Commentaries:
Adam Clarke
Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves - Ye are the children of God, and he loves you; and because he loves you he will permit nothing to be done to you that he will not turn to your advantage. Never take the execution of the law into your own hands; rather suffer injuries. The Son of man is come, not to destroy men' s lives, but to save: be of the same spirit. When he was reviled, he reviled not again. It is the part of a noble mind to bear up under unmerited disgrace; little minds are litigious and quarrelsome.
Give place unto wrath - ͅ ͅ· Leave room for the civil magistrate to do his duty, he holds the sword for this purpose; and if he be unfaithful to the trust reposed in him by the state, leave the matter to God, who is the righteous judge: for by avenging yourselves you take your cause both out of the hands of the civil magistrate and out of the hands of God. I believe this to be the meaning of give place to wrath, ͅ , punishment; the penalty which the law, properly executed, will inflict. This is well expressed by the author of the book of Ecclesiasticus, 19:17: Admonish thy neighbor before thou threaten him, and, not being, angry, Give Place to the Law of the Most High.
Vengeance is mine - This fixes the meaning of the apostle, and at once shows that the exhortation, Rather give place to wrath or punishment, means, Leave the matter to the judgment of God; it is his law that in this case is broken; and to him the infliction of deserved punishment belongs. Some think it means, "Yield a little to a man when in a violent passion, for the sake of peace, until he grow cooler."
I will repay - In my own time and in my own way. But he gives the sinner space to repent, and this longsuffering leads to salvation. Dr. Taylor, after Dr. Benson, conjectures that the apostle in these directions had his eye upon the indignities which the Jews, and probably the Christians too, (for they were often confounded by the heathen), suffered by the edict of Claudius, mentioned Acts 18:2, which "commanded all Jews to depart from Rome." Upon this occasion Aquila and Priscilla removed to Corinth, where Paul found them, and dwelt with them a considerable time. No doubt they gave him a full account of the state of the Christian Church at Rome, and of every thing relating to the late persecution under Claudius. That emperor' s edict probably died with him, if it were not repealed before, and then the Jews and Christians (if the Christians were also expelled) returned again to Rome; for Aquila and Priscilla were there when Paul wrote this epistle, Romans 16:3, which was in the fourth year of Nero, successor to Claudius.
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