Love Your Neighbor as Yourself

In Hebrew, the verb for love, ahav (אָהַב), can describe affection, attachment, or loyal commitment. But in Leviticus 19, love is given concrete moral content. It is not reduced to a feeling. It is expressed through just and faithful action.

Just before the well-known command, Israel is told not to defraud or rob a neighbor, delay a worker’s wages, show partiality in court, spread slander, or stand idly by when another person’s life is in danger (Lev. 19:13–16). The chapter also forbids hidden hatred, revenge, and grudges (Lev. 19:17–18).

Disclaimer: This article is based in part on the research of John J. Collins, “Love Your Neighbor: How It Became the Golden Rule,” TheTorah.com (2020).

The command itself reads:

וְאָהַבְתָּ לְרֵעֲךָ כָּמוֹךָ
Ve’ahavta lere’akha kamokha
“You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Lev. 19:18).

The word re’a (רֵעַ) can mean “companion,” “associate,” or “fellow.” In the immediate context of Leviticus 19, it refers primarily to a fellow member of Israel. The command follows references to “your brother,” “your kinsman,” and “the children of your people” (Lev. 19:17–18).

Yet this does not make love sentimental or narrow. Love concerns the person whose livelihood, reputation, safety, and dignity our actions affect. Biblical love pays what is owed. It refuses gossip. It judges fairly. It intervenes when someone is endangered. It does not allow anger to ripen into revenge.

This is why the phrase kamokha (כָּמוֹךָ, “as yourself”) matters so deeply. It asks us to use our desire for dignity, fairness, safety, and mercy as a guide for how we treat another. We know how deeply injustice wounds when it comes toward us. We know how much we want someone to speak truthfully about us, defend us when we are vulnerable, and forgive us when we repent. Leviticus tells us to extend that same seriousness to our neighbor.

Kamokha does not command self-love but assumes it, using our natural concern for our well-being as a measure for how we treat others.

The resident foreigner is included

The chapter then applies the same standard to the ger (גֵּר), the resident foreigner living among Israel:

“You shall not oppress him. The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as the native-born among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Lev. 19:33–34).

The Hebrew phrase is especially powerful:

וְאָהַבְתָּ לוֹ כָּמוֹךָ
Ve’ahavta lo kamokha
“You shall love him as yourself” (Lev. 19:34).

The ger was not simply any foreigner passing through the land. He or she was a person living within Israel’s society, a resident foreigner without native ancestral standing. Such people could be vulnerable, even though the Torah also gave them meaningful legal protection. Israel was commanded not merely to tolerate them but to love them “as yourself.”

The repetition of kamokha in verses 18 and 34 is deliberate. The same standard of love commanded toward a fellow Israelite is explicitly extended to the outsider living among Israel. A higher standard applies.

God grounds this command in memory: “for you were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Lev. 19:34). Israel was not allowed to forget what it felt like to be powerless in someone else’s land. Their painful history was to become a source of compassion rather than an excuse for hardness.

Suffering can make a person compassionate, but it can also make a person defensive and cruel. Israel’s God commands His people to remember their vulnerability and turn that memory into protection for others.

A great principle in Jewish thought

By the time of Jesus, Leviticus 19:18 had become central in Jewish ethical reflection. Later rabbinic tradition attributes to Hillel the famous negative formulation:

דַּעֲלָךְ סָנֵי לְחַבְרָךְ לָא תַעֲבֵיד
Da’alakh sani leḥavrakh la ta’avid
“What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow.”

The saying is preserved in the Babylonian Talmud, compiled centuries after Hillel. We should therefore not claim certainty about its exact first-century wording. Still, it reflects a deeply Jewish way of reading the Torah: love is not a detached ideal but the practical refusal to do to another what we would hate done to us.

Rabbi Akiva, a second-century Jewish teacher, called Leviticus 19:18 “a great principle in the Torah.”

Jesus places love at the center

Jesus was firmly part of this ongoing Jewish conversation. When a scribe asked Him which commandment was greatest, Jesus began with the Shema (שְׁמַע, “Hear!”), Israel’s confession:

“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.”

He then gave its central command:

“You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.”

Then He added the second commandment from Leviticus 19:18:

“You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

Jesus concluded,

“There is no other commandment greater than these” (Mark 12:29–31).

Jesus did not reduce the Torah to sentimental niceness. He revealed its center. Love for God and love for neighbor belong together because the God of Israel is not interested in devotion that leaves injustice untouched. A person cannot claim to love the holy God while exploiting a worker, humiliating the vulnerable, or nursing hatred toward a brother or sister.

Jesus asks a harder question

In Luke’s Gospel, an expert in the Torah correctly joins love for God and love for neighbor, but then asks, “And who is my neighbor?” (Luke 10:29). It is a natural question, yet it can also become a way of limiting responsibility: Where does my obligation end? Who lies outside the circle of my concern?

Jesus answers with the parable of the Good Samaritan. A wounded man is passed by, while the unexpected helper, a Samaritan, draws near, binds his wounds, provides transport, and pays for his continued care (Luke 10:30–35).

Jesus shifts the question from defining who qualifies as a neighbor to becoming a neighbor through mercy. He asks, “Which of these three proved to be a neighbor?” (Luke 10:36). The issue is no longer, “Does this wounded person belong to my group?” It becomes, “Will I cross the road and act with compassion?”

Then Jesus goes further: “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matt. 5:44). The saying, “Love your neighbor and hate your enemy,” does not quote a command found in the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible. Israel’s Scriptures already require practical care for an enemy’s lost or overburdened animal and forbid rejoicing when an enemy falls (Exod. 23:4–5; Prov. 24:17). Yet some Second Temple Jewish groups did draw sharp boundaries between those considered faithful and those regarded as enemies. The Qumran Community Rule, for example, calls its members to love the “sons of light” and hate the “sons of darkness” (1QS 1:9–11).

Jesus rejects hatred as the proper response to one’s enemies. His disciples are to reflect the Father, who gives sun and rain to both the righteous and the unrighteous (Matt. 5:45).

This does not mean abandoning wisdom, truth, justice, or healthy boundaries. Loving an enemy does not mean enabling abuse, remaining in danger, or pretending that evil is harmless. Jesus Himself confronted hypocrisy and injustice. But He forbids His followers from allowing hatred to rule their hearts. They may resist evil without becoming shaped by it.

Jesus is not commanding warm feelings toward oppressors. He calls for a deliberate commitment to seek their true good through prayer and merciful action, while remaining faithful to truth and justice.

Love fulfilled in Christ

Paul echoes this same truth:

“Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of Torah/the law” (Rom. 13:10).

Yet Christians know that we do not fulfill this command perfectly. We have all passed by on the other side at times. We have protected our comfort, defended our resentment, or loved only those who loved us first.

This is where Jesus is not merely our teacher. He is our Savior. He did not wait for us to become lovable.

“While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8).

At the cross, He bore the violence of human hatred without returning hatred for hatred. His love was not sentimental. It was costly, truthful, holy, and self-giving.

Conclusion

The command to love is not a gentle suggestion. It is a radical call to justice, truth, and mercy. It tells us to treat fellow believers, vulnerable strangers, and even enemies with the seriousness we desire for ourselves.

Jesus did not soften this command. He brought it to its deepest expression. He crossed every barrier, gave His life for sinners, and showed what self-giving love truly means. In Him, we find not only the perfect example but also the power to follow. Because He first loved us, we are free to love others. Let us go and do likewise.