Jesus stood on a hillside in Galilee, the hill country in the north of Israel where he grew up, and quoted one of the oldest rules about revenge in the world. Jesus said this to the crowd.
Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. (Matthew 5:38)
Matthew tells this in chapter 5, in the long teaching people call the Sermon on the Mount. Just before it, Jesus tells them not to swear oaths at all, but to let their yes mean yes. Just after it, he tells them to love their enemies.
Everyone listening knew the eye-for-an-eye rule. It was written in the law of Moses, and their people had lived by it for centuries. Moses' law put it this way.
Breach for breach, eye for eye, tooth for tooth: as he hath caused a blemish in a man, so shall it be done to him again. (Leviticus 24:20)
If a man knocked out your tooth, the law said his tooth should be knocked out too. That was the law, and people said it came from God.
He set it aside, out loud
Then Jesus said this.
But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. (Matthew 5:39)
"Ye have heard." "But I say unto you." He read Moses' law out loud to a crowd, and then he put his own word in its place. He did it in public, on purpose. The old rule asked how much you were allowed to pay back. Jesus told them to pay back nothing at all. A rule that came from God would not need to be replaced. This one did not come from God.
He gave three examples from everyday life. If someone hits you on the cheek, turn the other one toward him instead of hitting back. If someone takes you to court for your coat, let him have your cloak too. And if someone forces you to carry his load for a mile, carry it two.
The people listening knew that last one well. Under Roman rule, a soldier could force a local man to carry his gear. The Greek word Matthew uses is ἀγγαρεύσει (angareusei), "he will force you to go." Matthew uses the same word, ἠγγάρευσαν (ēngareusan), "they forced," for what soldiers did to Simon, a man from Cyrene, a city in North Africa, when they made him carry Jesus's cross. Jesus told his listeners to walk a second mile with the man who forced them to walk the first.
Peter, one of his closest friends, once tried to put a number on forgiving. How many times should I forgive my brother, he asked. Seven times?
Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven. (Matthew 18:22)
He was not giving Peter a bigger number to count up to. He was telling him to stop counting.
Three hundred years without the sword
For the first three hundred years after Jesus, his followers had no army, no throne, and no power to punish anyone. The Christian writers of those years who discuss it consistently oppose Christians killing in war, even though some Christians did serve as soldiers. A teacher named Origen, writing in Palestine around the year 248, put it this way about the Roman emperor.
We do not indeed fight under him, although he require it; but we fight on his behalf, forming a special army, an army of piety, by offering our prayers to God. (Origen, Against Celsus 8.73)
Those early Christians still read the books of Moses as scripture. What they did not do was take the old laws of war and payback as their own.
Then, in the early 300s, the Roman emperor Constantine became a Christian, and over time the church and the empire became one. An empire fights wars, and its leaders wanted to say God approved of them. The gospels gave them no holy war, so the men who defended Christian warfare leaned heavily on the older books. Augustine, a bishop in North Africa writing around the year 400, defended Moses this way.
In wars carried on by divine command, he showed not ferocity but obedience. (Augustine, Against Faustus, book 22)
Seven hundred years after that, the church of western Europe sent armies to take Jerusalem. Those wars are called the Crusades, and their preachers held up Moses, Joshua, and the Maccabees, warrior heroes of the old books, as models for Christian knights. It was a church with an army that brought the old law back. The people who first followed Jesus did not.
How the Quran treats the same rule
About six hundred years after Jesus, the Quran, which Muslims believe was revealed to Muhammad in Arabia, speaks about the same rule. It first speaks of the Torah, the law of Moses, and then says this.
And We prescribed for them therein: The life for the life, and the eye for the eye, and the nose for the nose, and the ear for the ear, and the tooth for the tooth, and for wounds retaliation. But whoso forgoeth it (in the way of charity) it shall be expiation for him. (Quran 5:45 (Pickthall translation))
Expiation means that giving up the right will make up for the forgiver's own wrongs. The Quran praises the person who forgives. For a murder, it prescribes retaliation, but it lets the victim's family forgive and accept payment instead.
And for him who is forgiven somewhat by his (injured) brother, prosecution according to usage and payment unto him in kindness. This is an alleviation and a mercy from your Lord. (Quran 2:178 (Pickthall translation))
It also says there is life in this law, because a fixed limit protects people from feuds without end. That is the same reason the law of Moses had the rule.
Here we give our own reading. In the Quran, paying back stays written into the law, with forgiveness praised as the better way. Jesus asked his followers, in their own lives, to give up paying back entirely. We believe that is the difference that matters most. What Jesus taught was not a continuation of the old law of payback. It was a break from it, and people inside Christianity and outside it have kept going back to the old law ever since.
What turning the other cheek is not
Some people have used this teaching to keep others in harm's way. That is not what it means.
Jesus showed that himself on the night he was arrested. An officer standing near the high priest, the chief priest of the temple, struck him in the face. Jesus did not hit back. He also did not pretend it was fine.
If I have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil: but if well, why smitest thou me? (John 18:23)
He did not hit back, but he did not go quiet either. He argued straight back and made the man answer for what he did. That same night, when one of his friends drew a sword to defend him, he told him to put it away, and he healed the man the sword had cut.
A person who is being hurt by someone at home is allowed to leave, to tell someone, and to stay safe. Forgiving someone does not mean giving them the chance to do it again. It means you are not going to try to make them hurt the way they made you hurt.
An eye for an eye asks how much hurt you are allowed to give back. Jesus asks how much love you can give without adding any more hurt to the world.
For today
The next time someone wrongs you today, in a small way, at work or at home or on the road, try answering it without paying it back. Say what was wrong, if it needs saying. Keep yourself safe. But leave out the part where you make them feel what you felt.
Every time you do it, you are doing what he did on that hillside. You are setting the old rule aside.