BibleProject Guides
Oaths, Retaliation, and Enemy Love
Conflict with others is unavoidable. Even with friends and family, maintaining peace can be a struggle. And it's even more difficult with our enemies—those who oppose us. Enemy Roman forces occupied Israel during Jesus' day. So in his teaching, Jesus gives his followers a radical vision for seeking peace in the midst of this conflict and repairing even the most difficult relationships.
In this guide, you can explore Jesus’ teaching about truth-telling, creative nonviolence, and enemy love alongside related videos, podcast episodes, and more.
Wisdom Within Laws About Oaths, Retaliation, and Enemy Love
8:09 • Sermon on the Mount
Context
Matthew places the Sermon on the Mount within his larger narrative about Jesus that takes place in Jerusalem, Judea, Galilee, and the surrounding occupied lands of the Greco-Roman Empire between approximately 4 B.C.E. and 35 C.E. The book was likely composed sometime between 55 and 90 C.E.
Literary Styles
Matthew 5:33-48 (and the Sermon on the Mount as a whole) is written in the literary style of prose discourse.
Key Themes
- Right relating or “righteousness”
- Making oaths, honesty, and truth-telling
- Revenge, retaliation, and creative nonviolence
- Love for enemies
Structure
Matthew 5:33-48 belongs to a larger literary unit beginning in Matthew 5:17, where Jesus offers six total case studies about right relationships. In each case study, he quotes a command from the Torah and then expands on its common, yet incomplete, interpretation. In the three case studies found in Matthew 5:33-48, Jesus’ teaching focuses on oaths and truth-telling, retaliation and creative nonviolence, and love for our enemies.
Oaths and Honesty
Jesus believes that the covenant laws given to ancient Israel can reveal part of God's wisdom for relationships, so he quotes from the law before explaining the deeper wisdom:
“You have heard that it was said to the ancients, 'Do not break your oath, but fulfill to the Lord the vows you have made.’”
At its core, an oath is a promise or commitment. To make an oath sound stronger, people would often swear by God, or by Heaven, or by Earth. For example, imagine that one neighbor borrows money from another, promising to pay it back. To strengthen the promise, the neighbor says, “I swear to God that I'll pay you back.” By swearing, the promise sounds unbreakable, and it fits well with established biblical law.
“You shall not steal, nor deal falsely, nor lie to one another. And you shall not swear falsely by My name, so as to profane the name of your God; I am the LORD.”
“Then Moses spoke to the heads of the tribes of the sons of Israel, saying, ‘This is the word which the LORD has commanded: If a man makes a vow to the LORD, or takes an oath to put himself under a binding obligation, he shall not break his word; he shall act in accordance with everything that comes out of his mouth.’”
“When you make a vow to the Lord your God, you shall not delay to pay it, for the LORD your God will certainly require it of you, and it will be a sin for you. However, if you refrain from making vows, it will not be a sin for you. You shall be careful and perform what goes out of your lips, since in fact you have vowed a voluntary offering to the LORD your God, whatever you have promised.”
On the surface, swearing an oath by God or something else seems like a great way to make a promise sound powerful. But Jesus says that when we simply tell the truth, we don't need to swear by anything else. Our word is strong enough.
After all, imagine the consequences when someone swears an oath “by God” and then fails to keep it, or when someone uses grandiose oath-making to trick others into trusting them. Jesus says to avoid the whole practice.
"Just don't make oaths at all, by God or by anything else in God's world."
So should we never make a promise to anyone? Not quite. Jesus’ point is that when we do make a promise, we shouldn’t use God's reputation as a tool to manipulate others. Jesus goes on to say:
“Let your yes be yes and your no be no.”
Honesty and integrity are the beginning of peacemaking, and we can acknowledge our own responsibility to these virtues when dealing with conflict. But what if someone else starts the conflict? Jesus explores this challenge in the next case study.
Retaliation and Creative Nonviolence
Jesus starts this next case study by quoting from the Torah.
“You have heard that it was said, ‘an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’”
This famous line, known as the law of retaliation, is found in a few places.
“But if there is any further injury, then you shall appoint as a penalty life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.”
“If someone injures his neighbor, just as he has done, so shall it be done to him: fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; just as he has injured a person, so shall it be inflicted on him.”
“So you shall not show pity: life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, and foot for foot.”
To modern readers, the law of retaliation might sound like a license for revenge that allows us to hurt someone who first hurt us. But it’s less about a license to harm and more about limiting how much harm can be done. Essentially, the punishment needs to fit the crime. If someone takes our eye out, we don’t get to take both of theirs—it’s limited to one. But while the law curbs the escalation of harmful retaliation, it doesn’t create peace between parties. Jesus’ aim is peacemaking, so he takes the wisdom of this law to a new level.
“Don't even pay back an evil person.”
So should we not retaliate at all? That seems to be what Jesus has in mind—to become people who value love and peace more than getting even. But won’t harm flourish if people aren’t held accountable for evil actions? It doesn’t seem right to just stand by and do nothing.
Looking closer, however, we find that Jesus doesn't say to do nothing. Rather, he advocates for creative and nonviolent responses that open the door for real peace. Jesus gives three examples from his own time and place. First, he says:
“Whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to them as well.”
In the ancient Greco-Roman world, a right cheek slap with the back of the hand was a symbolic way to dominate and humiliate someone. When humiliated, our instinct is to fight back, but Jesus says retaliation won’t solve the problem. Instead, he encourages people to stand their ground and offer their left cheek as well. Now the attacker must strike with an open right hand, which is symbolic of striking an equal. So in this context, to “turn the other cheek” is both a humble and assertive invitation for an aggressor to treat us as a mutual human being.
Next Jesus says:
“If anyone sues you and takes your shirt, let them have your coat also.”
In ancient Israel, taking a poor person’s coat was against the law because the coat often served as a blanket for staying warm at night.
“If you lend money to my people, to the poor among you, you are not to act as a creditor to him; you shall not charge him interest. If you ever seize your neighbor’s cloak as a pledge, you are to return it to him before the sun sets, for that is his only covering; it is his cloak for his body. What else is he to sleep in? And it will come about that when he cries out to me, I will listen to him, for I am gracious.”
“When you make your neighbor a loan of any kind, you shall not enter his house to take his pledge. You shall stand outside, and the person to whom you are making the loan shall bring the pledge outside to you. And if he is a poor man, you shall not sleep with his pledge. When the sun goes down you shall certainly return the pledge to him, so that he may sleep in his cloak and bless you; and it will be righteousness for you before the LORD your God.”
While they may not ask for the coat, an uncaring person could find a way around these laws by demanding someone’s shirt as payment. So Jesus offers a creative response: hand over the shirt and offer the coat as well. But why would a person do that? Wouldn't that leave them exposed? Yes. And that’s the point—Jesus is being provocative here. The goal is to shock everyone by exposing injustice through costly generosity.
In the third example, Jesus says:
“Whoever forces you to go one mile, go with them two.”
In Jesus’ day, Roman soldiers could force any citizen of the empire to carry packs and other gear for them up to one mile—a humiliating and sometimes dangerous experience. So Jesus says to carry that load not just one mile but two. The first mile is required by law, allowing the soldier to treat the carrier like a pack animal, but that second mile is a gift. This is a chance for the person to assert their dignity and humanity in their choice to treat the soldier with generous kindness. Jesus is teaching that this kind of attitude will be what brings long-term healing to the entire world.
Love Your Enemies
It may sound crazy, but Jesus is saying that bold generosity can subvert the power games of our world and even turn enemies into friends. And that leads to the last law that Jesus quotes.
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’”
When he says “Love your neighbor,” Jesus is quoting an ancient biblical law.
“You shall not take vengeance, nor hold any grudge against the sons of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself; I am the LORD.”
But then, Jesus references a popular line that many Israelites added to the biblical law, “But you can hate your enemy.” Jesus counters this by telling his followers:
“Love your enemies, and pray for those who mistreat you.”
Is Jesus going a bit too far here? Peace with our enemies is one thing, but how can we love them? Jesus seems to think that true peace is only possible when we treat every human as if they have ultimate value, which means that even our enemies are fellow images of God.
“Then God said, ‘Let us make mankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the livestock and over all the earth, and over every crawling thing that crawls on the earth.’ So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. God blessed them; and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.’”
But how are we supposed to love someone who hates us? It's hard enough to love the people that love us. Love for friends and family is a good thing, but for Jesus, this is only the starting point. He challenges his followers to share that same love outside their circles of comfort, and he holds up God’s indiscriminate, generous love as the model. Jesus says:
“God causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.”
The call is to become peacemakers who invite others into our community and mend broken relationships at every level. This is a radical way to live. And when Jesus says to “be complete, just as your heavenly Father is complete,” (Matt. 5:48), he’s speaking of the completeness that imitates God’s generosity to both friends and enemies. Because for Jesus, creative love is the only pathway to real peace.
The Big Idea
Old Testament laws about oaths, retaliation, and love for neighbors reveal God’s wisdom for peacemaking. Jesus teaches that righteousness means speaking honestly, responding to injustice with creative nonviolence, and extending love to enemies.
Videos
Watch the fifth episode of the Sermon on the Mount series and the related Visual Commentary and Insight videos.
Podcasts
Listen to these episodes from our Sermon on the Mount podcast series.
More Resources
Find BibleProject articles as well as books recommended by our scholar team.
Articles
Books
BOOK
The Divine Conspiracy
BOOK
The Cost of Discipleship
BOOK
The Gospel of Matthew (The New International Commentary on the New Testament)
BOOK
Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels (The IVP Bible Dictionary Series)
BOOK
Sermon on the Mount (The Story of God Bible Commentary)
BOOK
The NIV Application Commentary: Matthew
BOOK
Matthew 1-7: Volume 1 (International Critical Commentary)
BOOK
The Gospel of Matthew: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary
BOOK
The Gospel According to Matthew (The Pillar New Testament Commentary)
