Vengeance is mine, and recompense

“Vengeance is mine, and recompense” is the declaration at the center of a passage in the Song of Moses that reserves judgment to the LORD. It appears after the song has described Israel’s unfaithfulness and the calamities that follow, and before it turns to judgment of the LORD’s people and the vindication of the servants whose blood has been shed.

The Expression in the Song of Moses

The declaration occurs in a poem that looks ahead to Israel’s future failure: the people forget the Rock who gave them life, turn to other gods, and provoke the LORD. The song depicts the resulting judgment through hunger, destruction, and violence, but also explains that Israel’s enemies must not mistake their own power for the source of Israel’s defeat.

Within that sequence, “Vengeance is mine, and recompense” announces that retribution belongs to the LORD and is held in store until the appointed time. The line is followed by the warning that the people’s calamity is near, then by the assurance that the LORD will judge His people and have compassion on His servants when their strength is gone.

Covenant Judgment and Restoration

The song’s declaration echoes the wider covenant teaching in Deuteronomy. The covenant’s curses warn that persistent disobedience can bring disease, defeat, removal from the land, and dispersion among other peoples; the account identifies these outcomes as consequences of forsaking the LORD and serving other gods. The song gives that covenant logic a compressed poetic form, presenting calamity as judgment rather than as proof that Israel’s God has been overcome.

Judgment is not the song’s final note. The LORD alone has power to kill and make alive, to wound and heal, and the poem concludes with vengeance for the blood of His servants and expiation for His people’s land. The expression therefore holds together retribution and vindication: it forbids the enemies’ claim to ultimate power while locating the outcome in the LORD’s authority.

A Formula Reframed by Covenant Speech

Elsewhere in Deuteronomy, the same idea takes the form of warnings, public commitments, and promises. At the covenant ceremony on Mount Ebal, the people answer “Amen” to a series of curses against wrongdoing; the blessings and curses are tied to whether Israel heeds the LORD’s commandments. The Song of Moses is likewise appointed as a witness, to be taught to the people and remembered by their descendants when future troubles arrive.

The expression’s force comes from its position in that chain of speech and consequence. It does not license private retaliation: it assigns vengeance and recompense to the LORD, whose judgment encompasses Israel’s breach of covenant as well as the violence of its adversaries, and whose compassion remains possible after judgment.