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Leviticus 19:18
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Leviticus 19:18 Meaning and Commentary
Thou shalt not avenge
That is, not avenge ourselves on him that has done us an ill thing, but leave it to him to whom vengeance belongs, see ( Romans 12:19 ) ; which is done when a man does an ill thing for another, or denies to grant a favour which he has been denied by another; Jarchi thus illustrates it, one says to him (his neighbour) lend me thy sickle; he answers, no (I will not); on the morrow (the neighbour comes, who had refused, and) says to him, lend me thy hatchet; he replies, I will not lend thee, even as thou wouldest not lend me; this is vengeance: this was reckoned mean and little, a piece of weakness with the very Heathens F2: nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people;
those of the same place, city, or kingdom; or "not observe" F3 the injury done, take no notice of it, nor lay it up in the mind and memory, but forget it; or "not keep" F4 or retain enmity, as the Targum of Jonathan supplies it; and so do an ill turn, or refuse to do a good one; or if that is done, yet upbraids with the former unkindness; for upbraiding with unkindness shows that a grudge is retained, though the suit is not denied: but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself;
sincerely and heartily, as a man loves himself, doing all the good to him as a man does to himself, or would have done to himself, and hindering all the mischief done to him he would have himself preserved from: Jarchi observes, that it was a saying of R. Akiba, that this is
``the great universal in the law,''and it does indeed comprehend the whole of the second table of the law, and is the summary of it, and is pretty much the same our Lord says of it, that it is the second and great commandment, and like unto the first, on which two all the law and the prophets hang, ( Matthew 22:37-40 ) ; and so the Apostle Paul makes all the laws of the second table to be comprehended in this, ( Romans 13:9 ) ; I [am] the Lord;
the Creator of all men, and who has commanded them to love one another, and to whom alone vengeance belongs, and who expects obedience to the above laws of his.
F2 -----quippe minuti Juvenal. Satyr. 13.
F3 (rjt alw) "et non observabis", Montanus.
F4 "Non servabis", Pagninus, Drusius; "neque iram asservato"; Junius & Tremellius, Piscator.
