Do Not Take Revenge
Nakam — The Precise Definition
Lev 19:18: “Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD.” The Talmud (Yoma 23a) defines nakam (revenge) with surgical precision: “A asked B to lend him his scythe; B refused. The next day B asks A for his sickle. If A refuses, saying 'Because you did not lend to me,' that is nakam.” The structure of the prohibited act is exact: a past grievance, explicitly named, as the basis for a present withholding.
Nakam does not require violence or dramatic confrontation. It can be a refusal of help, a cold shoulder, a closed door — anything done to someone because of what they did to you. The prohibition covers the full spectrum of retaliation, from physical harm to the quietly withheld favor. Significantly, lo tikom applies “against anyone among your people” — the prohibition is between community members, within the covenant network, where ongoing relationships make cycles of retaliation particularly destructive.
Samson — The Retaliation Spiral
The book of Judges traces the escalating revenge cycle that lo tikom was designed to prevent. Judg 15:11: the men of Judah ask Samson why he has attacked the Philistines. Samson's answer: “As they did to me, so have I done to them.” This is the grammar of nakam — the explicit reciprocal structure, harm for harm. Each retaliation provokes the next. Samson burns crops; the Philistines burn his wife and father-in-law; Samson kills Philistines; the Philistines raid Judah; the cycle amplifies.
Samson does not restrain himself from nakam — and the narrative's trajectory shows what unrestrained personal revenge produces: not justice but escalation, not resolution but deeper entanglement, not protection but destruction of everyone near the cycle's center. The prohibition in Lev 19:18 is not asking the wronged party to accept injustice; the Torah's courts exist for that. It is prohibiting the personal reciprocal harm that bypasses courts and produces the Samson spiral.
David Before Saul — Restraint as the Model
1 Sam 24:4: Saul had been hunting David across Israel for years. At En Gedi, Saul entered the cave where David and his men were hiding. David's men said, “This is the day the LORD spoke of when he said to you, 'I will give your enemy into your hands.'” David refused. He cut only the corner of Saul's robe. Afterward: “The LORD forbid that I should do this thing to my master, the LORD's anointed.”
David had justification — Saul had tried to kill him multiple times. He had opportunity — Saul was alone and vulnerable. He had social encouragement — his men framed it as divine provision. And he had a grievance — the years of persecution. Every condition for nakam was present, and lo tikom still held. Prov 20:22: “Do not say, 'I'll pay you back for this wrong!' Wait for the LORD, and he will avenge you.” David's act is not passivity but the active choice to transfer the retaliation function to God rather than executing it personally.
- David — 1 Sam 24:4: refused to kill Saul in the cave at En Gedi despite having justification, opportunity, and encouragement. The clearest biblical model of lo tikom exercised when revenge was entirely within reach.
- Samson — Judg 15:11: embodied the retaliation spiral the prohibition prevents — “as they did to me, so have I done to them.” Each nakam produced escalating destruction, ultimately including Samson's own death.
- Solomon (Prov 20:22) — articulated the theological frame that makes lo tikom possible: “Wait for the LORD, and he will avenge you.” Transferring the retaliation function to God is not passivity but a specific act of faith that releases the injured party from the cycle.
Read the source passage in the Torah reader.
Read in the Torah Reader — Leviticus 19:18