Does this verse teach that revenge should not be sought directly but in a more roundabout way? Does it say that even though we must not seek the immediate destruction of our enemies, we can still harbour a desire for their ultimate destruction when God acts against them? Certainly his action will be far more terrible than anything that we could do to them, but no, this is not about retaining our hatred in disguise, and seeking to fulfil it in a more subtle way. What the proverb urges is a genuine desire to help our enemy in the hope that he will be shown mercy by God. How could it be otherwise when Christ commands to love our enemies? Does love secretly conceal hatred inside it? Of course not! For all we know God will answer our sincere prayer and bring mercy on our enemy, but if not then we will render them even more without excuse when they face God’s judgment, because they failed to respond to the unreasonable kindness that they received but did not deserve. This behaviour further aggravates their guilt and ensures that when God does finally judge them, the punishment is even more terrible.
In the meantime we will have delivered ourselves from a wrong reaction to a testing situation by responding in obedience to God and aligning ourselves with his character, for he is the God who loves his enemies (Matthew 5:45) and he desires that we should imitate him, proving ourselves to be his children. For this we will receive a greater reward because we did the difficult thing in obedience to him and waited patiently for his purposes to be fulfilled. We overcame evil through mercy and were not overcome by evil.