I'm a religious person. I remember my mom told me: 'Vengeance

“I’m a religious person. I remember my mom told me: ‘Vengeance belongs to God. It’s up to Him to wreak vengeance.’ It’s hard for me to get to that point, but that’s the work of God.” — Rodney King

In these solemn and soul-stirring words, Rodney King speaks not merely as a man who endured injustice, but as one who struggled to master the most difficult lesson of faith — the surrender of vengeance. His quote is born from the crucible of pain, forgiveness, and divine humility. When he recalls his mother’s wisdom, saying, “Vengeance belongs to God,” he reveals the heart of a truth that has echoed through the ages: that human hands are too frail to carry the fire of retribution without being burned by it. To leave vengeance to God is not weakness — it is the highest form of strength, for it requires that one relinquish anger to something greater than oneself.

The origin of his words reaches deep into Scripture. In the ancient text of Deuteronomy 32:35, it is written, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.” This verse was not merely a warning to the proud, but a balm to the wounded. It tells the suffering soul: “You are not forgotten. Justice will come, but it must come from the hand of the Eternal, not from the wrath of mortals.” Rodney King’s mother, steeped in faith, passed this divine wisdom to her son — not as a cold command, but as a way of healing. For the son who would one day become a symbol of both injustice and forgiveness, those words became a lifeline between rage and redemption.

To understand the power of this quote, one must remember the weight of Rodney King’s life. Beaten mercilessly by officers, his pain ignited a nation’s cry for justice. Yet amid the chaos and flames that followed, he spoke the unforgettable plea: “Can we all get along?” Those words, like this later reflection, revealed a man at war not only with the cruelty of the world but with the darkness of his own heart. “It’s hard for me to get to that point,” he admits — and this honesty is what makes his statement holy. For the ancients taught that virtue is not the absence of struggle, but the endurance of it. To forgive is divine; to strive toward forgiveness, despite fury and grief, is profoundly human.

The ancients understood vengeance as a poisoned chalice. The Greek tragedians warned that those who drink from it destroy themselves. Aeschylus, in The Oresteia, showed that the cycle of revenge could be broken only when divine justice replaced human bloodlust. The goddess Athena, establishing the first court of law, taught that vengeance must give way to reason, that wrath must be surrendered to order. In this way, Rodney King’s words echo not only his faith but the entire arc of civilization’s moral awakening — from the law of retribution to the law of mercy.

And yet, his confession, “It’s hard for me to get to that point,” reveals the eternal tension between the spirit and the flesh. The ancients called this the battle within the soul, the war between our divine and mortal natures. To trust God with vengeance means to accept that we may never see justice with our own eyes, and this is the hardest faith of all. For every wounded heart yearns for closure, for balance, for reckoning. But to rise above that yearning — to believe that justice, though unseen, will be fulfilled by higher hands — is to enter into what the mystics called the peace of surrender.

His mother’s wisdom — that vengeance belongs to God — is more than a moral command; it is a spiritual strategy for survival. For hatred is a heavy chain, and those who carry it cannot climb. History bears witness to this truth. When Nelson Mandela was freed after twenty-seven years of imprisonment, he said, “As I walked out the door toward the gate that would lead to my freedom, I knew if I didn’t leave my bitterness and hatred behind, I’d still be in prison.” Like King, Mandela understood that vengeance is not liberation — forgiveness is. The two men, though separated by continents, walked the same sacred path: from pain to peace, from retribution to redemption.

Let this, then, be the teaching carried forward: justice belongs to God, but mercy belongs to us. When we surrender our wrath to the Divine, we do not excuse wrongdoing; we elevate the soul above it. To hold vengeance is to remain chained to the past; to release it is to trust that the universe, governed by wisdom beyond our own, will bring balance in time. If you have been wronged, remember Rodney King’s struggle — and his faith. Do not mistake forgiveness for forgetting, nor mercy for weakness. Instead, see it as strength refined by suffering, as the work of God unfolding within you.

For as the ancients said, “The gods see all, though they are slow to move.” And when they do, their justice is perfect. Rodney King’s words, born of pain but matured in faith, remind us that vengeance is a burden too great for mortal hearts — but forgiveness, though hard-won, is a crown that no man can take away. It is the work of God within the soul, transforming wounds into wisdom and sorrow into peace.