Vengeance: a heavy, primal, human urge that creates so much more suffering in a world already drowning in sorrow. What happens when the need for revenge is connected to the core beliefs and sacred values of a nation or a religion? What happens when it is an attribute of its top leadership - and of its gods?
The wrath of vengeance is tragically on our minds these days, again, executed in real time. It’s always been here. Lurking under the surface, zealous sentiments, fueled by fear and trauma, keep rising, again and again. For those of us who’ve been reading the Hebrew Bible along with me for almost two years now, each daily chapter part of a jigsaw puzzle slowly emerging, @belowthebiblebelt929 reveals troubling trends and battle scars that with time became lasting tropes. The call for revenge is one of those. Can this collective course be not revered but reversed?
For Jewish people, heirs of a complex and rich tradition, beyond the biblical, this trope is tragically part of the mix.
There are too many bloody chapters in our history in which the humiliated desire for revenge was not a tangible possibility but a fantasy, perhaps some sort of imagined release for the pain.
And there are some chapters, including now, in which that drive for revenge is as volatile as an active shooter in the middle of our peace-seeking lives. How do we handle the voice of vengeance in the modern, peace-loving, love-loving lives that so many of us - but not of all - deeply believe in?
That question was also alive for Jeremiah, prophet and refugee, living through the aftermath of the brutal war that destroyed Jerusalem in the 6th century BCE.
He speaks of revenge in today’s chapter, which takes us back in time, prior to the destruction, to the aftermath of a decisive battle in Judean history.
The Battle of Carchemish, on the Euphrates, near today’s Turkish-Syrian border, held in 605 BCE, saw the failing Assyrian Empire—allied with Pharaoh Necho of Egypt— fighting against the up and coming Babylonians—allied with Persia and Medea.
The decisive battle, well documented in the Babylonian archive with data that supports the biblical narrative, serves as the background to this chapter of Jeremiah. The critical aspect of the battle for the Kingdom of Judah was that King Josiah was slain there.
Chapter 46 is one of the last chapters of Jeremiah, part of a series of prophecies towards the neighboring nations that imagine the downfall of these nations that had a hand in Israel’s destruction.
But these are not visions intended for those foreign ears - but rather for Jeremiah’s people, in order to echo their suffering, give some outlet to their helplessness and rage. It may also be the way to tell them - revenge is not ours to execute - it is in the hands of God.
Maybe he’s trying to tell them - and us -- that there is such a thing as divine justice, and it’s not about keeping score but rising above it? There’s no way of avoiding the plain painful fact the the desire for revenge is part of the price of defeat, and in this case, as in other cases in other cultures, projected also onto the gods. That’s what Jeremiah proposes:
וְֽהַיּ֨וֹם הַה֜וּא לַֽאדֹנָ֧י יֱהֹוִ֣ה צְבָא֗וֹת י֤וֹם נְקָמָה֙ לְהִנָּקֵ֣ם מִצָּרָ֔יו וְאָכְלָ֥ה חֶ֙רֶב֙ וְשָׂ֣בְעָ֔ה וְרָוְתָ֖ה מִדָּמָ֑ם כִּ֣י זֶ֠בַח לַאדֹנָ֨י יֱהֹוִ֧ה צְבָא֛וֹת בְּאֶ֥רֶץ צָפ֖וֹן אֶל־נְהַר־פְּרָֽת׃
“But that day shall be for YHWH, my Sovereign God of Hosts - a day for exacting revenge from all foes. The sword shall devour; it shall be sated and drunk with their blood. For YHWH my Sovereign God of Hosts is preparing a sacrifice in the northern lands, by the river Euphrates.”
Jeremiah 46:10
This verse clearly positions this prophecy in a particular historical moment. But it also transcends time and place. The God of Revenge is one of the attributes of YHWH, revealed at moments of national crisis with a mighty hand and smokey nostrils. It is this ‘mask’ of the divine that killed the firstborn of Egypt to give birth to the Exodus. But it’s the same rage that killed the Hebrews just released from Egypt who then danced around the Golden Calf.
Does this brutal quality make the Hebrew God a flawed imperfect deity in need of reform? Do we want a God of Vengeance?? Can we afford not to have one for when the rage against us rises again?
Reflecting on the touch topic of vengeance in our tradition, the late Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks wrote:
“The search for perfect justice is not for us, here, now. It is – as Moses taught the Israelites in the great song he sang at the end of his life – something that faith demands we leave to God, who alone knows the human heart, who alone knows what is just in a world of conflicting claims, and who will establish perfect justice at a time, and in a way, of God’s choosing, not ours.
In a world of ethnic conflict, fueled by sometimes deadly religious fervor, that is a truth in need of reinstatement. There are things we must leave to God. Otherwise we will find ourselves in the condition of humanity before the Flood, when the world was “filled with violence” and God was “grieved that He had made man on the earth, and His heart was filled with pain.” Vengeance belongs to God. It must not be practiced by human beings in the name of God.”
Sacks’ warning is critical. But would it look like if we not only disowned our own drive for revenge - but removed it from our diety’s diet as well? Rewrite the chapters up ahead and not consider it a possible superpower we approve of? What if we admit that our ancestral choices no longer serve the humans we want and need to be, make amends and rewrite the future, divine-vengeance free?
Jeremiah possibly alludes to such sentiments, as ends this chapter with a plea for hope, beyond revenge or despair:
וְ֠אַתָּ֠ה אַל־תִּירָ֞א עַבְדִּ֤י יַֽעֲקֹב֙ וְאַל־תֵּחַ֣ת יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל כִּ֠י הִנְנִ֤י מוֹשִֽׁעֲךָ֙ מֵרָח֔וֹק וְאֶֽת־זַרְעֲךָ֖ מֵאֶ֣רֶץ שִׁבְיָ֑ם וְשָׁ֧ב יַעֲק֛וֹב וְשָׁקַ֥ט וְשַׁאֲנַ֖ן וְאֵ֥ין מַחֲרִֽיד׃
“But you,
Have no fear, My servant Jacob,
Be not dismayed, O Israel!
I will deliver you from far away,
Your folk from their land of captivity;
And Jacob again shall have calm
And quiet, with none to trouble them.”
Jeremiah 46:27
Amen.
The journey continues tomorrow with more eerie links between present and past.
We pray for hope, peace, compassion and healing, for all
Image: Justice and Divine Vengeance Pursuing Crime, Pierre-Paul Prud'hon.
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