Matthew 5:38 Commentary and Bible Study

‘You have heard that it was said’ according to the tradition of the Rabbis. They often added to the law, took away from it, or simply twisted it. Here they twisted it. What was given by Moses to the judiciary of Israel was for the administration of justice, but it had been applied to personal vendettas. In Exodus 21:24, Deuteronomy 19:21, and Leviticus 24:20 these very words occur, but the context was the sentence to be handed out by the courts. In one case this was the sentence on an aggressive individual; in another it was in response to someone who injured another; and in the third case it was the punishment due to a false witness for perjury. It sounds hard, but the opposite is intended. Without restrictions being placed by the law on various crimes, the perpetrators would be killed. This was to contain the judges in their sentencing, but it did not give a licence for individual revenge. This had to involve the courts; I could not meet this out as my own personal sentence. Christ is only putting things back to where they originally were. He knows the law; he wrote it in the first place. Who could more perfectly explain it? The Pharisees taught ‘private right of vengeance’, but it was never taught in the time of Moses. They turned these Scriptures into a charter for private revenge, which excused them in everyday life from ever having to show forbearance to anyone. Christ’s teaching is about showing no revenge, no vindictiveness.What Moses taught was the need for proportionate punishment, which was to be punishment in kind: life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, foot for foot, and hand for hand. Life for eye would have been disproportionate and therefore not in accordance with the law. But to take this standard which applied to penal law and insist on its application in every private interaction between one person and another, was to leave no room for other nobler qualities which the law also demanded of men, such as mercy. The Lord also said to Moses, ‘You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of your people, but you shall love your neighbour as yourself: I am the LORD’ (Leviticus 19:18). This ought to have shown the Pharisees that God was so encouraging each one to pursue personal vendettas until they had obtained corresponding hurt to others. What the courts were to enforce was one thing; what each man in his private dealing was to exact was another. Calvin says, ‘They thought that they did no wrong provided they were not the first to make the attack, but only, when injured, return like for like.’