What Does Leviticus 19:18 Mean?
You shall not avenge, nor hold a grudge against the children of your people; but you shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD.
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 avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the LORD.THE KEY
The verse exposes revenge in two forms: striking back, and keeping the injury alive inside you as a grudge.
THE MEANING
Your impulse to return injury and your habit of holding it against someone are both named here. Your neighbor stands in the same measure as you: their wellbeing is held in view as your own is. “I am the LORD” anchors that shared measure in God’s claim on your life now.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that resentment is harmless as long as you never act on it: the verse rejects both retaliation and the inward keeping of a grudge.
THE ROOT
תִּטֹּר
tittor
GROWS FROM
נָטַר
natar
To keep or retain; here, to hold resentment.
“hold a grudge” in this verse is tittor. The verb translated “bear any grudge” carries the sense of retaining something. The verse pairs it with “avenge”: the injury can be kept inwardly or returned outwardly, and both are named.
ALSO GROWS
nōṭēr: Retaining or reserving.
נֹטֵר
Nahum 1:2 uses this form for reserving wrath, showing the same root’s image of anger kept in store.
tittor: You keep or hold onto.
תִּטֹּר
This is the form in this verse: the grudge is not simply felt, but held against another.
תִּקֹּם
tiqqom
GROWS FROM
נָקַם
nāqam
To take vengeance or exact retaliation.
“avenge” in this verse is tiqqom. The root names the act of returning harm. Beside natar, it reveals a pair: retaliation enacted and resentment retained. The verse refuses both ways of keeping injury in circulation.
ALSO GROWS
nāqām: Vengeance or retaliation.
נָקָם
The noun gives the retaliatory act a name of its own, showing what the verb means to carry out.
nōqēm: One who takes vengeance.
נֹקֵם
This form names the person who enacts the retaliation that the verse forbids.
וְאָהַבְתָּ
ve’ahavta
GROWS FROM
אָהַב
ʾahav
To love or hold another dear.
The verse does not leave a gap where retaliation used to be; it names love as the relation between neighbors. “As thyself” gives that love a measure already familiar to the reader: the regard one holds for one’s own life.
ALSO GROWS
ahavah: Love or affection.
אַהֲבָה
The noun names the bond the verse places in the space where grudge and revenge might otherwise rule.
ohev: One who loves.
אֹהֵב
This form makes love a quality of a person’s relation to another, not merely an inward feeling.
THE PATTERN
The refusal of retaliation becomes active love: injury is not passed onward as returned harm.
Do not say, I will repay the evil; stretch yourself taut toward the LORD, and he will bring you out.But I say to you, love your enemies, speak well over those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who abuse you and pursue you.Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.THE THREAD
Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but give room to wrath. For it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will give back, says the LORD.The Greek rendering of Leviticus uses ἐκδικέω (ekdikeō, to avenge), the same verb-family used in Romans 12:19 for “avenge.” The shared root connects the refusal of personal retaliation here with the same refusal in Romans.
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