Crime and punishment in the Torah

Judaism teaches that the Torah contains 613 commandments, many of which deal with crime and punishment, but only the Noahide Laws apply to humanity in general.

When Pharaoh enslaved the Children of Israel, the Egyptians appointed conscription officers over the Israelites to crush their spirits with hard labor.

They made the lives of the Israelites miserable with harsh labor involving mortar and bricks, as well as all kinds of work in the field.

Phinehas, a grandson of Aaron, left the assembly, went inside the tent, and drove a javelin through both Zimri and Cozbi.

[6] One of every five hundred remaining captives of the soldiers' plunder was to be put in service as tribute to the LORD under Eleazar the priest (Numbers 31:28) as "heave offerings", thanksgiving for success.

Traditional wisdom, both in the Jewish and Christian communities, interpreted this verse in Numbers 35:31 to mean that out of the almost twenty cases calling for capital punishment in the Old Testament, every one of them could have the sanction commuted by an appropriate substitute of money or anything that showed the seriousness of the crime, but in the case of what we today call first-degree murder, there was never to be offered or accepted any substitute or bargaining of any kind: the offender had to pay with his or her life".