Romans 12:20

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Therefore if your enemy hungers, feed him; if he thirsts, give him drink: for in so doing you shall heap coals of fire on his head.

Verse 19 Read Chapter 12 Verse 21

Ambrosiaster

AD 400

Paul teaches us not just to let God take revenge but also to give good things to our enemies, so that we may demonstrate that we do not have these enemies because of anything we have done. Rather, we are trying to get them to desist from evil by doing them service. If by their ungodliness they continue in their evil ways, our service to them will lead to punishment for them…. Thus the Lord not only forbids us to repay our enemies in kind but also exhorts us to seek friendship by acts of kindness, both because that serves to mature us and because it is a means of winning others to eternal life. Commentary on Paul’s Epistles.

1 min1/8

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Augustine of Hippo

AD 430

This may seem to many people to contradict what the Lord teaches, that we should love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us, or the apostle’s own statements [in verses and ] above. For how can it be love to feed and nourish someone just in order to heap coals of fire on his head, assuming that “coals of fire” means some serious punishment? Therefore we must understand that this means that we should provoke whoever does us harm to repentance by doing him a good turn. For the coals of fire serve to burn, i.e., to bring anguish to his spirit, which is like the head of the soul, in which all malice is burnt out when one is changed for the better through repentance. These coals of fire are mentioned in the Psalms: “What should be given to you or what appointed to you, for your deceitful tongue? Sharp arrows of the warrior with devouring burning coals.”

1 min2/8

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Diodorus of Tarsus

AD 390

Paul is not suggesting that we do anything wicked; on the contrary, he is wisely and cleverly checking and containing the violence of the one who is angry. .

< 1 min3/8

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George Leo Haydock

AD 1849

Thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head. This figurative way of speaking is differently expounded. Some say, inasmuch as by this means thou shalt make him liable to greater punishments from God. Others, as St. Jerome and St. Augustine, by coals of fire, understand kindnesses and benefits, which shall touch the heart, and inflame the affections even of thy enemies, which shall make them sorry for what they have done, and become thy friends. (Witham)

< 1 min4/8

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Jerome

AD 420

If someone does you a wrong and in return you do him good you will be heaping coals of fire on his head. In other words, you are curing him of his vices and burning out his malice, in order to bring him to repentance.

< 1 min5/8

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Jerome

AD 420

We are not to revile and condemn our enemy, as the world does, but rather we are to correct him and lead him to repentance so that, being won over by our good deeds, he may be softened by the fire of charity and may cease to be an enemy.

< 1 min6/8

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Jerome

AD 420

He who avenges himself is not worthy of the vengeance of the Lord.

< 1 min7/8

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John Chrysostom

AD 407

Paul said this in order to humble the wrongdoer by fear and to make the person wronged more ready to act, through hope of receiving some reward. For the one who has been wronged, when he is feeble, is not so much taken with his own goods as with the vengeance which he wants to wreak on the person who has hurt him. There is nothing so sweet as to see an enemy chastised.

< 1 min8/8

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Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation - 2 Peter 1:20