Scripture Daily

Context No. 1288 of 4322 · Leviticus

Context · Reflection

Leviticus 19:14-18: in context

14“‘You shall not curse the deaf, nor put a stumbling block before the blind; but you shall fear your God. I am the LORD. 15“‘You shall do no injustice in judgment. You shall not be partial to the poor, nor show favoritism to the great; but you shall judge your neighbor in righteousness. 16“‘You shall not go around as a slanderer among your people. “‘You shall not endanger the life of your neighbor. I am the LORD. 17“‘You shall not hate your brother in your heart. You shall surely rebuke your neighbor, and not bear sin because of him. 18“‘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 the LORD.

This part of the holiness code fills the command to love your neighbor with concrete content. Do not curse the deaf or put a stumbling block before the blind, but fear your God. Do no injustice in judgment, showing partiality to neither the poor nor the great. Do not go about as a slanderer, or stand by while your neighbor's life is in danger. Do not hate your brother in your heart, but reason frankly with him; do not take vengeance or bear a grudge. And then the summary that gathers it all: you shall love your neighbor as yourself.

What is striking is how concrete and unglamorous the love of neighbor turns out to be. Before it reaches the famous summary, love your neighbor as yourself, the passage spells out what that love actually looks like, and it is a list of very specific, testable behaviors. Do not curse the deaf, who cannot hear you do it; do not trip the blind, who cannot see it coming; do not exploit the vulnerable simply because they cannot defend themselves or catch you at it. Do not slander, do not stay silent when a neighbor is in danger, do not nurse hatred in your heart, do not take revenge. Love of neighbor is not a warm feeling but a set of concrete refusals and actions, and notice how many of them protect the people who cannot protect themselves. The deaf, the blind, the poor in a court, the one being slandered behind his back, all are people who would never know the wrong done to them or could not stop it. The measure of love, in this passage, is how we treat those who cannot repay or retaliate, whether we exploit the ones who cannot catch us or honor them because we fear God. Love your neighbor, it turns out, is lived out in small, specific, testable acts of not exploiting the defenseless.

Does my love of neighbor show itself in the concrete refusals this passage names, especially in how I treat the vulnerable who cannot catch me or repay me, or is it only a warm feeling that never touches my actual behavior?

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