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?
Vengeance Is God's Alone
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.
Whose Foot Slips
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?
Delayed, Not Cancelled
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.
Judgment That Ends in Rescue
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 Verse in the New Testament
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.
A Warning for God's Own People
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.
Summary
- 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.