"set its face"

[Katie Langford]

I am working on the Eighth Amendment and came across Antonin Scalia’s reference in Stanford v. Kentucky that “The punishment is either ‘cruel _and_ unusual’ (i.e., society has set its face against it) or it has not.”  I know that “set its face against it” is a biblical reference, but was wondering about the first usage of it in Eighth Amendment or death penalty cases.  Does anyone know how this phrase got taken up into usage?     Katie Langford Penn State