could fuel endless feuds.
  • “An eye for an eye” set a ceiling: punishment should be proportionate, not excessive.

Later religious teachings (for example, those that emphasize loving enemies and avoiding retaliation) push even further away from literal “eye for an eye” justice and toward mercy and restraint.

Quick reference table

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Aspect Details
Earliest written source Code of Hammurabi, ancient Babylonian law collection from around 18th century BCE
Key concept Lex talionis – punishment should mirror the injury (“an eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth”)
Main purpose Limit retaliation, prevent people from inflicting harsher harm than the original offense
Later appearances Legal sections of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, and later religious and legal discussions about justice and proportionality
**TL;DR:** No single “famous person” coined it as a modern quote; it’s a legal formula that first appears in the **Code of Hammurabi** and is then carried into biblical law as a rule of proportionate justice.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.