Assault And Battery - UPDV Updated Bible Version

The striking of one person by another runs from the casebook of the Mosaic civil code through the prophetic image of the abused servant to the trial-night assaults on Jesus. Scripture treats blows as injuries that the courts must measure, that the sufferer is permitted to absorb without revenge, and that the Messiah himself takes upon his own back and cheeks.

Laws Concerning Striking

The earliest legislation makes a struck blow a matter for the magistrates rather than for private vengeance. The blow against parents is the gravest case: "And he who strikes his father, or his mother, will be surely put to death" (Ex 21:15). A fight in which one combatant strikes another with a stone or fist but the victim survives invokes a different settlement: "if men contend, and a man strikes his fellow man with a stone, or with his fist, and he doesn't die, but keeps his bed" (Ex 21:18) — the assailant must compensate for lost time and healing.

The casebook continues with the pregnant bystander, then with the famous proportional-injury formula: "if men strive together, and hurt a pregnant woman so that her children are born prematurely and no harm follows; he will be surely fined, according to as the woman's husband will lay on him; and he will pay as the judges determine. But if any harm follows, then you will give soul for soul, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe" (Ex 21:22-25). The same chapter applies the principle to a master who batters a slave: a destroyed eye or knocked-out tooth purchases the slave's freedom — "if a man strikes the eye of his male slave, or the eye of his female slave, and destroys it; he will let him go free for his eye's sake. And if he strikes out his male slave's tooth, or his female slave's tooth, he will let him go free for his tooth's sake" (Ex 21:26-27).

Hard cases — disputes "between stroke and stroke" — are not left to the streets. Deuteronomy routes them up: "If there arises a matter too hard for you in judgment, between blood and blood, between plea and plea, and between stroke and stroke, being matters of controversy inside your gates; then you will arise, and go up to the place which Yahweh your God will choose; and you will come to the priests the Levites, and to the judge that will be in those days: and you will inquire; and they will show you the sentence of judgment" (De 17:8-9). The verdict is binding, and a presumptuous man "who does presumptuously, in not listening to the priest who stands to minister there before Yahweh your God, or to the judge, even that man will die: and you will put away the evil from Israel" (De 17:12).

The law also caps the punitive use of beating itself. Forty stripes is the ceiling: "Forty stripes he may give him, he will not exceed; or else, if he should exceed, and beat him above these with many stripes, then your brother should seem vile to you" (De 25:3). Paul reports submitting to this Jewish penalty: "Of the Jews five times I received forty [stripes] less one" (2 Cor 11:24).

The Sufferer's Posture

Alongside the legal cap on blows the wisdom and prophetic tradition cultivates a second response: the struck person who declines to strike back. Lamentations counsels the sufferer to lean into the assault rather than retaliate — "Let him give his cheek to him who strikes him; let him be filled full with reproach" (La 3:30). Leviticus had already forbidden the grudge: "You will not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the sons of your people; but you will love your fellow man as yourself: I am Yahweh" (Le 19:18). Proverbs takes up the same line — "Don't say, I will recompense evil: Wait for Yahweh, and he will save you" (Pr 20:22); "Don't say, I will do so to him as he has done to me; I will render to the man according to his work" (Pr 24:29).

Jesus extends the cheek-turn to a positive instruction: "To him who strikes you on the [one] cheek offer also the other; and from him who takes away your cloak don't withhold your coat also" (Lu 6:29). The apostles echo it: "See that none render to anyone evil for evil; but always follow after that which is good, both one toward another, and toward all" (1 Th 5:15); "Render to no man evil for evil. Take thought for things honorable in the sight of all men" (Ro 12:17); "not rendering evil for evil, or reviling for reviling; but on the contrary blessing; for hereunto were you⁺ called, that you⁺ should inherit a blessing" (1 Pe 3:9). The Epistle to the Greeks gathers it into a single image of the Christian community: "They are reviled, and bless; they are shamefully treated, and render honor" (Gr 5:15).

The exemplary case is the meekness of Christ on the night of his trial: "who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, did not threaten; but delivered [himself] to him who judges righteously" (1 Pe 2:23). Isaiah had set the pattern in advance: "He was oppressed, yet when he was afflicted he didn't open his mouth; as a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and as a sheep that before its shearers is mute, so he didn't open his mouth" (Is 53:7).

The Servant Struck

A particular line of Old Testament prophecy speaks of a servant who is beaten, spat on, and shamed. The clearest text gives the assault in the first person: "I gave my back to the strikers, and my cheeks to those who plucked off the hair; I did not hide my face from shame and spitting" (Is 50:6). Job's complaint already names the indignity: "They are disgusted by me, they stand aloof from me, And do not spare to spit in my face" (Job 30:10). And the same prophetic chapter that pictures the silent lamb adds, of his deeper wounds, "But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was on him; and with his stripes we are healed" (Is 53:5).

The Striking of Jesus

The Gospel passion narratives report the prophecy fulfilled in detail. After the Sanhedrin verdict, the men holding Jesus assault him with blows and mockery: "And the men who held [Jesus] mocked him, and beat him" (Lu 22:63). Mark gathers spitting, blindfolding, and battery into one sentence: "And some began to spit on him, and to cover his face, and to buffet him, and to say to him, Prophesy: and the attendants received him with blows of their hands" (Mark 14:65). Before Pilate the Roman soldiers add their own version of the same: "and they came to him, and said, Hail, King of the Jews! And they struck him with their hands" (John 19:3).

Mocking accompanies the blows — "Mockery and reproach [come] from the proud, And vengeance, like a lion, lies in wait for them" (Sir 27:28) — and the psalmic lament had already recorded the scene: "All those who see me laugh me to scorn: They shoot out the lip, they shake the head, [saying,]" (Ps 22:7). The cross adds the railing crowd — "And those who passed by railed on him, wagging their heads, and saying, Ha! You who destroys the temple, and builds it in three days, save yourself, and come down from the cross" (Mr 15:29-30) — and the soldiers' jeering with vinegar: "And the soldiers also mocked him, coming to him, offering him vinegar" (Lu 23:36).

The general weight of the Suffering Servant passages frames these blows theologically. Christ's enduring of them becomes both the substitutionary point of his work — "Christ also suffered for sins once, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring you⁺ to God" (1 Pe 3:18) — and the example his followers are to imitate when they themselves are struck: "For hereunto were you⁺ called: because Christ also suffered for you⁺, leaving you⁺ an example, that you⁺ should follow his steps" (1 Pe 2:21).

Mocking and Striking the Faithful

The hostility shown to Christ continues toward those who follow him, and Scripture treats mocking and beating as a single phenomenon. The pre-exilic chronicler reports that the messengers of God were treated this way: "but they mocked the messengers of God, and despised his words, and scoffed at his prophets, until the wrath of Yahweh arose against his people, until there was no remedy" (2 Ch 36:16); the Hezekiah revival ran into the same — "but they laughed them to scorn, and mocked them" (2 Ch 30:10). Nehemiah's wall was mocked as it rose (Ne 4:1), and Elisha's bald head drew mockery from a Bethel youth gang (2 Ki 2:23). The catalogue of faith in Hebrews gathers these together: "and others had trial of mockings and scourgings, yes, moreover of bonds and imprisonment" (He 11:36).

The wisdom tradition warns against being the mocker. "Whoever mocks the poor reproaches his Maker; [And] he who is glad at calamity will not be unpunished" (Pr 17:5). "Do not mock at one who wears [only] a loincloth; And do not scorn at a bitter day. For the works of Yahweh are wonderful things; And his work has been hid from man" (Sir 11:4). "If an understanding man hears a wise word, He commends it, and adds to it; If a foolish man hears it, he mocks it, And he casts it behind his back" (Sir 21:15). And the Maccabean record names the fate of one who mocked the temple emissaries: "But he mocked and despised them, and abused them: and he spoke proudly" (1 Ma 7:34).

Restraint Among the People of God

Within the covenant community itself the texts repeatedly forbid the leader and the elder from being a violent man. The bishop must be "no brawler, no striker; but gentle, not contentious, no lover of money" (1 Ti 3:3). The Lord's slave "must not strive, but be gentle toward all, apt to teach, forbearing" (2 Ti 2:24). Apostolic gentleness is held up as the norm — Paul appeals "by the meekness and gentleness of Christ" (2 Co 10:1) — and the Sirach proverbs locate honor in the same posture: "My son, in meekness honor your soul; And discretion will be given to you in a similar manner" (Sir 10:28). Peace among Christians is incompatible with the readiness to strike: "with all lowliness and meekness, with long-suffering, forbearing one another in love" (Ep 4:2); "forbearing one another, and forgiving each other, if any man has a complaint against any; even as the Lord forgave you⁺, so also [should] you⁺" (Cl 3:13).