Matthew 5:38 records a teaching Jesus gave about how his followers should respond when someone wrongs them. He is correcting the common understanding of an old law about fair payment for injury, and steering his hearers toward a response that goes beyond bare fairness. The words come from the Sermon on the Mount, spoken by Jesus to a crowd of disciples and listeners gathered on a hillside in Galilee.
“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.’
Matthew 5:38 (WEB)
What Matthew 5:38 Means
Jesus opens with “You have heard that it was said,” a phrase that points back to what people had long been taught from the Jewish law. The “it was said” refers to the rule of proportionate justice found in the Old Testament, where a court or community was to limit retaliation to an amount matching the original harm. The rule existed to restrain revenge, not to invite it. A person could not demand ten teeth for one, because the punishment was capped at the size of the wrong.
The verse does not say the old principle was evil or that courts should abandon justice. Jesus is describing how people had come to use the rule, as a permission slip for paying back what they felt they were owed. The verse also does not promise that wrongdoers will go unpunished or that victims must stay silent about injustice. What it speaks to is the personal heart of a disciple: the impulse to get even, and the call to let that impulse go.
The Context of Matthew 5:38
Matthew wrote his Gospel for a community that knew the Jewish scriptures well and wanted to understand how Jesus fulfilled them. The Sermon on the Mount is Jesus’ longest recorded teaching in this Gospel, and it repeatedly contrasts “you have heard it said” with “but I tell you.” Verse 38 is one of several such contrasts, each taking a familiar command and deepening it toward the heart. Traditionally this Gospel is attributed to Matthew, one of the twelve disciples.
The verses just before and after set the tone. Jesus has been speaking about oaths and honest speech, and in the verses that follow he will teach his listeners not to resist an evil person, to turn the other cheek, and to go the extra mile. Read in that sequence, verse 38 is not a stand-alone rule but the first step in a sustained picture of a community whose conduct flows from mercy rather than score-keeping. The surrounding words explain why the old rule was not enough for those who would follow Jesus.
Key Phrases in Matthew 5:38
Romans 12:19
Don’t seek revenge yourselves, beloved, but give place to God’s wrath. For it is written, “Vengeance belongs to me; I will repay, says the Lord.”
(WEB)
Paul builds on the same theme by telling believers not to avenge themselves, leaving room for God to deal with wrongs in his own time. It helps explain why releasing the urge to repay does not mean ignoring injustice, since the justice itself belongs to God. The verse reframes the question from “who will pay me back” to “who is trusting God with the outcome.”
Proverbs 20:22
Don’t say, “I will pay back evil.” Wait for the LORD, and he will save you.
(WEB)
This proverb warns against saying you will repay evil and urges the reader to wait on the Lord instead. It shows that the wisdom of Israel had already recognized the danger of taking vengeance into one’s own hands. Reading it alongside Matthew 5:38 reveals a continuity: Jesus deepens an old wisdom rather than introducing something entirely new.
A Short Prayer From Matthew 5:38
Lord Jesus, you know how quickly my heart reaches for the scales when someone hurts me. I confess that I often want my own kind of fairness, the exact repayment I feel I am owed. Teach me to notice that pull, and to bring it to you before I act on it. Help me to trust your justice more than my own, and give me courage to seek honest restoration rather than revenge. Shape my response into something that looks more like your mercy. Amen.
