Love Your Enemies (5:43–48)

Cf. Lk 6:27–28, 32–36; Rom 12:20–21. Jesus not only demands nonresistance toward evil people assaulting one’s honor or possessions (5:38–42; cf. Jas 5:6), but that one go so far as actively to love one’s enemies. Luke’s version of this command is fuller, but Matthew’s is clear enough. Jesus’ teaching here develops a principle already present in the law: one should not allow personal animosity to prevent acts of kindness or justice (Ex 23:5; b. B. Meṣ. 32b).
Jesus probably addresses all kinds of enemies. When Jesus explains his final quotation from the Torah, “Love your neighbors,” he adds to the quotation an implication some of his contemporaries found there: “Hate your enemies.” Perhaps because public greetings were so important (see on 23:7), some teachers defined as a personal enemy a person who had not spoken to you for a month (Abrahams 1924: 213). Jesus could certainly have addressed personal enmity in the setting of Galilean villages (Horsley 1986a; Freyne 1988: 154).
Jesus’ contemporaries might, however, perhaps have thought less of Scripture advocating hatred toward a personal enemy than toward a corporate threat to Israel or the moral fabric of the community (cf. Borg 1987: 139), such as “outsiders” to Israel (Vermes 1993: 157). Whereas the biblical command to love neighbors (Lev 19:18) included foreigners in the land (Lev 19:33–34; cf. Lk 10:27–37) and implied doing right even to one’s personal enemy (Ex 23:4–5), other texts revered a passionate devotion to God’s cause that bred hatred of those who opposed it (Ps 139:21–22; cf. 137:7–9). Popular piety, exemplified in the Qumran community’s oath to “hate the children of darkness” (cf. Jos. War 2.139; cf. 1QS 1.3–4; 9.16, 21–22), may have extended such biblical ideology in Jesus’ day. The Qumran community was certainly not alone, of course (cf. Guelich 1982: 226; Gundry 1982: 96); as well as loving friends and hating enemies fits human self-interest, we should not be surprised to find the dictum and/or practice elsewhere.125 Probably both personal and corporate enemies are in view (Moulder 1978).
Jesus argues his case by appealing to a positive and negative example. Examples, both positive and negative, were a standard part of ancient argumentation. First Jesus provides the ultimate moral example: God. Jesus chooses a line of argument that would not have been controversial among ancient hearers. Jewish teachers generally recognized, like Jesus, that God was gracious to all humanity, including the morally undeserving (Sifre Deut. 43.3.6; Bonsirven 1964: 13–14; cf. Test. Jud. 21:6; Tit 3:4); some Greek sages declared the same (Epict. Disc. 1.6.42; Marc. Aur. 7.70; cf. Petron. Sat. 100). Jewish sages saw rain as one of God’s universal signs of beneficence.126 Like Jesus in this passage, other moralists sometimes invited their hearers to show mercy to all as God did to them (Test. Zeb. 7:2; Marc. Aur. 9.11), and not to repay evil for evil (Ex. Rab. 26:2). Jewish teachers also recognized that those who imitated God’s kindness were truly his children (Sir 4:10; Montefiore 1968: 2:81).
After adducing the ultimate moral example, Jesus offers an example from the opposite end of his hearers’ moral spectrum: even those they considered the most immoral met the standard of righteousness practiced by Jesus’ most pious hearers. Jesus thus provokes his hearers to shame by comparing their ability to obey the love commandment with that of tax gatherers and non-Jews (the latter were generally idolaters), the epitome of moral reprobates (Mt 6:7; 18:17; 20:25; cf., e.g., Sifre Deut. 43.16.1; Gen. Rab. 60:5; some other teachers also shamed hearers by such examples; see, e.g., b. Qidd. 31a). Most people would have agreed that everyone, including sinners, loved those who loved them (cf. Sifre Deut. 24.3.1). Indeed, both Jewish (Ps-Phocyl. 152; Test. Benj. 4:2; Flusser 1988: 506; Sanders 1992: 234–35) and Greek (Diog. Laert. 1.78; 6.1.12; cf. Plut. Profit by Enemies, Mor. 86B–92F; Pub. Syr. 188) sages sometimes admonished against hating one’s enemies, although the more common sentiment in practice—then as today—was to make sure you did your enemies more harm than they did to you (Isoc. Demon. 26, Or. 1). One whose righteousness would surpass that of the scribes and Pharisees (5:20) must exemplify a higher standard of righteousness than loving those friendly to one’s own interests.
Jesus builds a fence around the law of love (22:39), amplifying it to its ultimate conclusion (cf. Ex 23:4–5). In so doing, he makes demands more stringent than the law itself. One may similarly compare Jesus’ command to pray for those who persecute one (5:44); he hardly has in mind the sort of prayer for vengeance characteristic of earlier biblical tradition (2 Chron 24:22; Jer 15:15; cf. Syr. Men. Sent. 126–32)! But again, his words are graphic pictures that force his followers to probe their hearts; they do not cancel the Hebrew Bible’s trust in divine vindication (23:33, 38; cf. 2 Tim 4:14; Rev 6:10–11), but they summon disciples to leave their vindication with God and seek others’ best interests in love.


Keener, C. S. (2009). The Gospel of Matthew: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary (pp. 202–205). Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge, U.K.: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.