Verse Lens · Expanded explanation
Matthew 5:39 Explained in Context
Use this verse as a doorway into the larger passage—not as an isolated saying.
Verse 39. 39But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.
King James Version — public domain in the United States · Bible text and permissions
Quick Meaning
Counters personal retaliation with a nonvengeful response to a humiliating strike.
Read It With
- Matthew 5:38–5:42
Read Matthew 5:39 with 5:38–5:42. In isolation, this verse's contribution—counters personal retaliation with a nonvengeful response to a humiliating strike—can be detached from its speaker, audience, narrative or teaching sequence, and outcome. The complete unit establishes: Jesus challenges retaliation by naming a struck cheek, legal seizure, coerced mile, and requests, calling disciples toward creative nonvengeance and generosity.
Why This Verse Appears Here
Counters personal retaliation with a nonvengeful response to a humiliating strike. This precise contribution belongs inside “Nonretaliation interrupts cycles of domination” because Jesus challenges retaliation by naming a struck cheek, legal seizure, coerced mile, and requests, calling disciples toward creative nonvengeance and generosity.
Follow the Context
- Jesus challenges retaliation by naming a struck cheek, legal seizure, coerced mile, and requests, calling disciples toward creative nonvengeance and generosity.
- The examples arise under unequal power and should not be flattened into passive submission; faithful nonretaliation can include escape, exposure, resistance, and protection without revenge.
- This teaching does not require enduring abuse, forbid self-protection or public justice, enable exploiters, or shame people who cannot give what they do not have.
What This Verse Is Not Saying
This verse does not detach its specific contribution—counters personal retaliation with a nonvengeful response to a humiliating strike—from the complete unit or override the unit's explicit boundary: This teaching does not require enduring abuse, forbid self-protection or public justice, enable exploiters, or shame people who cannot give what they do not have.
What Remains True
Jesus challenges retaliation by naming a struck cheek, legal seizure, coerced mile, and requests, calling disciples toward creative nonvengeance and generosity. Matthew 5:39's proportionate contribution is this: Counters personal retaliation with a nonvengeful response to a humiliating strike.
How It Can Shape Life
- Matthew 5:39 contributes this specific claim: Counters personal retaliation with a nonvengeful response to a humiliating strike. Interrupt retaliation with creative nonvengeance while still using proportionate protection, public justice, and firm boundaries where another person is being harmed.
Teach It Back
Explain how Matthew 5:39 counters personal retaliation with a nonvengeful response to a humiliating strike. Then identify its speaker or narrator, first Jewish and scriptural setting, one affected person, the material uncertainty, and the specific conclusion this verse does not authorize.
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Continue in Context
The full thought-unit study remains the final contextual authority for this Verse Lens.
Read Matthew 5:38–5:42 — Nonretaliation interrupts cycles of dominationSources used for this Verse Lens
How certain is this explanation? probable
These are the sources used directly for this lens. Language, grammar, disagreements, and the complete source shelf remain attached to the full thought-unit research record.
Biblical text
King James (Authorized) Version — eng-kjv2006
eBible.org and CrossWire Bible Society
USFM archive eng-kjv2006_usfm.zip; source files dated 2026-08-19; downloaded 2026-08-24; archive SHA-256 aec1b3b26c622fd3d963d2bbac963016b9513246ffbfa20da00bb100372ea007; normalized corpus SHA-256 09aef51d90488aa7b9722b3fd9a93f4b25f6bf2064c5fd798fb39673c300ddf2.
Supports: Exact displayed KJV wording, order, paragraph metadata, supplied-word markup, and thought-unit coverage.
Exact location: Matthew 5:38–5:42, pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM-derived repository corpus
Open source ↗Greek textual evidence
The Greek New Testament: SBL Edition
Michael W. Holmes, editor; Society of Biblical Literature and Logos
Society of Biblical Literature and Logos Bible Software, 2010
Supports: Greek wording and punctuation control without treating one edition as a complete apparatus.
Exact location: SBLGNT official text file data/sblgnt/text/Matt.txt, Matthew 5:38–5:42
Open the Matthew Greek text file ↗Lexical and grammatical evidence
STEP Bible Data
Tyndale House Cambridge
Tyndale House Cambridge, repository snapshot verified 2026
Supports: Morphology and lexical cross-check for the expressions actually discussed in this thought unit.
Exact location: STEP Bible Data TAGNT rows for Matthew 5:38–5:42
Open source ↗open translation and translator notes
NET Bible: Matthew with Translators' and Textual Notes
Biblical Studies Press
Biblical Studies Press, 2005-2026 online edition
Supports: Verse-attached textual, translation, language, historical, Jewish-background, and Synoptic notes for this unit.
Exact location: NET Bible Matthew PDF, printed pp. 1808-1867, exact tn/tc/sn entries attached to 5:38–5:42
Open source ↗open university bible study course
The Gospel of Matthew Course and Study Guides
Harold W. Attridge and Michal Beth Dinkler
Yale Bible Study, Yale Divinity School, current 2026 online edition
Supports: Critical literary orientation with source, setting, historical, and theological judgments retained as interpretations.
Exact location: Yale Bible Study, course unit 'Sermon on the Mount,' Matthew 4-8 study guide
Open source ↗open seminary bible study course
Matthew Course
James L. Boyce; revised by Kristofer Phan Coffman
Enter the Bible, Luther Seminary, 2023 revision
Supports: Whole-book orientation and unit placement, including visible uncertainty about authorship, date, setting, and purpose.
Exact location: Enter the Bible Matthew course, 'Summary,' 'Outline,' 'Background,' 'Introductory Issues,' 'Theological Themes,' and passage index entry for Matthew 5:38–5:42
Open source ↗open confessional commentary
Matthew
Douglas Sean O'Donnell
The Gospel Coalition Bible Commentary, current 2026 online edition
Supports: One complete confessional reading checked against the text, critical scholarship, and Jewish-context controls.
Exact location: O'Donnell, online Matthew commentary, heading and paragraphs explicitly covering Matthew 5:38–5:42
Open source ↗scholarly annotated translation
Matthew, in The Jewish Annotated New Testament
Aaron M. Gale; edited by Amy-Jill Levine and Marc Zvi Brettler
Aaron M. Gale, Matthew introduction and annotations, print pp. 1-54; related essays and sidebars in The Jewish Annotated New Testament, first edition.
Supports: Jewish setting, Scripture, Torah debate, named groups, practices, and anti-Judaism control at the passage address.
Exact location: Gale, Matthew introduction and verse-addressed annotations, first-edition print pp. 1-54, exact annotation at Matthew 5:38–5:42
Open source ↗open access scholarly essay collection
Matthew within Judaism: Israel and the Nations in the First Gospel
Anders Runesson and Daniel M. Gurtner, editors
SBL Press, 2020
Supports: Specialist control for Matthew's Jewish setting, Torah, Israel and nations, polemic, parables, Passion, resurrection, or mission as material to Matthew 5:38–5:42.
Exact location: Crossley, 'Matthew and the Torah,' printed pp. 29-51; Levine, pp. 449-466
Open source ↗