ekdikēsis

The lexica treat ἐκδίκησις as the noun of the legal-forensic ἐκδικ- family built on δίκη, and divide its uses along the same lines as the verb. BDAG gives "vengeance, punishment" for the divine and civil retribution texts (Rom 12:19; Heb 10:30; 2 Th 1:8; Lk 21:22; 1 Pt 2:14) while treating the Lukan idiom ποιεῖν τὴν ἐκδίκησίν τινος as "see that justice is done for someone" (Lk 18:7 and 18:8); Louw and Nida likewise distribute the noun across the punishment and legal-procedure domains, and Muraoka records the same double range in the Septuagint. Schrenk's TDNT article on the δίκη word-group traces the decisive shift: the Septuagint's use of this family to render Hebrew נקם (with נָקָם and נְקָמָה) and secondarily פקד turned the Greek noun into a term of covenantal-juridical action in which the vindication of the oppressed and the punishment of the oppressor are two aspects of one act. Moulton and Milligan showed from the papyri that in ordinary Hellenistic legal usage the family denotes representing a party, securing a legal outcome, and exacting a legal penalty, so that the passionate English sense of "revenge" is possible but not the default. On the Hebrew background the disagreement is one of emphasis rather than basic sense: Mendenhall read נקם as the sovereign's legitimate executive action, while Peels argued for juridical retribution exercised on behalf of the oppressed, and both drive translation away from private revenge. Commentators apply the range with contextual discipline. Fitzmyer, Marshall, Nolland, and Bock read Lk 18:7 and 18:8 against the Sirach 35 background as God granting justice to his elect rather than avenging them in the modern sense; Barrett and Keener note that the dative of advantage in Ac 7:24 tilts the noun toward redress secured for the oppressed Hebrew; Moo and Cranfield read Rom 12:19 (with the citation form of Deut 32:35 shared with Heb 10:30) as a prohibition of self-executed retaliation rather than of justice as such, resolved against Rom 13:4 by the state as God's authorized instrument, which is also how Michaels, Achtemeier, and Jobes read the governor's commission in 1 Pt 2:14; Attridge and Lane stress the retributive force of Heb 10:30 in its warning to apostates; Thrall, Harris, and Martin read the noun in 2 Co 7:11 as the judicial action the congregation took against the offender, alongside the alternative rendering "readiness to see justice done" adopted by several modern versions.