Vengeance

"Revenge is sweetest when it is cold."

"Revenge is the kind of dish you should eat cold." (Mafia Proverb)

"Don't get mad; get even."

"Make my day."

"Before seeking vengeance, dig two graves." - Chinese proverb

One of the persistent obstacles to peace is the desire for vengeance or, to put it in more respectable terms, the desire for retribution.

How often to we hear the language of justice used in the demand for retribution?
Do I distort this vision of justice or bring it into focus when I substitute the language of retribution with the idea of getting even or getting back at someone. Is the desire to make someone pay for the injury that we feel have anything to do with justice or righteousness?
How often does the demand for vengeance or retribution lead to the perpetuation or even escalation of violence?

The Bible's powerful language of justice, its code of accountability and patterns of sin and punishment, and its theological depiction of God as divine judge provide many with what they take to be a biblical basis for their desire for revenge. Look at how Lamech uses God's language in Genesis 4 to serve his own ends.

A more careful reading of the Bible shows that set into the strict demands of accountability is a theology in which retribution is in God's hands, a judge who unlike Lady Justice is not blind, neither in the sense of indiscriminate nor in the sense of ignorance.

"Vengeance is mine," says the Lord, "I will repay,"( Deut 32:35 ;cf. Ps 94; Isaiah 61:2), that is to say, not thine.
"Do not say, "I will repay evil"; wait for the Lord, and he will help you." Prov 20:22
" Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you." Matt 5:44
"Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; do not claim to be wiser than you are. Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God; for it is written, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord." "If your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads." Do not overcome by evil, but overcome with good." Romans 12:14-21 (cites Proverbs 25:21-23)

The story of how the Aramean attack is thwarted (2 Kings 6:15-23) provides a narrative example of Proverbs 25:21-23.

6: 8 Once when the king of Syria was warring against Israel, he took counsel with his servants, saying, "At such and such a place shall be my camp." 9 But the man of God sent word to the king of Israel, "Beware that you do not pass this place, for the Syrians are going down there." 10 And the king of Israel sent to the place of which the man of God told him. Thus he used to warn him, so that he saved himself there more than once or twice. 11 And the mind of the king of Syria was greatly troubled because of this thing; and he called his servants and said to them, "Will you not show me who of us is for the king of Israel?" 12 And one of his servants said, "None, my lord, O king; but Eli'sha, the prophet who is in Israel, tells the king of Israel the words that you speak in your bedchamber." 13 And he said, "Go and see where he is, that I may send and seize him." It was told him, "Behold, he is in Dothan." 14 So he sent there horses and chariots and a great army; and they came by night, and surrounded the city. 15 When the servant of the man of God rose early in the morning and went out, behold, an army with horses and chariots was round about the city. And the servant said, "Alas, my master! What shall we do?" 16 He said, "Fear not, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them." 17 Then Eli'sha prayed, and said, "O LORD, I pray thee, open his eyes that he may see." So the LORD opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw; and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Eli'sha. 18 And when the Syrians came down against him, Eli'sha prayed to the LORD, and said, "Strike this people, I pray thee, with blindness." So he struck them with blindness in accordance with the prayer of Eli'sha. 19 And Eli'sha said to them, "This is not the way, and this is not the city; follow me, and I will bring you to the man whom you seek." And he led them to Sama'ria. 20 As soon as they entered Sama'ria, Eli'sha said, "O LORD, open the eyes of these men, that they may see." So the LORD opened their eyes, and they saw; and lo, they were in the midst of Sama'ria. 21 When the king of Israel saw them he said to Eli'sha, "My father, shall I slay them? Shall I slay them?" 22 He answered, "You shall not slay them. Would you slay those whom you have taken captive with your sword and with your bow? Set bread and water before them, that they may eat and drink and go to their master." 23 So he prepared for them a great feast; and when they had eaten and drunk, he sent them away, and they went to their master. And the Syrians came no more on raids into the land of Israel.

Jesus reiterates the Old Testament teaching that vengeance belongs to God when he calls us not to judge others:

"Do not judge, so that you may not be judged. For with the judgment you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get." Matt 7:1-2

God is the arbiter of justice for only God can see into the hearts of people.

Rather than advocating a notion of retributive justice such as those who call for "an eye for an eye" do, Jesus calls us to tip the balance in the other's favor:

If someone requires payment of a debt from you; pay more than you are owed.
If someone harms you, do not request compensation.

We tend to think that Jesus introduces something new when he teaches that we should love our enemies, but we can find the foundation for his teaching in his own scriptures, and patterns of thought that subvert the impulse or the need for vengeance.

People Change

Vengeance is predicated upon a negative appraisal of human nature and the world.

Ralph Cintron, "The Ideology of Vengeance," Annals of the American Academy of Political & Social Science , Jan2000, Vol. 567, p42-53. We might summarize these assumptions by noting that the core worldview is one of distrust. The world is not a place that is abundant and gives of itself; rather, it is suspect and always ready to take from someone. Order is not a given, not something built into the fabric of human relationships. Rather, scarcity and the disorder that ensues are the givens. If order is to be made, one has to manufacture it and forcefully maintain it because it will always be threatened. Therefore, how can one rely on something as slow-moving, unpredictable, and abstract as a legally based society to deliver a regime of order? How can such an unpredictable entity right an injury committed by someone? The answer, of course, given the worldview outlined previously, is that it cannot. The result is the emergence of the last assumption: one shows heart when taking care of one's own business.(n4) This assumption means that the only reliable entity is the self operating independently outside the structures of a legally based society. Indeed, honor and dignity are awarded to such a self. In short, the act of vengeance becomes the tool of the righteous self putting order back into the world, a world inherently polluted by disorder.(n5) We might call all this, then, the logic and ideology of vengeance.

In his classic study of Biblical Poetics, Mimesis, Eric Auerbach notes that part of the Biblical view of reality is that people change.

Jacob and Esau Gen 33 Esau: I have enough, my brother; keep what you have for yourself.
Jacob: No, please; if I find favor with you, then accept my present from my hand; for truly to see your face is like seeing the face of God -- since you have received me with such favor. Please accept my gift that is brought to you, because God has dealt graciously with me, and because I have everything I want."

What has happened to Esau?
Why do we suppose that Isaac's curse is efficacious?

Chapter 36 is dedicated to the genealogy of Esau .

In his article "The Ideology of Violence," Ralph Cintron underscores that revenge is predicated upon an attitude of distrust and the conviction that the world is not an abundant place.

The provision of cities of Refuge Deut 19:10-11 and the strict laws prohibiting retributive justice are designed to shape a society not governed by such attitudes. The need to receive the stranger as neighbor rather than threat is underscored by the story of the Israelite people, " A wandering Aramean was my father" (Deut 26:5).

Penitence

Ephraim Urbach, The Sages, p. 462, points out how the Sages regarded the attribute of justice (God punishes the wicked and rewards the rest) as central but that this principle is bounded. It is not allowed to deprive man of the ability to repent.

Urbach points out the there is just as much if not more evidence that punishment is automatic, but he points out that the sages emphasize repentence over punishment. The demands of repentance were so small and the time allowed for it so long ­ until his last day" p. 469.

Jonah knows that this is God's true nature but he knows that human beings are not so, he will be taken to be a false prophet.

Hosea 11:9 "God will not be like man, he will show pity to his people.

The Victim Complex

Rod Nordland, "Vengeance of a Victim Race" Newsweek, 04/12/99, Vol. 133 Issue 15, p42-3. The Serbs are Europe's outsiders, seasoned haters raised on self-pity. Even the 'democrats' are questionable characters. There's a common Serb expression that could be the national motto--"Well, at least one of my neighbor's cows is dead.'' It's heard often these days, in this context: NATO may be bombing us and methodically destroying our bridges, our Army, our fuel supplies, our ministries. Our economy is ruined. We're forever shunned by Europe. Our only friends are the Iraqis, the Chinese, the Greeks, the Russians. But at least we put it to the Albanians. Their cows are all dead. ... What accounts for the bile? First is a highly developed sense of victimization. Throughout the wars in Croatia and Bosnia, the Serbs, backed by the powerful Yugoslav Army, insisted they were the underdogs. As they lay savage siege to Sarajevo, they complained with straight faces of being surrounded themselves. Now on the business end of NATO ordnance, they at last really are victims. ''What tragedy can be bigger than yours when you are being bombed by NATO?'' asks one Serb--who even from the safety of exile prefers not to be named, for fear of his family's fate back home. The other critical element of the Serb psyche: inat, which means "spite" but also includes the idea of revenge no matter what the cost. A taste for revenge mixed with self-pity is a dangerous combination. The key to the Serb-as-victim myth is the Battle of Kosovo, which the Serbs lost in 1389. Subsequent generations were taught it was the Serbs' finest hour, their noble attempt--unappreciated by other Europeans--to save the continent from the Ottoman hordes. Now it's remembered each year with a religious holiday, and the battle's Serb commander, Lazar, is a national hero. President Slobodan Milosevic understood the myth well, using it to whip up Serb nationalist passions over Kosovo a decade ago. That broke Yugoslavia apart in a succession of wars, all of which he lost. But Milosevic has always thrived on his nation's adversity, growing more powerful with each self-destructive crisis.

Vengenace requires that one perceive oneself as the victim. One of the most carefully told tales in the book of Genesis is the story of Joseph's reunion with his brothers. What could be a classic tale of revenge by the victim now turned nemisis becomes a story of solidarity and fraternity.

Our reading of the story takes direction from Meir Sternberg, The Poetics of Biblical Narrative, pp. 287-296.

Simone Weil, Gravity and Grace: "If someone does me an injury I must insure this injury not degrade me; and I must do so out of love for him who inflicts it, so that he may not really have done evil." "The false God changes suffering into violence. The true God changes violence into suffering."

The Absurdity of Vengeance

Vengeance tends to follow two patterns of causality

Y is the effect of X. What is the causal factor?
There is a tendency to try to isolate one factor and focus all retribution upon it or him or her . We tend to call this scapegoating. If we look at the biblical tradition of the scapegoat (Lev 16:1ff) and the practices of the Day of Atonemen t (Lev 23:26ff), we find that it underscores the absurdity of isolating one victim and the need for a broader notion of culpability. The laws of witness (Deut 19:15-21) and atonement for the unsolved murder (Deut 21:1-9) thwart the need to find X.

Vengeance seldom actually is directed at those responsible. It is usually enacted on family or those under one's protection.
This draws our attention to the second pattern of causality and one of its absurdities: Vengeance is usually enacted upon those who are not directly responsible.

Since X happened Y must follow.

While much of the Bible describes a system of atonement and punishment, the preface to the story of the law and the history of God's people contains the story of Cain and Abel that turns the biblical principle on its head.

George Mendenhall "argues that any society which has developed far enough to be able to write accounts of such feuds would also have transcended the blood feud as a socially acceptable means of obtaining redress." (William Klassen, Love of Enemies, 29)

"The Yahwist does not draw any moral. The account speaks for itself. The act of the first couple in questioning God is very small indeed compared to that of Lamech. For where they timidly asked and acted as if they had been misinformed, Lamech strides into the inner domain of Yahweh and brags to his wives that he has taken to himself that which belongs only to God. As Eve gloried in her ability to give birth with the help of God, thus in some sense finding an equality with God in that she can bring life into being, so Lamech has made himself equal to God by cutting short the life of a man who merely wounded him." (Klassen 29-30).

Steven L. Pomerantz (executive vice president of the Washington, D.C.-based Institute for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence, retired FBI assistant director, former chief of counterterrorism), "The Best Defense," New Republic, 08/31/98, Vol. 219 Issue 9, p14-15. After the bombings of U.S. embassies in Africa last week, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright went out of her way to tell the world what the United States would not do in response: "We are not a nation that retaliates just in order to get vengeance," she said, "[nor do we] forget our own legal system while searching for those who have harmed us." Nobody, of course, wants U.S. warplanes going off half-cocked, raining missiles on every state that could plausibly have sponsored the terrorist attacks. Nevertheless, Albright's statement, which other Clinton officials have echoed, is emblematic of our government's familiar and often futile approach to international terrorism--one that fails to take advantage of the most powerful tools at our disposal. To be sure, when it comes to terrorism at home, law enforcement and the criminal justice system--our only available options--have been effective .... When it comes to terrorism abroad, however, the government has been far less successful at prevention and punishment--for reasons that, in large part, are beyond the control of the law enforcement officials dispatched to investigate incidents. ... Most terrorists operate with the quiet (and sometimes not-so-quiet) assistance of states hostile to the United States; when pursued, the terrorists frequently take shelter there, and it's nearly impossible to get them out. ... By the time the United States could get its hands on the suspects--or, more likely, try to get some generally unfriendly nation to give up the suspects--more years would surely have passed. And that's assuming extradition was even possible. The message to new potential terrorists will be clear: Acting against the United States abroad is a low-risk proposition. The fundamental problem here is that international terrorism is not only a crime. It is also, for all intents and purposes, an act of war, and the United States needs to treat it as such. ... And so the United States must be prepared to use covert action or overt means against terrorists and the nations that back them. The United States has done so before, with at least some success. In 1986, the Reagan administration sent Navy bombers into Libya. The idea was to punish Muammar Qaddafi for backing and orchestrating the bombing of a disco in Berlin, Germany, frequented by U.S. soldiers stationed there. Although Qaddafi survived the attack (the administration denied targeting him, but his barracks were hit by the U.S. bombers), the strike had its desired effect. By most accounts, Libya grew more cautious in the following years. A message had been sent, and received. ... But faced with a foreign threat against U.S. citizens--that is, a war--even a democracy must base its decisions on different imperatives and standards of proof. The issue is not vengeance. The issue is exacting a price for terrorism so as to make it less likely that terrorists will want to strike again. ...

Pomerantz carefully leaves out the fact that one of Qaddafi's small children died in the retaliatory bombing of Libya and that the Lockerby incident happened after the 1986 raid in 1989. The idea that retribution restores order, that it restores the ought-to-be, is absurd. If innocent people are harmed by retaliation, then the victims of retaliation deserve vengeance. That the suffering or death or one person can restore to health or live another person is an absurd idea.

The story that begins with the rape of the Levites' Concubine in Judges 19 and ends with the orchestrated rape of the women of Shiloh points to how when one tries to end violence with violence, violence escalates.