Good Things

This national pattern of reward and punishment was also applied to the individual life. The good life was assured on the basis of obedience and discipline. The wisdom of Israel identified the good life with the blessing of God. The first psalm portrays the fortunes of a wise, pious man in contrast to the ungodly fool. Proverbs clearly pictures a man as bearing the consequences of his own actions. “He who digs a pit will fall into it; and a stone will come back upon him who starts it rolling” (Prv 26:27). Jeremiah pictures life as being out of order if the good should be repaid with evil (Jer 18:20).

Those who had been wronged were usually responsible for bringing the wrongdoer to judgment and for carrying out the sentence. Individual laws with their punishments were given immediately following the Ten Commandments (Ex 21, 22; Dt 19-24). Provision was also made in cases where an individual was not able to avenge himself (e.g., for murder), but needed to rely on another to “avenge his blood” (Nm 35:19—27; Dt 19:1—10; Jos 20:5—9). In such cases an individual’s close relative would pursue the wrongdoer to the city of refuge where a trial would take place. If the verdict was guilty of murder out of hatred, the elders of the city of refuge would deliver the guilty party to the relative, who would then take his life. The OT law was “life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot” (Dt 19:21).

In cases where a vindication could not be rendered, the offended person increasingly looked upon God to become his avenger. In this sense, God is called the Redeemer of the one who had been wronged, and his redemption involved the punishment of the one who had done wrong as well as the salvation of the wronged.

Similarly in a national sense, Israel believed that God would punish its enemies on the Day of the Lord. This day would be a day of national salvation when God would intervene militarily to vindicate the Israelites over their enemies who had done wrong. The prophet Amos began a transformation of this concept so that Israel was led to see its own national destruction in terms of God’s punishment of the nation for its sins (Am 5:18-20).

Recompense for good or evil; most often it suggests a benefit or favorable compensation. Both good and evil are rewarded or punished, and man’s responsibility and accountability are involved in an ethical sense. Related terms such as wages, hire, recompense, or requital are a part of the broader concept. In this fullest sense, the operation of reward ranges from the consequences resulting from dealings between people to God’s compensation for obedience or disobedience, from the consequences of actions felt in this life to divine recompense in the life to come.

To Greek and Hebrew minds the concept of reward suggested the ideal of wholeness of an action, the completion of a deed. Just as work was completed for a man in the payment of wages, so it was assumed that an action naturally carried certain results, either reward or punishment. The overtones of commercial transactions were not absent, as when the reward is referred to as “wages.” Thus Paul says “the wages of sin is death” (Rom 6:23). The idea involves an equal return commensurate with the action performed.

The biblical conception of reward was both ethical and religious. The covenant of God made with Israel was evidence of God’s loving favor; it promised good things to Israel on the condition of their obedience to God’s commands. Disobedience was a violation of the covenant and would bring disaster and death. Deuteronomy 28 spells out the blessings that obedience would bring and also the national disasters that would come upon Israel if they did not observe what was right and good in the sight of the Lord (see also Lv 26). In the period of the wilderness wanderings, failure to obey on the part of the people and their leaders brought suffering and death. The history of the judges and the kings was written in terms of reward for faithfulness and punishment for sin and idolatry. Earthly victory and the national welfare depended on obedience and faithfulness to the Lord (Jos 1:7-9; cf. Jgs 2).