NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

by Dr. Robert R. Seyda

GOSPEL OF MATTHEW

CHAPTER FIVE

Part VIII (con’t)

And in a small addendum to the Mishnah we find the story of a man who was the guest of another man who invited him to eat and drink. But the visitor said that he had taken an oath to fast. However, after much coaxing he ended up eating anyhow. As a result, his guest had him punished with 40 stripes. When the word got around, some Rabbis sent a messenger to find out what happened. The messenger found out what really happened, how the man disregarded his vow. So the messenger blessed the man who punished the violator who broke his vows by asking him to swear by his life and by his head that he would continue to do so to all who ignored their vows.¹ Therefore, Jesus is saying, be careful when you put your head on the line as collateral that you will fulfill your promises.

There is an old phrase attributed to Miguel de Cervantes, a Spanish writer best known for his magnum opus “Don Quixote” which says: “An honest man’s word is as good as his bond.”² In the early days of the old west in America, it was also accepted that a man’s handshake was his signed contract. This led to a phrase which is even used to this day, “I’m as good as my word.” In Jesus’ mind, He saw no reason to give assurances beyond one’s own word as a temptation of the devil. This left the Jewish doctors of the law in the audience little room to object to or reject what Jesus was saying. In fact, one venerable Rabbi makes it quite clear: “A man wise in the law should conduct his business dealings with honesty and good faith. When his answer is ‘no,’ he is saying, ‘no;’ when his answer is ‘yes,’ he is saying, ‘yes.’”³

We also find in Jewish writings where the writer talks about Moses coming down off the mountain and told the children of Israel: “Be ready to accept the reign of heaven joyfully.” And then he instructed them, “Respond ‘yes’ to a positive commandment and ‘no’ to a negative commandment.” Says Rabbi Ishmael, since God spoke each commandment with one word then we should respond with only one word. He said, “This teaches that the people answered ‘yes’ to a positive commandment and ‘no’ to a negative commandment.”⁴ In other words, when the commandment says “do it,” the response should be “Yes,” meaning I will. When the commandment says “don’t do it,” the response should be, “No,” meaning I won’t.

Again our Lord leaves His Jewish listeners not only with an impressive knowledge of the Word, but also puts them in a position where they must agree with Him or otherwise they are going against their own teachings. The importance of these one word acknowledgments is pointed out by one Rabbi who said: “’No’ is an oath; ‘Yes’ is an oath.”⁵ When we know that a person stands by their word, then yes or no is all we need to trust them to do or not do what they’ve agreed to without further motivation. We can see why our Lord was instilling this in the hearts and minds of His followers. The last thing any one of God’s children wants to be known for is: “you can’t trust their word.” Rabbi Maimonides agrees with this interpretation: that the inspiration for this comes from God’s promise to Noah and his sons,⁶ which God reminds the people through the prophet Isaiah⁷.”⁸ But Jesus is not finished with His updating of these oral traditions that were such a part of Jewish life during His day.

Verses 38-42: “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.’”

Here Jesus’ references the Law of Moses.⁹ But He does so in order to point out the difference between the letter of the law and the spirit of the law. Paying back can be both sweet and bitter. When bitter, it drives a stake in the heart of the one being paid back for some wrong or misconduct, therefore assuring them to be enemies for a lifetime. When sweet, it bathes the heart of the culprit in love thereby opening the possibility of obtaining a friend. And as we all have heard, an enemy won over as a friend, is a better friend than those gained by favors. But among the Jewish factions in those days, they took this law of retaliation seriously.

Jewish historian Josephus outlines it when he explains the predominant philosophy: “He who injures anyone, let them endure a similar injury, and be deprived of using the same part of the body of which he has deprived the other, unless he that is injured will accept payment instead. For the law allows the one who was injured to assess the damage, and permits him to estimate the cost, unless he overestimates it.”¹⁰ Also, a Jewish commentary explains this law of retaliation: “An eye for an eye: if a person blinds his neighbor’s eye, he must give him the value of his eye, which means, how much he will lose in wages as a result of losing the eye. So is the meaning of all the injuries enumerated in the following verses, but not the actual amputation of a limb, as our Rabbis interpreted it.”¹¹ Also, in the same commentary the author notes what the Rabbis have to say in their verbal teachings related to the law of retaliation: “Why pay compensation? Does the Divine Law not say ‘Eye for eye’?¹² Why not take this literally to mean putting out the eye of the offender? – Don’t let this enter your mind, since it has been taught: You might think that where as he put out his eye, the offender’s eye should also be put out…but that is not so, for it is laid down, He that injures any man will pay for it¹³). . .compensation is to be paid, but not as a form of retaliation.”¹⁴

And to this the venerable Maimonides adds: “What is meant by ‘the damages’? If a person cuts off the hand or the foot of a colleague, we theoretically consider the injured colleague as a servant being sold in the market place and evaluate his value before the injury and his value afterwards. The person who caused the injury must pay the depreciation in value. This is alluded to in Exodus 21:24: ‘An eye for an eye.’ The oral tradition interprets ‘for,’ as an indication that the verse requires financial recompense. The Torah’s statement: ‘Just as he caused an injury to his fellowman, so too, an injury should be caused to him,’ ¹⁵ should not be interpreted in a literal sense. It does not mean that the person who caused the injury should actually be subjected to a similar physical punishment. Instead, the intent is that he deserves to lose a limb or to be injured in the same manner as his colleague was, and therefore he should make financial restitution to him. This interpretation is supported by the verse, Numbers 35:31: ‘Do not accept a ransom for the soul of the murderer.’ Implied is that no ransom may be paid for a murderer alone, but a ransom may be paid for causing a loss of limb or other injuries.”¹⁶ In the Book of Jubilee we find an interesting exposition on what it means to get what one deserves: “At the close of this Jubilee Cain was killed after Abel in the same year; for his house fell upon him and he died in the midst of his house, and he was killed by its stones; for with a stone he had killed Abel, and by a stone was he killed in righteous judgment. For this reason it was ordained on the heavenly tablets: With the instrument with which a man kills his neighbor with the same shall he be killed; after the manner that he wounded him, in like manner shall they deal with him.”¹⁷

And in the Dead Sea Scrolls we find this practiced among the Essenes: “If a malicious witness comes forward against a man to testify against him in a case of a crime, both disputants shall stand before me and before the priests and the Levites and before the judges then in office, and the judges shall inquire, and if the witness is a false witness who has testified falsely against his brother, you shall do to him as he proposed to do to his brother. You shall rid yourselves of evil. The rest shall hear of it and shall be awe-stricken and never again shall such a thing be done in your midst. You shall have no mercy on him: life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.”¹⁸ We can see that Jesus in His teaching touches on a deep seeded belief in the Jewish community. That’s why Jesus was not out of line with His interpretation, but vocalized the main stream of Jewish intellectual thought. So much for those who considered Him nothing more than an uneducated itinerant prophet from the outback of Galilee.

So Jesus gives instructions on this new formula. “But I tell you, don’t fight back against someone who wants to do harm to you.” This ideal was expressed by Job when he said: “I have never been happy when my enemies were destroyed. I have never laughed at my enemies when bad things happened to them. I have never let my mouth sin by cursing my enemies and wishing for them to die.”¹⁹ We see a beautiful illustration of how this attitude is carried out when David confronted Saul and pointed out to him that when he hid in the cave and Saul came in to relieve himself, he could have killed him. And just to show the proof, David had a piece of cloth that came from Saul’s robe.²⁰ Being the son of David, Jesus was carrying out His royal ancestor’s sense of justice.

Now Jesus goes on. “If they hit you on the right cheek, let them hit the other cheek too.” We see an example of this when Zedekiah slapped Micaiah in the face for prophesying something he was against.²¹ Jesus would show that He practiced what He preached during His trial.²² But this command also contains an interesting play on words. Imagine that someone who is right-handed, slaps another person on the cheek out of frustration. That would mean that their right hand would hit the left cheek of the person facing them. By the same token, envision someone who wants to humiliate another person with an insulting act, they would take their right hand and backhand to person facing them on the left cheek.