Gentleness
Gentleness in scripture is not a temperament but a posture: the way Yahweh stoops to lift his people, the way the Christ bears reviling without retaliation, and the way disciples are charged to handle one another, opponents, and the world. The same vocabulary — meekness, gentleness, long-suffering, forbearance — runs from the prophets through the apostles into the post-apostolic Epistle to Diognetus, and it consistently refuses force as the means of God's work.
The Gentleness of Yahweh
Yahweh's gentleness is first of all a stooping. David sings, "You have also given me the shield of your salvation; And your right hand has held me up, And your [Speech] made me great" (Ps 18:35). The Samuel parallel preserves the same confession: "your response [your Speech] has made me great" (2Sa 22:36). What lifts the king is not the king's strength but the divine condescension.
The same posture meets Israel as a flock. "Like a shepherd, he will shepherd his flock; he will gather the lambs in his arm, and carry them in his bosom; [and] will gently lead those that have their young" (Isa 40:11). The servant who comes from this God acts in kind: "A bruised reed he will not break, and a dimly burning wick he will not quench: he will bring forth justice in truth" (Isa 42:3).
Yahweh's gentleness shows up in scripture most often as long-suffering — restraint that defers wrath in order to give space for repentance. He is "slow to anger, and abundant in loving-kindness, forgiving iniquity and transgression" (Nu 14:18). He bears with disobedient Israel "many years" by his Spirit through the prophets (Neh 9:30) and stretches out his hands "all the day long" to "a disobedient and opposing people" (Ro 10:21). Even toward Nineveh he asks, "should I not have regard for Nineveh, that great city, in which are more than 120,000 persons who cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand" (Jon 4:11), and to Abraham he relents at the prospect of ten righteous in Sodom (Gen 18:32). In the wilderness "[my Speech] spared them, and I did not destroy them" (Eze 20:17); for his name's sake he defers his anger so as not to cut his people off (Isa 48:9).
Paul names the same disposition theologically. The riches of God's "goodness and forbearance and long-suffering" are what lead a sinner to repentance (Ro 2:4); his propitiation in Christ's blood was set forth to vindicate "the passing over of the sins done previously, in the forbearance of God" (Ro 3:25); and he endures with "much long-suffering vessels of wrath fitted to destruction" (Ro 9:22). Peter applies the same word to the days of Noah: "the long-suffering of God waited" while the ark was being prepared (1Pe 3:20), and to the present age: "The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some count slackness; but is long-suffering toward you⁺, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance" (2Pe 3:9).
The Meekness of Christ
Christ's meekness is the human face of this divine restraint. Paul appeals to the Corinthians "by the meekness and gentleness of Christ" (2Co 10:1) — the very tone he means to imitate in his own dealing with them. Isaiah had already drawn the silhouette: "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" (Isa 53:7). Peter holds up the same picture as the disciple's pattern: "who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, did not threaten; but delivered [himself] to him who judges righteously" (1Pe 2:23).
The Epistle to Diognetus reads this restraint back into the manner of God's own sending. God sent his son not in tyranny "but in gentleness and meekness. As a king sending his son, a king, he sent him; sent him as God; sent him as to men; sent him as one saving, as one persuading, not forcing. For violence is not with God" (Gr 7:4). The mode of the mission matches the character of the sender.
Promises to the Meek
Where pride is broken down, the meek are lifted. "Yahweh upholds the meek: He brings the wicked down to the ground" (Ps 147:6); "Yahweh takes pleasure in his people: He will beautify the meek with salvation" (Ps 149:4). The promise is repeated in concrete form: "the meek will inherit the land, And will delight themselves in the abundance of peace" (Ps 37:11), and "The meek will eat and be satisfied; They will praise Yahweh who seek after him" (Ps 22:26). Isaiah looks forward to a judgment that "will judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth" (Isa 11:4), and he promises that "the meek also will increase their joy in [the Speech of] Yahweh" (Isa 29:19). Zephaniah turns the same promise into an exhortation: "Seek⁺ Yahweh, all you⁺ meek of the earth, who have kept his ordinances; seek⁺ righteousness, seek⁺ meekness: it may be you⁺ will be hid in the day of Yahweh's anger" (Zep 2:3).
A Mark of the Spirit's Fruit
In the new covenant community gentleness is not a personality but a fruit. "The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, self-control; against such there is no law" (Ga 5:22-23). It is the proper texture of corrective work: "Brothers, even if a man is overtaken in any trespass, you⁺ who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness; looking to yourself, lest you also be tempted" (Ga 6:1). It is the proper texture of common life: "with all lowliness and meekness, with long-suffering, forbearing one another in love" (Eph 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⁺" (Col 3:13); "strengthened with all power, according to the might of his glory, to all patience and long-suffering with joy" (Col 1:11).
The same texture defines love itself. "Love suffers long, it is kind. Love does not envy. Love does not vaunt itself, is not puffed up, does not behave itself unseemly, does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take account of evil; does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things" (1Co 13:4-7). Paul's own resume of ministerial virtue runs the same way: "in pureness, in knowledge, in long-suffering, in kindness, in the Holy Spirit, in unfeigned love" (2Co 6:6).
The pattern is not weak passivity. The same charge that demands gentleness also demands the explicit refusal of retaliation. "See that none render to anyone evil for evil; but always follow after that which is good, both one toward another, and toward all" (1Th 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" (1Pe 3:9). Jesus puts it positively: "To him who strikes you on the [one] cheek offer also the other; and from him who takes away your cloak, withhold not your coat also" (Lu 6:29). The Torah had already named the root: "You will not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the sons of your people; but you will love your neighbor as yourself: I am Yahweh" (Lev 19:18); the wisdom literature concurs: "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" (Pr 24:29). Even masters are bound by it: "And, you⁺ masters, do the same things to them, and forbear threatening" (Eph 6:9).
Pastoral and Apostolic Gentleness
Gentleness is the proper bearing of those who teach and lead. Paul describes his own ministry by it: "We could have been a burden as apostles of Christ. But we became juveniles among you⁺, as when a nurse cherishes her own children" (1Th 2:7). He prescribes it for Timothy: "And the Lord's slave must not strive, but be gentle toward all, apt to teach, forbearing, in meekness correcting those who oppose themselves; if perhaps God may give them repentance to the knowledge of the truth, and they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, having been taken captive by him to his will" (2Ti 2:24-26). The corrective use of the word is not blunted — "preach the word; be urgent in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort" — but it is bound to "all long-suffering and teaching" (2Ti 4:2). When Paul himself was abandoned at his first defense, his response was prayer rather than reprisal: "may it not be laid to their account" (2Ti 4:16).
The overseer must therefore be "no brawler, no striker; but gentle, not contentious, no lover of money" (1Ti 3:3). The wider charge to believers under Titus reads, "Put them in mind to be in subjection to rulers, to authorities, to be obedient, to be ready to every good work, to speak evil of no man, not to be contentious, to be gentle, showing all meekness toward all men" (Tit 3:1-2).
James locates gentleness in wisdom itself. "Who is wise and understanding among you⁺? Let him show, by his good life, his works in meekness of wisdom" (Jas 3:13). And again: "the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceful, gentle, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without variance, without hypocrisy" (Jas 3:17). Even reception of the word is a matter of meekness: "putting away all filthiness and overflowing of wickedness, receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your⁺ souls" (Jas 1:21). Peter likewise prizes "the hidden man of the heart, in the incorruptible [apparel] of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price" (1Pe 3:4).
The Epistle to Diognetus describes early disciples in the same key: "They are reviled, and bless; they are shamefully treated, and render honor" (Gr 5:15) — Christian conduct as the visible echo of Christ's own non-retaliation.
Examples of the Meek
Scripture names exemplars. Of Moses it records: "Now the man Moses was very meek, above all among man who were on the face of the earth" (Nu 12:3). Of the chosen one Sirach says, "For his faithfulness and his meekness, He chose him out of all flesh" (Sir 45:4). The same wisdom-tradition urges the disposition on the disciple: "Incline your ear to the poor, And answer his [greeting of] Peace, with meekness" (Sir 4:8); "My son, in meekness honor your soul; And discretion will be given to you in a similar manner" (Sir 10:28). Sirach also marks the social cost of the virtue and so warns against contempt for it: "Pride is disgusted by meekness; And the rich is disgusted by the needy" (Sir 13:20). The meek are despised — and Yahweh upholds them.