In context it also supports the position that you should not punish someone who has murdered in the same amount as you would punish one who has stolen a loaf of bread. The more serious injury requires a greater punishment because the injury is greater. Justice demands that the punishment also be greater when the injury inflicted is greater. Some injuries could be so severe that no punishment could come close to meeting that demand of justice. In such a case, the punishment meted out should be the most severe that we are capable of extracting - the forfeiture of the life that caused the injury. We can't in good conscious punish using malevolence and cruelty ourselves to satisfy the demands of justice - take an eye for the injury caused to the eye of another, but punishing with the forfeiture of the life absent that malevolence and cruelty is well within the realm of exacting less in punishment than was taken in the initial act of injury.
