52

Within the Sermon on the Mount and the book of Matthew this bifurcated

vocation is presented: At the end of Matthew’s book, Jesus sends his disciples to baptize

and discipline the nations, and within the Sermon they are blessed to be salt to the earth

and light to the world. How are they to do this? By accepting the eight blessings of

Jesus;especially for the present to identify, in spirit, with the poor, and to rejoice in

whatever persecution may be theirs for righteousness sake.

The disciples are not to despair,because the future of the six beatitudes is theirs

(Matt. 5:4-9; cf. 5:3, 10)—for blessing is not exhausted by Jesus’ congratulations or wish

for the disciple’s happiness. To be blessed is above all to experience inner empowerment

(cf. Arndt and Gingrich). By this empowerment, the disciple community isto challenge,

qualify, and bring into tension the law of the old humanity, a humanity which still knows

law only as “Hammurabi law”--law as power politics and retribution. This is

empowerment to challenge the old order from the perspective of grace, from the

perspective of a faith community that knows law as covenant law--law as restorative love

and justice, as Jesus’ fulfillment of Moses and Elijah, the law and the prophets.

This essay ends with the statistics with which it began. The New York Times

Book Review reports that although every other developed nation in the West has

abandoned capital punishment, in America the death penalty is a booming business. It

states that in just a decade “the execution rate has gone up 800 percent,”that in 1999

more Americans were executed than in any year since 1952. An all-time record, over

3500 prisoners now await their destiny on death row (NYTBR:34). It occurs to me that

since most Americans claim a relationship to some church, theremay be an interest in a

discussion of what the Bible, especially Jesus, has to say about law and the death penalty.

Or is American Christianity so tepid that such a discussion seems irrelevant?

53

ENDNOTES

1For a discussion, see George E. Mendenhall, “The ‘Vengeance’ of Yahweh,” The Tenth Generation,
Baltimore/London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973, pp. 69-104; also Rom. 12:19. Mendenhall’s
thesis is that Yahweh’s “vengeance” (naqam) is not to be related to the individual but to the public sphere.
Already in pre-biblical times, “the root nqm signifies the executive exercise of power by the highest
legitimate political authority for the protection of his own subjects”(p. 78). This authority was essentially
reserved as Yahweh’s prerogative alone; vengeance is not to be taken into private hands. This principle, the
reservation of vengeance from the private individual,is a principle of state justice in most if not all state
governments today. Mendenhall concludes that “the use and meaning of the verb remained constant from
Amarna [14thc. B.C.] to King David; the vast difference, consisted in the fact that the king of Egypt as the
highest legitimate authority was rejected together with the administrative complex dependent upon him;
instead, the God Yahweh now held that executive legitimate power, the actual exercise of which is
designated NQM” (P. 78). In biblical thought, Yahweh alone,rather than NE kings and empires,held the
legitimate executive power to execute NAQAM. No private vengeance!

2For Christian and secular arguments against the death penalty, see Gardner C. Hanks, Against the Death
Penalty, Scottdale: Herald Press, 1997.

3See Brevard S. Childs, The Book of Exodus, Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1974, pp. 364-366.

4See H. Wayne House & John Howard Yoder, The Death Penalty Debate(Dallas, et. al: Word Publishing,
1991)p. 178.

5For slightly differenttranslations, cf. James J. Megivern, The Death Penalty, an Historical and
Theological Survey (New York/Mahwah, N.J.:Paulist Press,1997),pp. 200-201; Gross, Bob,A Guide for
Christians (Elgin, Ill.: Faith Quest, 1991) p. 74.

6For a discussion of Yahweh war, see Ben C. Ollenberger, “Gerhard von Rad’s Theory of Holy War,”in
Gerhard von Rad, Holy War in Ancient Israel, trans. Marva J. Dawn (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans)
pp. 1-33.

7For how Israel is not to model Yahweh’s vengeance, see Mendenhall’s statement in note 1.

8Forgiveness of money debts was practiced in ancient Babylon in the 17th-18thcenturies BC,by edict at
the beginning of a king’s reign and every seventh year thereafter (ANET, 526).

BIBLIOGRAPHY

ABD: Anchor Bible Dictionary,Freedman, David Noel, ed. (New York et. al.: Doubleday, 1992)

ANET: Ancient Near Eastern Texts, Pritchard, James B., ed. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969,
3rded.)

Andersen, Francis I. and Freedman, David Noel, Hosea, A New Translation with Introduction and
Commentary (Garden City: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1980)

Arndt, William F. , Gingrich, F. Wilbur, A Greek-English Lexikon of the New Testament, (Chicago: The
University of Chicago Press; Cambridge: At the University Press, 1957)

Betz, Hans Dieter, The Sermon on the Mount (Hermeneia, 1995)

54

Brueggemann, Walter, Genesis, A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Atlanta: John Knox
Press, 1982)

Clarke, Jonathan, “The Conceptual Poverty of U.S. Foreign Policy”Atlantic Monthly 272, no. 3 (Mar.
1993)

Cogan, Mordechai and Tadmor, Hayim, II Kings, A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary
(Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1988)

Leicht, Robert, “2000 Jahre in Widerspruch” Die Zeit, Marz 31-May 20, 1999

Freedman, David Noel, Editor in Chief, The Anchor Bible Dictionary (New York, et. al.: Doubleday, 1992)

Gardner, Richard B. Matthew, Believers Church Bible Commentary (Scottdale, Waterloo: Herald Press,
1991)

Grimsrud, Ted, Johns, Loren L., Peace and Justice Shall Embrace, Power and Theopolitics in the Bible
(Telford, PA: Pandora Press, U.S., 1999)

Guenther, Allen R. Hosea, Amos, Believers Church Bible Commentary, (Scottdale, Waterloo: Herald Press,
1998)

Haley, Alex, Roots (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1976)

Hanson, Paul,“The Theological Significance of Contradiction within the Book of the Covenant,”Canon
and Authority, Festschrift fur Zimmerli (Fortress Press),P. 114

Jeremias, Jorg, Hosea und Amos, Studien zu den Anfangen des Dodekapropheton (Tubingen: J.C.B. Mohr
(Paul Sieback), 1996)

Lane, Marietta Jaeger, “The Power of Gorgiveness” in The Voice, Murder Victdims’ Families for
Reconciliation., No. 12 (Fall/Winter, 2000)p. 4

Lind, Millard C., Monotheism, Power, Justice, Collected Old Testament Essays (Elkhart, IN: Institute of
Mennonite Studies, 1990)

______________, Ezekiel, Believers Church Bible Commentary, (Scottdale, Waterloo: Herald Press, 1996)

Luz, Ulrich, Matthew 1—7, A Continental Commentary, trans. Wilhelm C. Linss (Minneapolis: Fortress
Press, 1980)

Megivern, James J., The Death Penalty: An Historical and Theological Survey (1997)

Neef, Henz-Dieter, Die Heilstraditionen Israels in der Verkundigung des Propheten Hosea (Berlin, New
York: Walter de Gruyter, 1987)

NYTBR:New York Times Book Review (December 10, 2000)

Ollenburger, Ben, “Gerhard von Rad’s Theory of Holy War”in Gerhard von Rad,Holy War inAncient
Israel, trans. Marva J. Dawn(Grand Rapids:William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, , 1991)

Peacework 4/99

Roop, Eugene F., Genesis, Believers Church Bible Commentary (Scottdale, Kitchener: Herald Press, 1987)
Publishing House, 1984)

Westermann, Claus, Genesis 1—11, A Commentary, trans. John J. Scullion (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1984)