He giveth his cheek to him that smiteth him: he is filled full with reproach.
The book is the poetic Hebrew acrostics written by Jeremiah. In plain sense it describes enduring violence and disgrace without resisting, the sufferer offering the cheek to one who strikes and being filled full with reproach. In its setting it is joined to bearing the yoke in youth and to sitting alone and keeping silence under affliction.
It forbids private revenge and commands patient endurance of personal wrong, proving that nonresistance in private relations was already Old Testament morality. The eye for an eye rule belonged only to magistrates in courts of justice, not to private conduct. In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus therefore did not destroy Old Testament teaching or bring a new ethics, but corrected the tradition of the scribes and Pharisees who had perverted a civil court law into a rule for private revenge and hatred of enemies.
It belongs among God's abundant promises that prove distrust and faint-heartedness displease God and that ought forever to stop all murmuring and doubting. While it calls the individual to turn the other cheek when struck, governments cannot simply accept attacks without consequence and still function, since nations have a duty to enforce penalties.
The book is the poetic Hebrew acrostics written by Jeremiah. In plain sense it describes enduring violence and disgrace without resisting, the sufferer offering the cheek to one who strikes and being filled full with reproach. In its setting it is joined to bearing the yoke in youth and to sitting alone and keeping silence under affliction.
It forbids private revenge and commands patient endurance of personal wrong, proving that nonresistance in private relations was already Old Testament morality. The eye for an eye rule belonged only to magistrates in courts of justice, not to private conduct. In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus therefore did not destroy Old Testament teaching or bring a new ethics, but corrected the tradition of the scribes and Pharisees who had perverted a civil court law into a rule for private revenge and hatred of enemies.
It belongs among God's abundant promises that prove distrust and faint-heartedness displease God and that ought forever to stop all murmuring and doubting. While it calls the individual to turn the other cheek when struck, governments cannot simply accept attacks without consequence and still function, since nations have a duty to enforce penalties.