Revenge is best not served

In the Islamic faith, revenge is discouraged, and forgiveness is very

much emphasized and encouraged. If the victim insists on not

forgiving, then justice has to be sought through a legitimate

judiciary system. Revenge leads to more hatred and escalates the

tension and the animosity between the parties.

IMAM MOUSTAFA AL-QAZWINI

Islamic Educational Center

of Orange County

Costa Mesa

“Can exacting retribution by inflicting punishment ever serve to

vindicate a person after a hostile altercation with another?”

This question is a microcosm of profound questions with which all

Christians wrestle, such as “Under what circumstances can violence

have divine sanction?” On such questions, good people of faith come

to very different conclusions.

Christians who take to heart (St.) Paul’s counsel in Romans 12:19,

which quotes Deuteronomy 32:35, would like to believe that vengeance

is God’s prerogative, not ours, and say that revenge is never a

justifiable response.

But this primary question raises so many secondary ones: Was the

original complaint righteous and/or reasonable? Was the quarrel

verbal and/or physical? Did hostile feelings and/or actions lead to

physical and/or psychological and/or emotional and/or spiritual

injury, harm or wrong? The old axiom “Never say never” may be

appropriate here.

With regard to people who disagree with me or even wish me ill,

Jesus counsels not revenge but “Confuse and disarm them with love!”

(See Matthew 5:38ff. and Luke 6:27ff., among many possibilities.)

Our Book of Common Prayer (page 816) has us pray for such persons:

“Lead them and us from prejudice to truth; deliver them and us from

hatred, cruelty, and revenge; and in God’s good time enable us all to

stand reconciled before God.”

As with all good questions, the best answer is God.

THE VERY REV. CANON

PETER D. HAYNES

St. Michael & All Angels

Episcopal Church

Corona del Mar

The most persistently misunderstood passage in Scripture is “you

shall give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth.” Rather than

commanding cruel revenge, this law was actually a great advance over

the mandates of contemporaneous civilizations. This verse teaches not

harsh legalism or vengeance, but that we should respond in

proportional degree when attacked.

The punishment had to fit the crime. An “eye for an eye” meant

only an eye for an eye, not two eyes for one, not a life for a tooth,

not a tribe for a life, not a generational blood feud.

Further, in Jewish jurisprudence, this law was never followed

literally but, rather, taken to mean suitable monetary punitive

damages for lost eyes or limbs. Judaism never knew mutilation or

torture as legal punishments.

To the uneducated reader, this passage sounds harsh and punitive,

proclaiming the cruel doctrine of the barbaric ethic of retribution.

When properly understood, this passage is seen as representing a

considerable ethical improvement. What Moses was really teaching was

that the punishment must be commensurate with the offense, not

unrestrictedly severe, measured justice instead of wild revenge.

Our responses must be proportional to the assault. Though revenge

must be foresworn, evil must be answered. This verse does not refer

to the thirst for vengeance, but to the hunger for justice.

RABBI MARK MILLER

Temple Bat Yahm

Newport Beach