Matthew 5:43
Translations
King James Version (KJV)
You have heard that it has been said, You shall love your neighbor, and hate your enemy.
American King James Version (AKJV)
You have heard that it has been said, You shall love your neighbor, and hate your enemy.
American Standard Version (ASV)
Ye have heard that it was said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy:
Basic English Translation (BBE)
You have knowledge that it was said, Have love for your neighbour, and hate for him who is against you:
Webster's Revision
Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thy enemy:
World English Bible
"You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor, and hate your enemy.'
English Revised Version (ERV)
Ye have heard that it was said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy:
Clarke's Matthew 5:43 Bible Commentary
Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy - Instead of πλησιον neighbor, the Codex Graevii, a MS. of the eleventh century, reads φιλον friend. Thou shalt love thy friend, and hate thine enemy. This was certainly the meaning which the Jews put on it: for neighbor, with them, implied those of the Jewish race, and all others were, considered by them as natural enemies. Besides, it is evident that πλησιον, among the Hellenistic Jews, meant friend merely: Christ uses it precisely in this sense in Luke 10:36, in answer to the question asked by a certain lawyer, Matthew 5:29. Who of the three was neighbor (πλησιον friend) to him who fell among the thieves? He who showed him mercy; i.e. he who acted the friendly part. In Hebrew, רע reâ, signifies friend, which word is translated πλησιον by the Lxx. in more than one hundred places. Among the Greeks it was a very comprehensive term, and signified every man, not even an enemy excepted, as Raphelius, on this verse, has shown from Polybius. The Jews thought themselves authorized to kill any Jew who apostatized; and, though they could not do injury to the Gentiles, in whose country they sojourned, yet they were bound to suffer them to perish, if they saw them in danger of death. Hear their own words: "A Jew sees a Gentile fall into the sea, let him by no means lift him out; for it is written, Thou shalt not rise up against the blood of thy neighbor: - but this is not thy neighbor." Maimon. This shows that by neighbor they understood a Jew; one who was of the same blood and religion with themselves.
Barnes's Matthew 5:43 Bible Commentary
Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy - The command to love our neighbor was a law of God, Leviticus 19:18. That we must therefore hate our enemy was an inference drawn from it by the Jews. They supposed that if we loved the one, we must of course hate the other. They were total strangers to that great, special law of religion which requires us to love both. A neighbor is literally one that lives near to us; then, one who is near to us by acts of kindness and friendship. This is its meaning here. See also Luke 10:36.
Wesley's Matthew 5:43 Bible Commentary
5:43 Thou shalt love thy neighbour; And hate thy enemy - God spoke the former part; the scribes added the latter. Lev 19:18.