“You have heard that our fathers were told, ‘Eye for eye and tooth for tooth.’But I tell you not to stand up against someone who does you wrong. On the contrary, if someone hits you on the right cheek, let him hit you on the left cheek too!” – Matthew 5:39
Today, we’re gonna discuss another Bible verse that your average Westerner has no clue about.
But if you’re from the East, you’ll get it.
And again, to give credit where credit is due, today’s discussion is based on what I learned from Tom Bradford’s Torah Class.
So the verse in question comes from the New Testament, and I copied and pasted it above.
I’m talking about Yeshua’s famous “turn the other cheek” verse.
The Complete Jewish Bible says not to stand up against someone who does you “wrong.”
That doesn’t quite capture the true essence of what is being communicated here.
What Yeshua is really saying is…
“Don’t seek revenge when someone dishonors you.”
See, in the West, to slap someone on the cheek would be viewed as an assault.
It’s a criminal act.
But in oriental or Middle Eastern cultures, to slap someone in the face was meant to humiliate or dishonor the other party.
It’s not considered a criminal act.
But it’s not trivial either.
Far from it.
In the Middle East, it’s one of the most humiliating things you can do to another person.
If you’re from the Middle East and someone shames you by slapping you in the face, you really only have two options.
Accept your status of shame and diminished standing before your family and tribe.
Or take revenge on the person who slapped you.
Knowing how big men’s egos are, I think you can imagine the path of recourse most men took.
The person slapped would seek to restore his honor by any means possible, even if it meant extreme violence to the point of killing the offending party.
Again, this had nothing to do with right or wrong, or guilt or innocence.
Now notice what Yeshua said right before he said to turn the other cheek when slapped.
“You have heard that our fathers were told, ‘
Eye for eye and tooth for tooth.‘”
– Matthew 5:38
He was quoting the Mosaic Law.
The eye-for-eye and tooth-for-tooth verse was all about meting out proportional justice for a wrong committed.
However, what Yeshua was calling out was a misapplication of this principle.
Killing somebody for slapping you on the face was grossly disproportionate.
See, the laws of Moses introduced to the world a guilt-and-innocence framework that was at odds with shame-and-honor-based customs of the time.
Yeshua was saying, don’t seek revenge if someone has dishonored you.
Or to put it bluntly, God’s law does NOT permit taking revenge for a mere insult, no matter how humiliating.
To quote Bradford…
“Christ was dealing with the central philosophical platform of His society at that time: shame and honor, not law breaking.”
If you’re a victim of theft…
Or if you’re assaulted…
Of course, you should defend yourself and prosecute the wrongdoer.
However, that’s not what Yeshua was talking about when he said turn the other cheek.
Yeshua was giving us alternative ways one should respond in a shame-and-honor-based society when the usual response was violence and revenge.
What’s also interesting to note is that Yeshua came onto the scene about 1600 years after the Judah and Tamar incident we discussed yesterday.
So we can see that Israel’s culture at that time was primarily shame-and-honor based.
This is in contrast to the Romans, who, according to Bradford, operated under a guilt-and-innocence framework.
Bradford points out that’s why the Romans had such a difficult time governing the Holy Lands.
Alrighty, let’s switch over to the takeaway.
Notice that a vital part of the Messiah’s ministry was to promote the proper application of God’s Torah to the culture of his time.
Contrary to what Christianity teaches, Yeshua was not doing away with the law nor superseding it.
He was promoting it.
Or, to be more accurate, he was promoting the proper application of it, as I just said.
So that’s something to seriously think about as we seek to do God’s Will in our lives.
Whether you live under a shame-and-honor, guilt-and-innocence, or power-and-fear framework…
It is the truth of God’s Word that will set you free from the cobwebs of confusion and immorality so prevalent in our day and age.
Alrighty, let’s call that a wrap.
See you next time.
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