Leviticus 19:18 — Love Your Neighbor as Yourself

Leviticus 19:18 contains three linked imperatives within a single verse. First, the people are told, "Thou shalt not take vengeance," ruling out retaliatory action against a fellow member of the community. Second, they are told, "nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people," which addresses the internal disposition: even if no act of revenge is carried out, harboring resentment toward another Israelite is itself forbidden. The phrase "children of thy people" identifies the scope of the command as the covenant community, the descendants of Israel.

The verse then turns from what must be put away to what must be cultivated: "thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." This is a positive directive, not merely the absence of wrongdoing. The standard of self-love is given as the measure, so that active regard, care, and concern for the neighbor's good is required in the same proportion that one naturally seeks one's own good.

The verse closes with the covenant signature, "I am Jehovah." Within Leviticus 19, this phrase recurs repeatedly to anchor each statute in the identity and authority of God. Here it frames the call to love as a command grounded in who God is, not merely a social recommendation.

Leviticus 19 opens with the call, "Ye shall be holy; for I Jehovah your God am holy" (v. 2), establishing that the chapter's varied statutes together express the holiness required of God's people. Verse 18 sits inside this holiness code among commands concerning speech, justice, and interpersonal conduct. Immediately before it, v. 17 forbids hatred in the heart and requires open rebuke of a neighbor; v. 16 forbids going about as a talebearer and standing against the life of a neighbor.

Immediately after v. 18, the chapter moves to different statutes concerning mixtures (v. 19) and various other matters, so the love command is embedded in a wide-ranging list of holiness requirements. The chapter closes by tying everything together: "Ye shall observe all my statutes, and all mine ordinances, and do them: I am Jehovah" (v. 37). Verse 18's signature phrase, "I am Jehovah," is therefore one strand in a sustained framing device that runs through the chapter.

Within the chapter itself, the language of "neighbor" and the standard of love for the sojourner (v. 34, "thou shalt love him as thyself") echo the wording of v. 18. The same self-love measure used here in v. 18 is reapplied in v. 34 to the stranger who sojourns in the land, joined there to the remembrance that Israel itself was once a sojourner in Egypt.