What Does Leviticus 19:17 Mean?
You shall not hate your brother in your heart; you shall surely set your neighbor straight, and not carry falling short upon him.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart: thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbour, and not suffer sin upon him.THE KEY
The opposite of hidden hatred here is not silence but direct correction that refuses to leave the wrong buried.
THE MEANING
The verse meets the reader where resentment is kept quiet: the wrong is brought into speech instead of stored as hate. It also warns that another person’s wrong can become weight the reader bears if it is left unaddressed.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that keeping quiet is always the loving choice: silence can leave both resentment and wrongdoing in place.
THE ROOT
הוֹכֵחַ תּוֹכִיחַ
hokheach tokhiach
GROWS FROM
יכח
To decide, prove, or demonstrate; in this form, to reprove.
“set straight” in this verse is hokheach tokhiach. The doubled verb makes the command emphatic: reprove directly and surely. Its root also carries the sense of proving or deciding, so the wrong is brought into the open where it can be addressed instead of held inside as hatred.
ALSO GROWS
tokhechah: Reproof or correction
תּוֹכֵחָה
This noun from the same root names the direct correction that replaces concealed resentment.
mokhiach: One who reproves
מוֹכִיחַ
This form appears in Proverbs 28:23, linking direct correction with the favor that truthful speech can find.
חֵטְא
chet
GROWS FROM
חטא
To miss, err, or incur guilt.
“falling short” in this verse is chet. The word carries the sense of a missing or going wrong, not only a fixed label for a person. In this verse, that missing is not meant to stay buried beneath either hatred or silence.
ALSO GROWS
chata: To miss, do wrong, or become guilty
חָטָא
The verb shows the movement from a wrong act to the guilt that can cling to it.
chatta’t: Sin; also an offering associated with sin
חַטָּאת
This related form keeps the focus on the wrong that needs to be brought into the open.
תִּשָּׂא
tissa
GROWS FROM
נשא
To lift, carry, or bear.
“carry” in this verse is tissa. The verse describes guilt with the weight of something carried. Its wording ties the reader’s response to whether another person’s wrong remains unaddressed and burdened between them.
ALSO GROWS
massa: A burden
מַשָּׂא
This related word makes the carrying image concrete: guilt can be borne like a weight.
nasi: A chief or prince, one elevated
נָשִׂיא
This related form carries the sense of being lifted up, showing the root’s range from bearing to raising.
THE PATTERN
Love brings a neighbor’s wrong into truthful speech instead of sealing it inside as hate or leaving it hidden.
Uncovered rebuke is better than hidden love.And if your brother misses the mark against you, go and bring him into the light between you and him alone. If he hears you, you have won your brother.but doing the truth in love, we may grow into him in all things, who is the head, the Anointed One.THE THREAD
Whoever rebukes a man afterward finds more favor than the one who smooths with the tongue.The Hebrew מוֹכִיחַ (mokhiach, one who reproves) in Proverbs shares the יכח (y-kh-ch, prove or reprove) root that appears twice in Leviticus’s command. Proverbs adds that direct correction can find favor, while smooth speech can conceal.
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