DONALD TRUMP PICKED HIS FAVORITE Bible verse recently.
“Show no pity for the guilty! Your rule should be life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.” Deuteronomy 19:21
This law is actually older than Moses, the Hebrew lawgiver who some say wrote the book of Deuteronomy. The law shows up in wedge-shaped cuneiform letters chiseled onto an ancient stone from what is now Iraq. The set of laws is called the Code of Hammurabi, named after a Babylonian king. It’s on display in the Louvre Museum in Paris.
I don’t plan on dwelling on this, but that law is the absolute opposite of what Jesus taught:
“You know that you have been taught, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I tell you not to try to get even with a person who has done something to you. When someone slaps your right cheek, turn and let that person slap your other cheek.” Matthew 5:38-39
Jesus essentially declared the old law obsolete.
One of the New Testament writers made that exceptionally clear:
“When God speaks of a ‘new’ covenant, it means he has made the first one obsolete. It is now out of date and will soon disappear.” Hebrews 8:13
The reason I’m not going to dwell on this is because I already wrote an article comparing the quotes of Mr. Trump to the quotes of Jesus Christ: Donald Trump & the King of Kings.
Those quotes, like Mr. Trump’s “favorite Bible verse,” make him look a tad like an antichrist. Not the Antichrist. But someone whose ideas are anti-Jesus Christ. They don’t reflect the character that Jesus said he expects to see in his followers.
Just to get Mr. Trump’s latest reference to the Bible on record, here’s part of what he said when asked about his favorite Bible verse.
“…Look, an eye for an eye, you can almost say that….That’s not a particularly nice thing. But you know, if you look at what’s happening to our country, I mean, when 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. And they laugh at our face, and they’re taking our jobs, they’re taking our money, they’re taking the health of our country. And we have to be very firm and have to be very strong. And we can learn a lot from the Bible, that I can tell you,”
We can learn something from Jesus, in particular.
For more about the Bible and Mr. Trump
Blog subscribers who win books this week
- Nataly Hurtado
- Queen Jeht
I give away free books each week to randomly selected subscribers to my free blog and quarterly newsletter.
Winners get the option of choosing my new release: A Quick Guided Tour Through the Bible – among about half a dozen other titles.
As you know, I don’t like any candidate and to me there is no lesser of two evils, so I am not defending Mr. Trump, but the Deuteronomy 19:21 passage of “an eye for an eye” is talking about justice and equality, not retaliation as the Scribes and Pharisees interpreted it. Jesus was correcting all these false interpretations in the Sermon on the Mount. When Jesus said: “You have heard it said,” he is not referring to the Law Code, but the Pharasaical interpretation of the Law. A society must have just laws tempered with compassion. Our Country, and this present Administration, has no interest in enforcing Laws or protecting our Country. I am hoping you give equal time to the hypocrisy of the Democratic front runner as they throw dollar bills at her motorcade! God help this Country!
Hi, Wayne. You’re right about the passage talking about justice. But that ancient law also explicitly talks about retaliation…what’s reasonable and what’s not.
You’re right, too, about there being enough sin to go around in this election cycle.
However, I don’t plan on giving equal time to the other side. I didn’t plan on giving any time to Mr. Trump. But when he engages the Bible and Christianity in the way that he does, I think people familiar with the Bible should call attention to the fact that he’s talking the flip side of that coin.
If the other leading candidate so blatantly says that greed is good, retaliation is Christian, and injustice is justice, I’ll address it.