NOTES for Exo 23:4

The Torah, like the Bible as a whole, never encouraged revenge and never urged anyone toward vindictiveness. There is, of course, among the laws of the Torah the one Jesus cites in the Sermon on the Mount, about an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. This norm was part of the principle consistently carried out in the legislation of the Book of Exodus: the principle of talion, the principle of repayment and compensation. But this principle, too, can be put into practice in different ways. One can, for example, adopt a law prescribing the payment of monetary compensation to the person who has been harmed. There are many such norms in the same Book of Exodus.

If a person causes someone personal or property damage, as a rule he is sentenced precisely to compensation for the harm done, often in multiple measure. In the case of personal injury, the one who caused it is obliged to pay for the victim's treatment and support him at his own expense until his ability to work is restored. And if that does not happen, the guilty party is obliged to support the injured person at his own expense for the rest of his days. The norm that follows the principle "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth" was more a remnant of the past, when revenge was the only, or at least the main, way to regulate relationships and compensate for harm done.

Here the issue is more about limitation than prescription: that for one eye knocked out, both of the guilty person's eyes should not be knocked out, and that he should not lose all his teeth because the victim lost one. But even in this limited form, revenge still remained revenge. It is no accident that Jesus abolishes this norm, because it was an obvious concession to human sinfulness. And how the Torah actually regards revenge can easily be seen in the law that forbids taking it out on the property of one's enemy. One may not use a misfortune that has happened to a person as a way to harm him, even if he is your enemy.

In an extreme case, if there is no way at all to restrain oneself, one may inflict proportionate harm on him, especially if the matter involves, for example, a fight. But one may not take revenge even on one's enemy at every convenient opportunity. Such revenge without limits means only one thing: endless and unceasing hatred toward the one being avenged upon. Hatred with which it is impossible to live. And not even because, hating in this way, sooner or later you may kill the one you hate, but because by this hatred you kill yourself. Forever and irrevocably.

It is customary to think that love for enemies is an exclusively evangelical, New Testament virtue. In reality, as we can see, the corresponding norms already exist in the legislation of the book of Exodus, and as law, not as a simple wish or piece of advice. Here, of course, this is not yet love as a stable relationship; it is more accurate to speak of actions that presuppose such a relationship. But relationships in general cannot be prescribed by law. The law can require a person to perform certain actions, while relationships are too subtle a matter for legal regulation. Yet the character of the action and its meaning point to the relationship that is presupposed.

Helping one's enemy means, at the very least, the absence of hatred toward that enemy. The absence of hatred does not by itself guarantee love, but at least it makes love possible. In practice, the absence of hatred is expressed precisely in the refusal to take revenge.

The traditional norm reflected in the customary law of many peoples came down to this: one must harm an enemy as much as possible and in every possible way as long as he remains an enemy. Any damage was considered acceptable here: war is war. The Torah, however, prescribes a limit to enmity. Enmity must not turn into a war for the annihilation of one's enemy; this is the main meaning of the relevant prescriptions.

For example, a situation in which an enemy has fallen into trouble should be a sign that hostilities against one's enemy must be suspended. Such a suspension means fair play: a person recognizes his enemy as an enemy, but also recognizes that his enemy does not deserve destruction at any cost and in every possible form. Such a position can be called nobility toward an enemy, the kind of nobility that in the Middle Ages was called chivalrous; but above all what is present here is the recognition of a human being as a human being, the recognition that a person remains such for you even after becoming your enemy. This recognition is the necessary condition for love of an enemy, and the Torah strives to guarantee it as far as this is possible by law.