“ ‘You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of your people; but you shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am Yahweh.
To love fellow Israelites as oneself
The cited verse
The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)
וְאָהַבְתָּ לְרֵעֲךָ כָּמוֹךָ אֲנִי יְהוָה
In Maimonides’ words
How Maimonides defines this commandment in his Sefer HaMitzvot — his own words, shown as a primary source.
היא שצונו לאהוב קצתנו את קצתנו כאשר נאהב עצמנו ושתהיה אהבתו וחמלתו לאחיו כאהבתו וחמלתו לעצמו בממונו ובגופו וכל מה שיהיה ברשותו אם ירצה אותו ארצה אני אותו וכל מה שארצה לעצמי ארצה לו כמוהו. והוא אמרו יתעלה ואהבת לרעך כמוך. (קדושים תהיו, מדע הלכות דעות פ"ז):
That is that He commanded us to love each other like we love ourselves, and that one's love and compassion for one's brother be like the love and compassion for himself regarding his money - regarding his body and regarding everything that is in his domain. If he wants it, I want it; and all that I will want for myself, I will want the same for him. And that is His saying, "and you shall love your neighbor as yourself" (Leviticus 19:18). (See Parashat Kedoshim; Mishneh Torah, Human Dispositions 7.)
Hebrew: Sefer HaMitzvot, Warsaw 1883 (public domain). English: Sefaria Edition, trans. Rabbi Francis Nataf, 2021 (CC0). Via Sefaria; translator’s footnotes omitted.
Literary form: a flat, unconditional command
Applicability
How the catalog describes where and when this commandment applies. These are independent descriptions, not a verdict on which laws still count.
- Recorded as practiced today
Classical halakhic consequences
The consequences the classical halakhah attaches to this commandment, grouped by who imposes them. Where a category has none recorded, that absence is itself meaningful.
Imposed by a court
No court-imposed penalty is recorded.
At the hands of Heaven
No divinely-imposed consequence is recorded.
Ritual remedy
No ritual remedy is recorded.
How the streams of Judaism treat this commandment
The streams of Judaism read the same commandment differently — an ongoing plurality, not a ranking. Each position below is reported as the catalog records it; none is presented as the correct one.
- Orthodox Binding
- Conservative Binding
- Reform Binding
- Reconstructionist Binding
- Karaite Binding
Two readings, side by side
24 of 613 commandments have been examined in depth so far — this is one of them.
In the traditional Jewish reading How the Jewish legal (halakhic) tradition reads and defends this commandment, in its own developed voice — the classical reasons given for the commandments (ta’amei ha-mitzvot).
The tradition reads “you shall love your fellow as yourself” as a binding obligation of conduct toward every Jew, which Rabbi Akiva named a great principle of the Torah.
Maimonides counts the love of every Jew as a positive commandment and spells out its practice: one should speak in another’s praise and be as careful with his money and his dignity as with one’s own. Whatever a person wishes for himself, he holds, he should wish for his fellow.
Maimonides (Rambam), Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Deot 6:3; Sefer HaMitzvot, positive commandment 206 (12th c.)
On this verse Rabbi Akiva taught that “you shall love your fellow as yourself” is a great principle of the Torah, under which the particular duties toward one’s neighbor are gathered.
Sifra, Kedoshim (on Leviticus 19:18); Jerusalem Talmud, Nedarim 9:4 (rabbinic period)Source text: Sifra, Kedoshim — opens the source text at Sefaria in a new tab, Jerusalem Talmud, Nedarim 9:4 — opens the source text at Sefaria in a new tab
Linked rather than reproduced — Sifra, Kedoshim: No public-domain or CC0 English translation of this passage is available.
In the source’s own words — Jerusalem Talmud, Nedarim 9:4:
(Leviticus 19:18) "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." Rabbi Akiva says: This is the great principal of the Torah. Ben Azzai says: (Genesis 5:1) "This is the book of the generations of Adam" is the great principal of the Torah.
Reproduced here: Jerusalem Talmud, Nedarim 9:4 only.
On this passage: The same passage records Ben Azzai’s alternative — that “This is the book of the generations of Adam” is the great principle — set beside Rabbi Akiva’s rather than against it.
English: Sefaria Community Translation (CC0) — a volunteer translation, reproduced as it stands. Via Sefaria; translator’s notes omitted.
The Talmud records Hillel’s summary to a would-be convert: what is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow — this is the whole Torah, and the rest is its explanation.
Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 31a (rabbinic period)Source text: Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 31a — opens the source text at Sefaria in a new tab
In the source’s own words — Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 31a:
Another time a non-Jew came before Shammai and said, "I will convert if you can teach me the entire Torah while I stand on one foot." Shammai pushed the non-Jews aside with the ruler that was in his hand. The non-Jew came before Hillel and Hillel converted him saying, "What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor, that is the entire Torah, the rest is just commentary, now go and study."
On this passage: Hillel’s answer closes “now go and study,” which the summary above does not carry.
English: Sefaria Community Translation (CC0) — a volunteer translation, reproduced as it stands. Via Sefaria; translator’s notes omitted.
Rabbinic citations here link to the source text at Sefaria, a free online library of Jewish texts. Where a public-domain or CC0 English translation — one anyone may reuse — of the exact passage cited has been verified and is short enough to set out in full, the passage is also reproduced here in the source’s own words; where it is not, the citation says which of those conditions it missed. Which passages are reproduced is a matter of licensing, length and verification — never of how much a source matters.
Modern critical scholarship How modern academic biblical scholarship reads this text — the source-critical and form-critical school. Its hedges are shown as it states them; nothing here is presented as settled fact.
Modern source-critical scholarship assigns this text to the Holiness Code (H).
Scholarly confidence in this reading: scholarly consensus.
The catalog reads this law as plausibly aimed against No specific ANE cult, institution, or ideology is directly targeted; the commandment is constructive rather than polemical in orientation. The closest comparative contrast is with Egyptian and Mesopotamian wisdom traditions (Instruction of Amenemope, Babylonian Counsels of Wisdom) that formulate analogous reciprocity principles as prudential maxims rather than divinely mandated law — but the Holiness Code's grounding of neighbor-love in YHWH's authority ('I am YHWH') is a reframing, not a polemic..
How later traditions received this commandment
How later traditions read or reworked this commandment, each attributed to its own voice. The catalog’s own classification of each reception is shown as it records it, never adopted as GEBible’s.
Qumran (the Dead Sea Scrolls)
- CD 6:20-7:1 reinterpreted it
- 1QS 1:9-10 read it more strictly
Rabbinic aggadah
- Sifra, Kedoshim 4:12 expanded it homiletically
- Genesis Rabbah 24:7 expanded it homiletically
- Avot de-Rabbi Natan A 16 expanded it homiletically
Philo of Alexandria
- De Virtutibus 51-104 read it allegorically thematic treatment of philanthropia rather than a direct exposition of Lev 19:18
Josephus
- Contra Apionem 2.211 rationalized it
The New Testament
- Mark 12:31 affirmed it cited by Jesus alongside Deut 6:5 as the second greatest commandment
- Matthew 22:39 affirmed it
- Romans 13:9 reinterpreted it neighbor-love as summary/fulfillment of the law
- Galatians 5:14 reinterpreted it
- James 2:8 affirmed it termed the 'royal law'
- Luke 10:25-37 expanded it homiletically Good Samaritan reframes the scope of 're'a'
The Church Fathers
- Augustine, De Doctrina Christiana 1.22-30 read it spiritually
- Origen, Homiliae in Leviticum (on Lev 19) read it allegorically
The Qur'an and hadith
- Sahih al-Bukhari 13 (Kitab al-Iman) carried a parallel reciprocal golden-rule formulation directed toward fellow believers
Beside the older legal codes of its world
The commandment set beside the ancient Near-Eastern legal collections scholars compare it to — a descriptive comparison, not a claim of dependence.
- instruction of amenemope wisdom instruction counseling empathetic regard and fairness toward fellow humans as expressions of divine wisdom — the closest ancient Near Eastern parallel in ethical aspiration to the love-of-neighbor command, but cast as prudential advice rather than divine commandment anchored in a theological declaration Relationship to the parallel: parallel with divergence ch. 1-2 (prologue and first chapter, on empathy and fair treatment of others) Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature, vol. II (UC Press, 1976), pp. 146-163
Where this commandment meets modern human-rights frameworks
One modern normative lens, attributed to it — not GEBible’s assessment. Each row names the framework it measures against and the catalog’s own classification of the relation.
This framework catalogues tensions; it records agreement in only one of its entries. The near-total tension rate is the shape of the instrument, not a finding.
No tension with the catalogued modern frameworks is recorded here.
Leviticus 19:18b reads, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself — I am YHWH" (וְאָהַבְתָּ לְרֵעֲךָ כָּמוֹךָ אֲנִי יְהוָה). This is almost certainly the most quoted and most debated verse in the entire Hebrew Bible. The Hebrew word רֵעַ (re'a, 'neighbor, companion, fellow') is the crux of the question: who counts as one's 'neighbor'? In the immediate context of Leviticus 19:17–18, which addresses relations 'among your people' (בְּנֵי עַמֶּךָ), the referent appears to be fellow Israelites. This is not initially a universal ethical principle but a community-internal norm. However, Leviticus 19:33–34 extends similar language to the 'stranger' (גֵּר, ger) living among Israelites: 'you shall love him as yourself' — the exact same formulation. The Holiness Code thus contains both particularist and universalist seeds within the same chapter.
The phrase כָּמוֹךָ ('as yourself') has been translated in multiple ways. It can mean 'as [you love] yourself,' implying self-love as the baseline for neighbor-love. But some scholars and ancient interpreters read it as 'who is like you' — i.e., 'love your neighbor, who is like you' (a fellow human being). The rabbinic tradition generally took the first reading. Rabbi Akiva (Sifra, Kedoshim 4:12) called this 'a great principle of the Torah' (כְּלָל גָּדוֹל בַּתּוֹרָה). The competing claim, by Ben Azzai, was that Genesis 5:1 ('This is the book of the generations of Adam') is the greater principle, because it grounds human dignity in creation rather than in reciprocity — a subtle but important difference. Hillel's famous negative formulation — 'What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow; that is the whole Torah' (b. Shabbat 31a) — is a paraphrase of this verse.
The verse sits within the Holiness Code (Leviticus 17–26), which scholars date to the late pre-exilic or exilic period. The larger literary unit of Leviticus 19:9–18 follows a chiastic or concentric structure moving from agricultural ethics (leaving gleanings for the poor), through honest dealing (no stealing, lying, or fraud), to the climactic love command. The concluding 'I am YHWH' (אֲנִי יְהוָה) functions as a divine signature — this is not mere social convention but a command grounded in YHWH's authority. Ancient Near Eastern wisdom literature contains analogues to the golden rule — the Egyptian Instruction of Amenemope counsels fairness and empathy, and Babylonian wisdom texts advise treating others well — but none formulates the principle as a divine command anchored in a theological declaration. The positive formulation ('love') rather than the merely negative ('do no harm') is also distinctive, demanding active benevolence rather than mere restraint.
Jesus' citation of Leviticus 19:18 alongside Deuteronomy 6:5 as the 'greatest commandments' (Mark 12:28–31) and Paul's identification of neighbor-love as the fulfillment of the law (Romans 13:8–10, Galatians 5:14) ensured that this verse became central to Christian ethics as well. The parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25–37) is essentially an extended midrash on the question 'who is my neighbor?' — expanding the category beyond the ethnic boundaries that the original Levitical context implies. In modern ethical philosophy, the command has been analyzed by thinkers from Kant (who saw it as consistent with the categorical imperative) to Buber (who emphasized the I-Thou dimension of neighbor-love). The verse remains a touchstone for discussions about the relationship between particularism and universalism in ethical systems.