At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore (Ps. 16: 11)
“If thine enemy be hungry, give him bread to eat; And if he be thirsty, give him water to drink: For thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head, and the Lord shall reward thee”
Proverbs 25:21–22
A common faulty assumption is that Jesus introduced a new ethic in His Sermon on the Mount. Before His day, it is assumed, the Old Testament was full of law, wrath, and a bunch of rules, and Jesus came to bring in the sweetness and light. That assumption runs aground on passages like this.
The apostle Paul quotes it at the tail end of Romans 12, and he clearly explains the context and meaning. When you have an enemy, the chances are good that he has done you wrong, and that you will want to get some of your own back. But Paul tells us not to take revenge ourselves (Rom. 12:19), not because vengeance is wrong, but rather because vengeance belongs to God. Our duty is to step aside and leave room for God to exercise the vengeance that belongs to Him. We see, just a few verses down in chapter 13, that the civil magistrate is the appointed deputy of wrath (Rom. 13:4), God’s deacon of wrath. So don’t go home and get your gun—call the cops instead.
Varied suggestions have been plentiful for what is meant by the burning coals on the head. Some say the Egyptians would carry a tray of burning coals on the head as a sign of repentance. Others say that burning coals were great for starting your hearth fire at home, and so this would be another kind gesture, helping the guy out with even more than the previous food and water you gave him. Another possible interpretation is that by you being nice to him his response becomes a matter of burning shame to him.
But in my view, the most likely one is the one that fits best with how Paul argues from this passage in Romans—your kindness to your enemy is a precursor to the wrath of God.
“As for the head of those that compass me about, Let the mischief of their own lips cover them. Let burning coals fall upon them: Let them be cast into the fire; Into deep pits, that they rise not up again”
Psalm 140:9–10
