As you may have heard, Donald Trump told an interviewer that his favorite Bible verse was “an eye for an eye.” He was referring to Leviticus 24:20. I guess he hasn’t got to Matthew 5:38-39. Read the details and the context after the jump.
Is that Levitical principle of retaliation–which commenters say limits revenge to the injury incurred–appropriate for non-Levitical governments? Does the doctrine of the Two Kingdoms give a place for this principle? And even if it does, what does it say that retaliation is this presidential candidate’s favorite verse?
From Trump Says His Favorite Bible Verse Is ‘An Eye For An Eye’, The Federalist:
In an interview today [April 14] with a local New York radio host, Bob Lonsberry, on WHAM 1180AM, Donald Trump said his favorite Bible verse is the Old Testament passage which says one can take “an eye for an eye.”
In response to Lonsberry’s question about which verse in the Bible is his favorite, Trump initially responded “so many,” then followed it up by saying that “an eye for an eye” is a good verse for Americans to follow, even if it is, by his own admission, a little mean.
“Well, I think many,” Trump said. “You know when we get into the Bible I think many, so many. And ‘an eye for an eye,’ you can almost say that. It’s not a particularly nice thing, but you know when you look at what’s happening to our country, I mean, you see what’s going on with our country how people are taking advantage of us and how they scoff at us and laugh at us an laugh in our face and they’re taking our jobs, they’re taking our money, they’re taking our — you know, they’re taking the health of our country. And we have to be very firm and we have to be very strong and we can learn a lot from the Bible, that I can tell you.”
The phrase “an eye for an eye” appears elsewhere in the Bible, too. In Matthew 5:38, Jesus tells his disciples that instead of seeking revenge by taking “an eye for an eye” they should “turn the other cheek.”
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