“ ‘You shall not hate your brother in your heart. You shall surely rebuke your neighbor, and not bear sin because of him.
Not to hate a fellow Israelite in one's heart
The cited verse
The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)
לֹא־תִשְׂנָא אֶת־אָחִיךָ בִּלְבָבֶךָ
In Maimonides’ words
How Maimonides defines this commandment in his Sefer HaMitzvot — his own words, shown as a primary source.
הזהיר משנוא קצתנו את קצתנו. והוא אמרו לא תשנא את אחיך בלבבך. ולשון ספרי לא אמרתי אלא שנאה שבלב. אמנם כשהראה לו השנאה והודיעו שהוא שונא אותו אינו עובר על זה הלאו אבל על לא תקום ולא תטור, ועובר על עשה והוא אמרו ואהבת לרעך כמוך, אבל שנאת הלב הוא חטא חזק יותר מן הכל. (שם, שם):
He prohibited that some of us hate others of us. And that is His saying, "You shall not hate your brother in your heart" (Leviticus 19:17). And the language of the Sifra (Sifra, Kedoshim, Chapter 4:8) is, "I only spoke of hatred in the heart." However when one shows [another] hatred and informs him that he hates him, he does not transgress this negative commandment, but rather, "You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge" (Leviticus 19:18); and he [also] transgresses a positive commandment - and that is, "and you shall love your neighbor as yourself." But hatred in the heart is a stronger sin than all. (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 prohibition
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 Kept as an ethical principle
- Reconstructionist Kept as an ethical principle
- 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 not hate your brother in your heart” as a prohibition aimed specifically at concealed hatred, as distinct from an open quarrel.
Maimonides explains that the verse forbids the hatred a person hides in the heart, not open anger: one who strikes or reproaches another openly transgresses other commandments, while the one who bears silent enmity behind a show of peace violates this particular prohibition. He directs that a grievance be brought into the open rather than harbored.
Maimonides (Rambam), Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Deot 6:5; Sefer HaMitzvot (12th c.)
Reading this verse together with the command to rebuke that follows it, the sources direct a person who feels wronged to speak openly to his fellow rather than store the resentment, so that hidden hatred does not take root.
Sifra, Kedoshim (on Leviticus 19:17); Babylonian Talmud, Arachin 16b (rabbinic period)Source text: Sifra, Kedoshim — opens the source text at Sefaria in a new tab, Babylonian Talmud, Arachin 16b — 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.
Linked rather than reproduced — Babylonian Talmud, Arachin 16b: A public-domain or CC0 English translation exists at this reference but does not carry the passage cited.
The Sefer HaChinuch gives the reason that concealed hatred festers into quarrels and worse deeds, so the Torah reaches the enmity at its source in the heart before it issues in action.
Sefer HaChinuch (13th c.)
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.
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)
- 1QS 5:24-6:1 The catalog describes this reception as: halakhic application applies the tokhakhah/reproof procedure tied to the adjacent rebuke clause (Lev 19:17b), requiring open confrontation rather than concealed hatred
- CD 9:2-8 reinterpreted it
The New Testament
- 1 John 3:15 read it more strictly equates hating one's brother with murder
- Matthew 5:21-22 read it more strictly extends murder prohibition to anger and contempt
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 Amenemope's recurring contrast between the 'heated man' (impulsive, resentful, choleric) and the 'silent man' (composed, restrained) counsels inner equanimity rather than nursing resentment — an Egyptian wisdom parallel to the Levitical prohibition against concealed hatred, though framed as prudential advice about temperament rather than a divinely enforceable prohibition of an internal emotional state Relationship to the parallel: parallel with divergence chs. 4 ('the heated man / silent man') and 9-12 (counsel against befriending or imitating the heated man) 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 19:17a states, "You shall not hate your brother in your heart" (לֹא־תִשְׂנָא אֶת־אָחִיךָ בִּלְבָבֶךָ). The phrase בִּלְבָבֶךָ ('in your heart') is the crucial qualifier and the reason this commandment is categorized under 'thought crime' — it legislates an internal emotional state rather than an external action. This is remarkable in an ancient legal code. Most ancient Near Eastern legislation deals exclusively with observable behavior: if someone strikes another, the penalty is X. The idea of prohibiting concealed hatred — a feeling one harbors secretly while maintaining outward civility — is a significant departure from standard legal forms. The verse addresses hypocrisy at its root: the dangerous gap between inner disposition and outer conduct.
The Hebrew word שׂנא ('to hate') in this context carries both emotional and legal connotations. In biblical usage, 'hating' someone can mean actively despising them emotionally, but it also has a quasi-legal sense: in marriage law, a 'hated' wife (שְׂנוּאָה, Deut 21:15–17) is one who is disfavored or marginalized, not necessarily one who is actively loathed. Similarly, 'hating in the heart' likely encompasses a range from simmering resentment to deliberate social exclusion disguised as neutrality. The verse's placement is significant: it sits between prohibitions against slander (19:16) and the commands to rebuke (19:17b) and to love one's neighbor (19:18), creating a tight ethical sequence. The logic is: don't gossip about people (16), don't hate them secretly (17a), address problems openly through rebuke (17b), and ultimately love them (18). This is a psychologically sophisticated progression from social poison to relational health.
Ancient Near Eastern wisdom literature occasionally addresses inner attitudes — the Egyptian Instruction of Amenemope warns against harboring malice, and Mesopotamian proverbs counsel against holding grudges — but these are wisdom *advice*, not legal *prohibitions*. The Levitical formulation is distinctive in casting an internal state as a matter of law backed by divine authority ('I am YHWH' concludes v. 18). This raises questions about enforceability that the rabbis took seriously: since no human court can adjudicate what is in someone's heart, the prohibition falls into the category of laws between a person and God (בין אדם למקום), enforceable only by divine judgment. The Sefer HaChinuch (#238) makes this point explicitly, noting that the commandment is fulfilled or violated in the inner life.
The rabbinic tradition developed this prohibition in connection with the adjacent command to rebuke (19:17b). The Talmud (b. Arakhin 16b) teaches that the proper response to being wronged is not silent hatred but open confrontation — one must tell the person, 'You have wronged me,' giving them the chance to repent or explain. Harboring hatred without confrontation is doubly sinful: it violates the prohibition against hatred and also neglects the obligation to rebuke. Maimonides (Mishneh Torah, De'ot 6:5–6) codifies this dual obligation beautifully: 'When one person sins against another, the latter should not remain silent and bear hatred... rather, he is obligated to inform the other and say, "Why did you do this to me?"' This transforms a prohibition of feeling into a mandate for honest communication — a genuinely wise ethical innovation, whatever one's view of its legal basis.