“To me belongeth vengeance and recompence,” Deuteronomy, Chapter 32 verse 35
In our culture, Biblical quotation, particularly from the King James version with its majestic language, is always selective. Whether from the Old Testament, or Hebrew Bible as above, or the New Testament as below
“Vengeance is mine, I will repay”, saith the Lord. Romans, Chapter 12, verse 19
But the context of those quotes provide room for a teaching on this baleful anniversary.
In the past when I’ve written or recorded a Bible Study for Atheists there are always one or two commenters who write to say there is no God and much of the Old Testament is just a fairy story.
But if only for interpretative use, the Bible, a bedrock of our civilization — even for atheists — has value. I am not religious but the persistence of the book and its commentaries through millennia of wandering and exile — Heinrich Heine called the Torah the Jews’ portable homeland — convinces me that particularly when discussing Israel and the situation of contemporary Judaism, it has lessons with relevance today. History not repeating itself but rhyming.
Vengeance has been the motor and the fuel of the year since Hamas launched its sneak attack on the defenceless last October 7th, killing 1200 Israelis and abducting 200 + others.
Throughout the ensuing 12 months, as the Israel Defence Forces levelled Gaza while killing more that 40,000 Palestinians, President Joe Biden’s administration and other supportive governments have repeatedly asked Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, “What’s the end game? What’s your plan for Gaza the day after the fighting stops.” But that’s the wrong question
Vengeance, Biblical vengeance, has no end game.
The fury that saw Hamas launch its murderous attack, an act of strategic nihilism unparalleled in this century, and Israel’s continuing furious response is “biblical” in the modern slang usage.
The fury one sees in the streets of London, on American college campuses and elsewhere among anti-Zionists and general anti-Semites is not open to rational discussion. Vengeance never is. Perhaps that is why in the Bible, haShem, Adonai, the tetragrammaton, the Creator whose name we cannot say — the Lord — reserves vengeance to himself.
To me belongeth Vengeance
Those words appear in the book of Deuteronomy in Chapter 32, also called the Song of Moses. The great prophet of the Torah is reaching the end of his life. The children of Israel are gathered at the edge of Canaan ready to cross over the Jordan and take possession of the land G-d has promised them. And through his Prophet the Lord speaks to the 12 tribes.
It is a withering prophecy of what will happen to His Chosen People in the centuries to come. Speaking through Moses He describes their backsliding from His commandments, dalliances with other deities, and then His revenge
Verse 25
The sword without,
And terror within,
Shall destroy both the young man and the virgin,
The suckling also with the man of gray hairs.
Current scholarship says Deuteronomy, last of the Torah’s five books, was written in Babylon during the Israelites’ exile there in the middle of the 6th century BC. It imposes the Israelites’ present woes on their origin story from seven or eight centuries before. Moses, just before his death, told us what would happen and it has.
The end of the prophecy offers hope. G-d himself will repent of his anger
From verse 39:
I kill, and I make alive;
I wound, and I heal:
And so he will once again take his Chosen people under his protection:
Verse 43
Rejoice, O ye nations, with his people:
For he will avenge the blood of his servants,
And will render vengeance to his adversaries,
And will be merciful unto his land, and to his people.
Then, as if in proof of how stern the Lord is, the chapter ends with Him telling Moses to go up to Mount Nebo from whose height he will be shown the Land of Canaan but he will not be allowed to go into the land because of the pride and anger he showed in bringing forth water from a rock decades before during the Israelites’ wanderings in Sinai. G-d also tells him to die on the mountain.
The Deuteronomy passage on vengeance is one of the most important parts of the Torah because it elevates revenge to an act that only G-d should take. This is wisdom because the first thought a person has when wronged is to seek revenge. The blind emotion of that desire frequently leads to even greater grief. It is better to leave revenge to the Lord.
I’ll be revenged on the whole pack of you, Malvolio says as he storms off stage in Twelfth Night to mocking laughter.
If you wrong us, shall we not revenge?, Shylock says at the end of his famous speech, Hath not a Jew eyes? That desire for vengeance leaves him at the end of the play without a daughter, without money, and forced to become a Christian.
The passage from Deuteronomy is reiterated in Paul’s Epistle to the Romans. Paul, like Jesus, was a Jew. He was a Pharisee, a sect within the broader Jewish community which believed there was an oral law passed down through generations that was created at the same time as the written law of the Torah.
In his Epistle to the Romans, written as persecution of Christians was increasing throughout the Empire, he writes of vengeance in Chapter 12
19 Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.
And in the next verse
20 Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head.
That teaching has never been followed much by Christians ( a term created by Paul) and it will find no purchase in the 21st century struggle between Israelis and Palestinians in the biblical land of Canaan.
But it is worth considering for all sides on this darkest of yahrzeits — anniversary of a death — that vengeance cannot bring a just resolution to any conflict, small or large.
It should also be remembered how easily people overcome with the desire for vengeance can be manipulated by political leaders as is happening in Israel right now.
Vengeance is for the Lord. Who will say to Israelis leave revenge to Him?
In theory that should fall to the Diaspora because we live in comparative safety to Israelis. But the October 7th massacre and the noisy displays of anti-Zionism veering into anti-Semitism in Europe and the US has broadly unified the global Jewish community. We are not the calm voice in the house of mourning for a victim of violence urging that person’s family to wait, do nothing foolish, and remind the family vengeance will not bring the dead back to life.
But after a year it is time for those of us who live in safety to say those words clearly. To say to the religious, the secular and the atheists of Israel: your security will not come from endless slaughter motivated by a desire for revenge. You cannot clear an ethnically pure buffer zone in Gaza, the West Bank and southern Lebanon with the mad energy of revenge.
Vengeance is for G-d to take, not you.
I started the FRDH, First Rough Draft of History newsletter, on October 8th. It has branched out beyond analysis of the Israel-Hamas war to take in America’s Presidential campaign. I am traveling to the US on October 21st and plan to stay until a week after Election Day. I will be based in Georgia. This is a completely self-financed trip and I need your help. Some of my subscribers and listeners to the FRDH podcast have already donated, please join them.
L'Shana Tova my scribe friend.
This piece is a fine example of a modern day prophet's work. May we all learn to forgive and build leaving the vengeance part to that other which we may call Karma, fate or G-d.
My brother, I hope you hear this a lot: I’m so proud of you.