Retaliation
Retaliation runs as a single thread from the Sinai legislation to the apostolic letters, but the thread changes hands as it goes. The Torah measures harm by harm and assigns the rendering to the court. The Wisdom and Prophets pull private retaliation back, hand vengeance to Yahweh, and warn that the destroyer is destroyed in turn. The Gospels and the apostolic teaching push further: bless rather than revile, return good for evil, and leave wrath to God.
The lex talionis
The Torah states the rule of equal harm three times. In the goring-ox laws, "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 21:23-25). Leviticus repeats the rule and extends it to assault: "as he has done, so it will be done to him: breach for breach, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; as he has caused a blemish in man, so it will be rendered to him" — applied uniformly, "as well for the sojourner, as for the home-born: for I am Yahweh your⁺ God" (Lev 24:19-22). Deuteronomy applies the same measure to a malicious witness, "as he had thought to do to his brother: so you will put away the evil from the midst of you ... soul for soul, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot" (Deut 19:19-21). The reasoning in Deuteronomy is explicit: the equal sentence deters — "those who remain will hear, and fear, and will from now on commit no more of any such evil" (Deut 19:20). The eye-for-eye is judicial, not vigilante.
The prohibition on private vengeance
Alongside the lex talionis, the same Torah forbids the private rendering of harm: "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" (Lev 19:18). The Wisdom literature stands behind this with two refusals to mirror an injury back. "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). Proverbs adds the boomerang: "Whoever digs a pit will fall in it; And he who rolls a stone, it will return on him" (Pr 26:27). Psalms applies the same shape to the wicked: "In the pride of the wicked the poor is hotly pursued; Let them be taken in the devices that they have conceived" (Ps 10:2). Isaiah carries it into prophetic woe: "Woe to you who destroy, and you were not destroyed; and who betray, and they did not betray you! When you have ceased to destroy, you will be destroyed; and when you have made an end of betraying, they will betray you" (Isa 33:1).
The apostolic letters rejoin the prohibition. "Render to no man evil for evil" (Rom 12:17). "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). "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" (1Pet 3:9). Paul presses the point on Christians who go to law against each other: "Therefore already it is altogether a defect in you⁺, that you⁺ have lawsuits one with another. Why not rather take wrong? Why not rather be defrauded?" (1Cor 6:7-8).
Vengeance belongs to Yahweh
The reason private retaliation is forbidden is that vengeance is reserved. "O Yahweh, God to whom vengeance belongs, God to whom vengeance belongs, shine forth" (Ps 94:1). Romans places the same claim at the hinge of its non-retaliation paragraph: "Don't avenge yourselves, beloved, but give place to the wrath [of God]: for it is written, Vengeance belongs to me; I will recompense, says the Lord" (Rom 12:19).
The reservation is not abstract. When nations make a habit of revenge, Yahweh executes it on them. Of the Philistines: "Because the Philistines have dealt by revenge, and have taken vengeance with despite of soul to destroy with perpetual enmity ... I will execute great vengeance on them with wrathful rebukes; and they will know that I am Yahweh, when I will lay my vengeance on them" (Eze 25:15-17). Of Edom: "Because Edom has dealt against the house of Judah by taking vengeance, and has greatly offended, and revenged himself on them" (Eze 25:12) — and again, "because he pursued his brother with the sword, and had cast off all pity, and his anger tore perpetually, and he kept his wrath forever: but I will send a fire on Teman, and it will devour the palaces of Bozrah" (Am 1:11-12).
Yahweh's own forbearance
The God who claims vengeance is also the God who delays it. "Yahweh is slow to anger, and abundant in loving-kindness, forgiving iniquity and transgression; and that will by no means leave unpunished [the guilty]" (Num 14:18). With Sodom: "Oh don't let the Lord be angry, and I will speak yet but this once: perhaps ten will be found there. And he said, I will not destroy it for the ten's sake" (Gen 18:32). With Israel after the wilderness: "many years you bore with them, and testified against them by your Spirit through your prophets" (Neh 9:30); "Nevertheless [my Speech] spared them, and I did not destroy them, neither did I make a full end of them in the wilderness" (Eze 20:17); "For my name's sake I will defer my anger, and for my praise I will refrain for you, that I don't cut you off" (Isa 48:9). With Nineveh: "should I not have regard for Nineveh, that great city, in which are more than sixscore thousand of man who can't discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?" (Jon 4:11).
Paul reads this divine forbearance as the reason wrath has not yet fallen. "Or do you despise the riches of his goodness and forbearance and long-suffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance?" (Rom 2:4). The cross itself is "the passing over of the sins done previously, in the forbearance of God" (Rom 3:25). God "endured with much long-suffering vessels of wrath fitted to destruction" (Rom 9:22); to Israel "all the day long I spread out my hands to a disobedient and opposing people" (Rom 10:21). Peter applies the same logic to the present age: "the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah" (1Pet 3:20), and "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" (2Pet 3:9).
The non-retaliation of Christ
The pattern Yahweh shows is the pattern Christ embodies. Isaiah's servant "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 cites the same shape: Christ, "when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, did not threaten; but delivered [himself] to him who judges righteously" (1Pet 2:23). Paul appeals to it pastorally: "I Paul myself entreat you⁺ by the meekness and gentleness of Christ" (2Cor 10:1). Diognetus draws on a Christological refusal of force: "By no means; 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 Lukan narrative shows this in scene. When the Samaritan village will not receive Jesus and James and John ask, "Lord, do you want us to bid fire to come down from heaven, and consume them?" (Luke 9:54), Jesus does not authorize the retaliation: "But he turned, and rebuked them. And they went to another village" (Luke 9:55-56). When Peter draws his sword and cuts off the high priest's slave's ear (John 18:10), Jesus reverses the act: "But Jesus answered and said, Allow⁺ [them] thus far. And he touched his ear, and healed him" (Luke 22:51).
The cheek, and returning good for evil
Luke 6 places the disciple under the same shape. "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" (Luke 6:29). "But I say to you⁺ who hear, Love your⁺ enemies, do good to those who hate you⁺" (Luke 6:27). "But love your⁺ enemies, and do [them] good, and lend, never despairing; and your⁺ reward will be great, and you⁺ will be sons of the Most High: for he is kind toward the unthankful and evil" (Luke 6:35).
The same instruction runs back through Wisdom and forward through Paul. "If your enemy is hungry, give him bread to eat; And if he is thirsty, give him water to drink: For you will heap coals of fire on his head, And Yahweh will reward you" (Prov 25:21-22), which Paul cites: "But if your enemy hungers, feed him; if he thirsts, give him to drink: for in so doing you will heap coals of fire on his head" (Rom 12:20). The Torah extends the obligation even to the enemy's animal: "If you see the donkey of him who hates you lying under his burden, you will forbear to leave him, you will strengthen [it] with him" (Ex 23:5). And Paul reports it as his own practice: "being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we endure" (1Cor 4:12). Diognetus describes the Christians by the same mark: "They are reviled, and bless; they are shamefully treated, and render honor" (Gr 5:15); "Though the flesh hates the soul, the soul loves the flesh and all its members; and Christians love those who hate them" (Gr 6:6).
Examples of returning good for evil
The pattern has Old-Testament instances. Joseph kisses the brothers who sold him: "And he kissed all his brothers, and wept on them: and after that his brothers talked with him" (Gen 45:15). Moses, slandered by Miriam, prays for her healing: "And Moses cried to Yahweh, saying, Heal her, O God, I urge you" (Num 12:13). David spares Saul twice. The first time Saul concedes, "You are more righteous than I; for you have rendered to me good, whereas I have rendered to you evil" (1Sam 24:17). The second time David refuses again: "Yahweh forbid that I should put forth my hand against Yahweh's anointed: but now take, I pray you, the spear that is at his head, and the cruse of water, and let us go" (1Sam 26:11). When Shimei curses David, David refuses Abishai's offer to retaliate: "Leave him alone, and let him curse; for Yahweh has bidden him. It may be that Yahweh will look at the wrong done to me, and that Yahweh will repay me good for [his] cursing of me this day" (2Sam 16:10-12). Elisha's refusal of vengeance on the Aramean raiders runs in the same line: "You will not strike them: would you strike those whom you have taken captive with your sword and with your bow? Set bread and water before them, that they may eat and drink, and go to their master" (2Kings 6:22). David's psalm of intercession for his enemies: "But as for me, when they were sick, my clothing was sackcloth: I afflicted my soul with fasting; And my prayer returned into my own bosom" (Ps 35:13). Jeremiah's surrender to his accusers: "But as for me, look, I am in your⁺ hand: do with me as is good and right in your⁺ eyes" (Jer 26:14). Paul's word concerning those who deserted him at his trial: "may it not be laid to their account" (2Tim 4:16). Against this pattern, the violence of betrayal stands out: "And he committed a great treachery, and rendered evil for good" (1Macc 16:17).
Sirach on cherished wrath
Ben Sira presses the point in a sustained passage. "He who takes vengeance will find vengeance from the Lord, And he will closely observe his sins. Forgive an injury [done to you] by your neighbor, And then, when you pray, your sins will be forgiven. One man cherishes wrath against another, And does he seek healing from the Lord? Upon a man like himself he has no mercy, And for his own sins does he make supplication? He being flesh nourishes wrath, Who will make atonement for his sins? Remember your last end and cease from enmity; [Remember] corruption and death, and abide in the commandments. Remember the commandments, and do not be wrathful with your neighbor; And [remember] the covenant of the Most High, and overlook ignorance" (Sir 28:1-7). The argument is that the man who nurses retaliation forfeits his own ground for asking forgiveness: a flesh-and-blood mortal expecting mercy from God while showing none to a fellow mortal.
Instances of retaliation
Where the narrative books simply report a retaliation, they often report its cost. Simeon and Levi avenge their sister by deception and slaughter: "took each man his sword, and came upon the city unawares, and slew all the males" (Gen 34:25), and Jacob rebukes them — "You⁺ have troubled me, to make me stink to the inhabitants of the land" (Gen 34:30). Samson's life turns on retaliation: "If you⁺ act after this manner, surely I will be avenged of you⁺, and after that I will cease" (Judg 15:7); his final prayer is "that I may be at once avenged of the Philistines for my two eyes" (Judg 16:28), and he dies pulling the house down on himself and them. Gideon retaliates on Succoth and Penuel for refusing him bread — "he flailed the men of Succoth ... And he broke down the tower of Penuel, and slew the men of the city" (Judg 8:16-17) — and on Zebah and Zalmunna for killing his brothers: "if you⁺ had saved them alive, I would not slay you⁺. ... And Gideon arose, and slew Zebah and Zalmunna" (Judg 8:19, 21). The Amalek campaign is a Yahweh-authorized retaliation extending across centuries: "Remember what Amalek did to you by the way as you⁺ came forth out of Egypt" (Deut 25:17), with execution under Saul: "Now go and strike Amalek" (1Sam 15:3). Joab kills Abner "for the blood of Asahel his brother" (2Sam 3:27). David on his deathbed transmits two private retaliations to Solomon: against Joab — "don't let his hoar head go down to Sheol in peace" (1Kings 2:6) — and against Shimei — "Now therefore don't hold him innocent ... and you will bring his hoar head down to Sheol with blood" (1Kings 2:9). Michal's barrenness follows her contempt for David's dancing: "And Michal the daughter of Saul had no child to the day of her death" (2Sam 6:23).
The royal-court strand reaches into the Prophets and the Writings. Jezebel sends her revenge oath after Elijah: "So let the gods do to me, and more also, if I don't make your soul as the soul of one of them by tomorrow about this time" (1Kings 19:2). Ahab imprisons Micaiah on bread and water (1Kings 22:27), and Jehoshaphat-and-Ahab repeat the formula on him in Chronicles (2Chr 18:25-26). Asa "was angry with the seer, and put him in the prison-house" and "oppressed some of the people at the same time" (2Chr 16:10). The king of Israel asks Elisha twice over the captured Arameans, "My father, shall I strike them? Shall I strike them?" (2Kings 6:21), the question Elisha refuses. Haman, slighted by Mordecai's refusal to bow, escalates to a kingdom-wide extermination decree: "it was contemptible in his eyes to lay hands on Mordecai alone ... therefore Haman sought to destroy all the Jews who were throughout the whole kingdom of Ahasuerus" (Est 3:6); the decree goes out, "to destroy, to slay, and to cause to perish, all Jews, both young and old, little children and women, in one day" (Est 3:13). The Jews' counter-blow under the reversed decree is the matching report: "And the Jews struck all their enemies with the stroke of the sword, and with slaughter and destruction, and did what they would to those who hated them" (Est 9:5). The exilic psalm names a darker retaliation as a beatitude: "Happy he will be, who takes and dashes your little ones Against the rock" (Ps 137:9).
The Gospels carry instances of retaliatory impulse. Herodias "set herself against him, and desired to kill him" (Mark 6:19) over John's rebuke. The Nazareth crowd, hearing Jesus, "rose up, and cast him forth out of the city, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their city was built, that they might throw him down headlong" (Luke 4:29). James and John want Samaritan villages burned (Luke 9:54). Peter draws his sword on the high priest's slave (John 18:10). 1 Maccabees gives both poles: a prayer of violent vengeance — "Be avenged of this man, and his army, and let them fall by the sword: remember their blasphemies, and do not give them a dwelling place" (1Macc 7:38) — and a treacherous retaliation that the narrator condemns: "he committed a great treachery, and rendered evil for good" (1Macc 16:17).
The meek and their inheritance
Set against the retaliator stands the meek figure, who refuses to render harm and receives the land instead. "But the meek will inherit the land, And will delight themselves in the abundance of peace" (Ps 37:11). "The meek will eat and be satisfied" (Ps 22:26). "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). "With righteousness he will judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth" (Isa 11:4). "The meek also will increase their joy in [the Speech of] Yahweh, and the poor among man will rejoice in the Holy One of Israel" (Isa 29:19). "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" (Zeph 2:3). Moses is the type — "very meek, above all among man who were on the face of the earth" (Num 12:3). Sirach gives the same scale of value: "Incline your ear to the poor, And answer his [greeting of] Peace, with meekness" (Sir 4:8); "in meekness honor your soul; And discretion will be given to you in a similar manner" (Sir 10:28); "Pride is disgusted by meekness" (Sir 13:20); Moses again — "For his faithfulness and his meekness, He chose him out of all flesh" (Sir 45:4).
Forbearance as apostolic instruction
The same disposition is what the apostolic letters tell churches to practice on each other. "With all lowliness and meekness, with long-suffering, forbearing one another in love" (Eph 4:2). Masters are to "forbear threatening" in remembering their own Master (Eph 6:9). The believer is "strengthened with all power, according to the might of his glory, to all patience and long-suffering with joy" (Col 1:11) and is "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). The overseer is "no brawler, no striker; but gentle, not contentious" (1Tim 3:3); the slave of the Lord "must not strive, but be gentle toward all, apt to teach, forbearing, in meekness correcting those who oppose themselves" (2Tim 2:24-25); the preacher works "with all long-suffering and teaching" (2Tim 4:2). Believers are "to speak evil of no man, not to be contentious, to be gentle, showing all meekness toward all men" (Titus 3:2). James names "the wisdom that is from above" as "first pure, then peaceful, gentle, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without variance, without hypocrisy" (Jas 3:17), and tells the church to "receive with meekness the implanted word" (Jas 1:21) and to "show, by his good life, his works in meekness of wisdom" (Jas 3:13). Peter prizes "a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price" (1Pet 3:4). Paul names the disposition as Spirit-given: the fruit of the Spirit is "love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, self-control" (Gal 5:22-23), and the spiritual person restores a sinner "in a spirit of gentleness; looking to yourself, lest you also be tempted" (Gal 6:1). Love itself is the same shape: "Love suffers long, it is kind ... is not provoked, does not take account of evil ... bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things" (1Cor 13:4-7).
The line of the topic, then, runs from a court-administered measured response, through the Wisdom and Prophetic refusal of private retaliation, through Yahweh's own delayed wrath, into the Christic refusal to revile back, and out into a community whose mark is to bless those who curse them and feed those who hate them.