Matthew 5:38-42, the law of retaliation, this was actually an ancient law already to Jesus, not just because it was in the Torah, but because it was ancient even in the time of Moses. So most likely, even though the literal reading of the law is you poke out my eye, so I get to poke out your eye, the way it was typically applied in most of the ancient law codes we know about was a monetary fine, which makes a lot more sense. This can sound to some people like it’s a license to get even, the intent of the rule was in many ways the opposite, it was about putting a ceiling on vengeance getting out of control, like putting a stopper. So if you take out my eye, I can’t take your life, but that actually is not hard to imagine that happening, whether it’s in a street brawl, my eye, I can’t see out of it anymore and I go into a blind rage and I take someone’s life.
Essentially, the law is addressing two problems, one is trying to get even, but overcompensation, you take my eye, I take your life, but second it is trying to prevent the escalation of blood feuds that go on for generations and it just escalates, more people die, more people injured and it’s an effort to put a cap, that’s if someone’s injured or wronged, the recompense is equal to the wrong and then we’re done. So it really is an effort to put a stop on spiraling human violence, a created a system, so that the recompense that is due actually matches the scale of the wrong, so that’s fairly intuitive on that level. The assumption here is, that if I’ve wronged you and you could poke out my eye, but what’s the monetary value that you suffered and now if you’ve taken out my eye to make it right, you need to pay for that, it’s called just recompense.
Vengeance has the idea of you getting even or things are made right and plus some and Jesus’ response to this, if we think that the law was originally giving license to go get recompense, then Jesus’ response feels like a true counter, like the opposite, but if what the law was intended to do was just create a level set on the amount that you can demand of recompense for damages, then Jesus’ response shifts a little bit, because the command wasn’t you have to demand recompense, it’s just saying, if you’re going to, you can’t demand more than what’s reasonable. Jesus both in this saying and then you can also see it playing out in his life, he took really seriously a theme that’s in the Hebrew Bible that humans are very imperfect judges of how to balance recompense.
We’re really poor at putting the eye for eye system, like doing it right and so there is a theme within the Hebrew Bible where Israel is at times called to not demand recompense or not retaliate and to trust, trusting in the character of God, that God is the ultimate judge. For example Deuteronomy chapter 32, God says it is mine to avenge, I will repay and the word avenge there, we might think like fair recompense plus, but the word just means recompense. Psalm 94:1 begins with a poem lamenting about really terrible people wreaking havoc in my Israelite town, Yahweh is the God who will bring recompense or avenge. The famous set of ideas in Romans chapter 12, Paul says, don’t take revenge my friends, leave room for God’s anger, it is mine to avenge, I will repay and Jesus is saying is, don’t try and engineer your own recompense.
Look at the three examples that he gives and none of the three examples involve doing nothing, they all involve some kind of response, what is that response and how we understand it. The three examples really, it’s about the ancient cultural context, but the phrase “don’t resist,” the key is Jesus is making a pun that links his response, “don’t resist,” to the law of retribution. So up in the two statements of law of retribution, an eye for an eye or tooth for a tooth, that word “for” is a Greek preposition called “auntie,” but in this context what it means is, the thing in place of, the thing that matches. An eye matching an eye, it means matching or the same in kind or degree or level, that’s one of the main meaning of meanings of auntie, this in place of that. So what Jesus does is, the word that he uses that gets translated resist, is a compound Greek word made of two parts and one of those parts is that phrase auntie, that preposition auntie.
So the word Jesus uses is auntiestai, it’s a compound aunti and then stai, which means to stand, so here auntie is being used in another sense, which can mean against, like opposite, like if I am standing in front of a wall, you could say I’m standing aunti the wall in Greek, facing it, my face is against the wall. One typical use of auntiestai, to stand against, means to oppose, to stand against something, that is to prevent it like if it’s a moving object, you auntiestai, you prevent it from going forward and on that meaning, it could Jesus is saying, if it has that meaning, something negative is happening to you, don’t auntiestai, don’t oppose it, don’t stand against it. But then the three examples that he’s going to give when you read them in cultural context don’t mean that, they mean the opposite of that, they actually are a kind of opposition, but there a very creative, courageous, bold twist on what it means to oppose something.
So there are many scholars who think that this is a pun, meaning that the auntie is actually being used in the sense of don’t stand against someone in a way that matches what they’ve done to you. So an eye in place of an eye, a tooth in place of a tooth, don’t let your standing against, match how the other person is standing against you. Still stand, respond, but don’t respond in the same posture. Don’t resist in kind, meaning they’re standing against you, don’t stand against them in the same way that they are standing against you. Don’t make them an enemy, stand against them, stand in a way that you don’t treat them in the way they’re treating you. Jesus’ ripping on eye for an eye, but now he’s saying is, instead of it meaning gaining recompense of equal kind, don’t treat them back in equal kind to the way they’re treating you.
This line actually gets picked up by Paul a couple times and he changes the verb, 1 Thessalonians chapter 5, see that no one repays another with evil for evil, so instead of saying resist, he gets repay, but he uses the same phrase auntie that Jesus did. So Paul’s assuming what Jesus meant was not just resistance in general, but standing against someone in the way that they’ve stood against you. In Roman chapter 12, Paul quotes from another saying, bless those who persecute you, bless and don’t curse, that’s from the Sermon on the Mount and then he says never pay back evil for evil, there’s auntie again to anyone, do what is right in the eyes of all men, never take your own vengeance, leave room for the vengeance of God.
Essentially, the law is addressing two problems, one is trying to get even, but overcompensation, you take my eye, I take your life, but second it is trying to prevent the escalation of blood feuds that go on for generations and it just escalates, more people die, more people injured and it’s an effort to put a cap, that’s if someone’s injured or wronged, the recompense is equal to the wrong and then we’re done. So it really is an effort to put a stop on spiraling human violence, a created a system, so that the recompense that is due actually matches the scale of the wrong, so that’s fairly intuitive on that level. The assumption here is, that if I’ve wronged you and you could poke out my eye, but what’s the monetary value that you suffered and now if you’ve taken out my eye to make it right, you need to pay for that, it’s called just recompense.
Vengeance has the idea of you getting even or things are made right and plus some and Jesus’ response to this, if we think that the law was originally giving license to go get recompense, then Jesus’ response feels like a true counter, like the opposite, but if what the law was intended to do was just create a level set on the amount that you can demand of recompense for damages, then Jesus’ response shifts a little bit, because the command wasn’t you have to demand recompense, it’s just saying, if you’re going to, you can’t demand more than what’s reasonable. Jesus both in this saying and then you can also see it playing out in his life, he took really seriously a theme that’s in the Hebrew Bible that humans are very imperfect judges of how to balance recompense.
We’re really poor at putting the eye for eye system, like doing it right and so there is a theme within the Hebrew Bible where Israel is at times called to not demand recompense or not retaliate and to trust, trusting in the character of God, that God is the ultimate judge. For example Deuteronomy chapter 32, God says it is mine to avenge, I will repay and the word avenge there, we might think like fair recompense plus, but the word just means recompense. Psalm 94:1 begins with a poem lamenting about really terrible people wreaking havoc in my Israelite town, Yahweh is the God who will bring recompense or avenge. The famous set of ideas in Romans chapter 12, Paul says, don’t take revenge my friends, leave room for God’s anger, it is mine to avenge, I will repay and Jesus is saying is, don’t try and engineer your own recompense.
Look at the three examples that he gives and none of the three examples involve doing nothing, they all involve some kind of response, what is that response and how we understand it. The three examples really, it’s about the ancient cultural context, but the phrase “don’t resist,” the key is Jesus is making a pun that links his response, “don’t resist,” to the law of retribution. So up in the two statements of law of retribution, an eye for an eye or tooth for a tooth, that word “for” is a Greek preposition called “auntie,” but in this context what it means is, the thing in place of, the thing that matches. An eye matching an eye, it means matching or the same in kind or degree or level, that’s one of the main meaning of meanings of auntie, this in place of that. So what Jesus does is, the word that he uses that gets translated resist, is a compound Greek word made of two parts and one of those parts is that phrase auntie, that preposition auntie.
So the word Jesus uses is auntiestai, it’s a compound aunti and then stai, which means to stand, so here auntie is being used in another sense, which can mean against, like opposite, like if I am standing in front of a wall, you could say I’m standing aunti the wall in Greek, facing it, my face is against the wall. One typical use of auntiestai, to stand against, means to oppose, to stand against something, that is to prevent it like if it’s a moving object, you auntiestai, you prevent it from going forward and on that meaning, it could Jesus is saying, if it has that meaning, something negative is happening to you, don’t auntiestai, don’t oppose it, don’t stand against it. But then the three examples that he’s going to give when you read them in cultural context don’t mean that, they mean the opposite of that, they actually are a kind of opposition, but there a very creative, courageous, bold twist on what it means to oppose something.
So there are many scholars who think that this is a pun, meaning that the auntie is actually being used in the sense of don’t stand against someone in a way that matches what they’ve done to you. So an eye in place of an eye, a tooth in place of a tooth, don’t let your standing against, match how the other person is standing against you. Still stand, respond, but don’t respond in the same posture. Don’t resist in kind, meaning they’re standing against you, don’t stand against them in the same way that they are standing against you. Don’t make them an enemy, stand against them, stand in a way that you don’t treat them in the way they’re treating you. Jesus’ ripping on eye for an eye, but now he’s saying is, instead of it meaning gaining recompense of equal kind, don’t treat them back in equal kind to the way they’re treating you.
This line actually gets picked up by Paul a couple times and he changes the verb, 1 Thessalonians chapter 5, see that no one repays another with evil for evil, so instead of saying resist, he gets repay, but he uses the same phrase auntie that Jesus did. So Paul’s assuming what Jesus meant was not just resistance in general, but standing against someone in the way that they’ve stood against you. In Roman chapter 12, Paul quotes from another saying, bless those who persecute you, bless and don’t curse, that’s from the Sermon on the Mount and then he says never pay back evil for evil, there’s auntie again to anyone, do what is right in the eyes of all men, never take your own vengeance, leave room for the vengeance of God.
