Vengeance is mine, and recompense, For the time when their foot shall slip. For the day of their calamity is at hand, And the things that shall come upon them make haste.
Moses' song points ahead to a day God has kept in reserve. Whose foot slips? Who holds the right to repay? And what should a believer do until then?
God often works through people. Vengeance is the one work He keeps in His own hands.
When God has acted in government, again and again He has been pleased to use His people as the instruments of it. Now that His grace is being announced across the earth, His normal way of working is through human servants. But sometimes it is neither grace nor government. When God carries out wrath and vengeance on men whose sin has risen to its dreadful height, He acts alone. He has said, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay." It is His right alone. No one may share it with Him.
A foot slips and a day of calamity rushes near. Commentators differ over whose foot it is. One reading takes it as Israel's own.
Vengeance belongs to God, and recompense (v.35). But in the meantime Israel's foot will slip, and the day of their calamity will come with its many troubles.
Another reading points to the nations God used to punish Israel. Their own turn comes.
After describing how Israel was sold into the hands of their enemies, God says, "Is not this laid up in store with me, sealed up in my treasuries? Vengeance is mine, and recompense, for the time when their foot shall slip." So who have been the instruments of judgment and oppression on the Jews? Whose feet, then, shall slip in due time?
The verse says the day of calamity is near, yet it has not come. Commentators explain the delay as mercy.
But a day of vengeance will come. He delays it in long-suffering mercy, but it will come as sure as there is a God on the throne of heaven. A day is coming for the nations that have treated Israel with pride. They will answer for their conduct before the Son of Man. They will hear His solemn sentence and meet His unsparing wrath.
God's judgment on His own people has a limit. It corrects them; it does not destroy them.
Yet vengeance is His, and recompense. Their feet shall slip. The day of their calamity shall come. Judgment shall come, and the LORD shall judge His people. Yes, judge — but not destroy! He will see them struck down and helpless, their power gone, with no one left to help them, and their false gods proved worthless. Then He will call them to Himself, and no one else can compare with Him. The rod that corrected them has finished its work and shall be broken. He will turn His hand against their enemies.
The New Testament hands these words to Christians who have been wronged, as a reason to stand down.
Whatever the provocation, a Christian must never take revenge. We must leave that matter to God, who in His own good time will avenge His "beloved." Nothing could be more touching and beautiful than such words of affection. Wicked and unreasonable men provoke us and stir us to strike back — and just then the voice of tenderest love rises above the noise of human passion: "Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God." Step back from the scene. Make room for My government, because of the injury you have received. Punishing is My right.
That leaves a subtler danger: handing the sword back to God while still hoping to watch Him use it.
God avenges the wrongs done to His people. That truth is not meant to stir up in us the smallest wish that His vengeance would fall on our enemies. We must guard against that as a secret desire. To march out in arms against them; to watch for their stumbling; to wait for a chance to pour out what we have been nursing inside; to exaggerate their failures, so that they get double for their sins; to be glad in our hearts when we think they have been paid back in their own coin — all this is a spirit completely contrary to the mind of the Lord.
The same warning falls on people who claim to belong to God, not only on outsiders.
Two quotations from the book of Deuteronomy (Deut. 32:35-36) confirm the teaching of a special judgment on those who argue against the truth and those who abandon it. The Lord will judge His people. He already stands at the door, ready to visit the great house of those who profess His name and to deal with it justly, according to what it really is.
- Reserved — vengeance is God's own possession. He acts alone in it, and no one shares that right.
- Delayed — the wait is long-suffering mercy, not indifference. The day will come as sure as God is on the throne.
- Disputed — commentators differ on whose foot slips: Israel, or the nations that oppressed them.
- Redemptive — He judges, but He does not destroy. When their strength is gone, He breaks the rod of correction and turns His hand against their enemies.
- Released — because He repays, a believer can step back from every private quarrel — and must not even hope to watch the blow fall.
For Jehovah will judge his people, And shall repent in favour of his servants; When he seeth that power is gone, And there is none shut up or left.
Moses' song has just traced Israel's corruption, God's anger, and the vengeance stored up. At this verse the song turns. Two questions follow: what does "judge" mean here, and why does God act only when His people have nothing left?
One writer quotes the verse in an older translation and lists what "judge" can mean here. He then brings the promise into the present.
"To me belongs vengeance and repayment; their foot will slip in due time. For the Lord will judge [vindicate, defend or avenge] His people, and have compassion on His servants, when He sees that their power is gone, and there is none remaining, bond or free." What precious grace for Israel in the day to come — and for each and all, now, who feel and admit their need!
The ESV takes the first of those words: the LORD "will vindicate his people."
The timing is not random. One writer explains what blocks God's grace until the moment of collapse.
The Lord's judgment here means judging on behalf of Israel, His people. He has compassion on them when He sees that their power is gone (v.36). God steps in with grace only when a person faces his own helpless condition. As long as Israel stays self-assertive and self-confident, she will not and cannot depend on the grace of God. But when she has nothing left and admits it, she will find God ready to deliver her.
God has worked this way before. One writer points to Haman's plot against the Jews in Persia, then carries the same pattern forward to Jerusalem's last siege.
The decree had fixed a day for their destruction, and that decree would not, could not, be changed. Their Amalekite persecutor was in power, and all, as far as the eye could reach, was utter destruction. But Haman fell, and the Jews were delivered. The same will happen again with the same people. The city will fall. All the peoples of the earth will surround it in its day of siege and distress. Half of it will go into captivity, its houses stripped bare, and all will be waste and ruin. But at that very moment the Lord from heaven will plead their cause.
Later Scripture quotes this verse next to God's words to Moses in Egypt. One writer shows why the pairing matters.
The two verses that follow are quoted from Exodus and Deuteronomy. The first comes from the beginning of Israel's history in Egypt. It presents God in His enduring, unchanging character as Jehovah — the ground of all blessing for Israel (Ex. 3:15). The other comes from the song Moses sang just before the people entered the land. It shows that when their own folly has left them with no power and no one to help, the Lord will act for them (Deut. 32:36).
Hebrews quotes this line, and commentators differ over how far it reaches. One writer reads it as a warning about how God deals with His own people:
He is gracious beyond measure. But we know Him who said, "Vengeance is mine; I will repay, says the Lord," and again, "The Lord will judge his people." "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God" (Heb. 10:30-31). If He punished the vile practices of the doomed nations who had intruded into His land, He disciplines His own people even more strictly.
Another writer agrees that God deals with believers now, but ties this sentence to the nation it was first spoken about:
It hardly needs saying that the Lord judges His saints today; 1 Corinthians 11:30-32 makes that plain enough. But the passage here is limited to Israel.
The principle is not locked to one nation. One writer applies it wherever strength has replaced dependence.
We have so much of the world's dignity, influence and riches! These things do not hide us from God or from Satan, but they do hide our real poverty from ourselves. If only we knew how destitute we are! If only we cried to the Lord! Then He, "when He saw that there was none remaining, bond or free," would deliver us and lift us up. Whether for Israel, for an individual, or for the Church, the lesson to be learned is the same: its poverty and need. It does not matter how poor we are, as long as we feel our poverty; for there is all fullness in Christ.
- Judge means defend. The verb here carries the sense of vindicating and avenging His people, not condemning them.
- Power gone. Self-confidence keeps grace out. God acts when His people have nothing left and admit it.
- Proven pattern. Haman held every advantage, and no one could change the decree — yet he fell and God delivered the Jews. Jerusalem's last siege will end the same way.
- Unchanging name. Scripture sets this promise beside the name Jehovah, given at the start of Israel's history. Deliverance rests on who God is, not on what Israel became.
- Wider reach. Hebrews takes up these words as a warning. Commentators differ on whether they reach past Israel. Still, the poverty that draws God out can be Israel's, a church's, or one person's.