What Does Matthew 5:43 Mean?
You have heard that it was said, You shall love your neighbor, and hate your enemy.
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
Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy.THE KEY
The Greek names a neighbour as the one near, making the hidden fault line the boundary between nearness and hostility.
THE MEANING
You hear a rule that gives love to the one near and makes hatred for the enemy sound permissible. The sentence exposes how a boundary around “neighbour” can shrink love and legitimize hostility toward anyone placed outside it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie it surfaces is that loving your neighbour gives you permission to hate everyone beyond that boundary.
THE ROOT
πλησίον
plēsion
GROWS FROM
πλησίος
plēsios
Near; close by.
“neighbor” in this verse is plēsion. The word is built around nearness: a neighbour is the one near. This makes the pairing with enemy visible as a boundary problem, love is assigned to nearness while hostility is assigned to the one outside it.
ALSO GROWS
plēsios: Near, close by.
πλησίος
It makes the idea of a neighbour as someone near explicit.
plēsiazō: To draw near, approach.
πλησιάζω
The related verb keeps nearness as movement, showing that the neighbour boundary depends on who is considered close.
ἐχθρόν
echthron
GROWS FROM
ἐχθρός
echthros
Hostile, hated; an enemy.
“enemy” in this verse is echthron. The verse uses an adjective as a noun: a person marked by hostility. The related noun ἔχθρα names enmity itself, so the word family holds the person and the hostile relation together.
ALSO GROWS
echthra: Enmity, hostility.
ἔχθρα
It names the hostility that marks the person called an enemy.
echthrainō: To be hostile.
ἐχθραίνω
It expresses hostility as a relation or action, rather than as an unchangeable kind of person.
ἀγαπήσεις
agapēseis
GROWS FROM
ἀγαπάω
agapaō
To love, regard with love.
The line’s love is an active verb, and the same word family includes ἀγάπη, the noun for love, and ἀγαπητός, beloved. The family holds together the act of loving and the one who is loved; the quoted rule exposes how selectively it distributes that action.
ALSO GROWS
agapē: Love.
ἀγάπη
The noun gives the same word family’s name to the love expressed here as an action.
agapētos: Beloved, loved.
ἀγαπητός
It names the person who receives love, linking the act to its recipient.
THE PATTERN
The boundary around whom one loves is crossed when care reaches the enemy.
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.If the one who hates you hungers, feed him bread; and if he thirsts, give him water to drink.So if your enemy hungers, feed him. If he thirsts, give him drink, for by doing this you will heap coals of fire upon his head.THE THREAD
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.The Greek ἐχθρός (echthros, “enemy”) is the same word family behind “enemies” here. The next line keeps hostility in view and extends love across it.
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