Many Christian readers (following the majority opinion of some scholars) claim that the second half of Jesus’ command in Matthew 5:43 (“hate your enemy”) is nowhere explicitly commanded in the Torah. According to this view, Jesus is merely correcting a popular Pharisaic misinterpretation of the Law rather than overruling the Law itself. But a closer examination shows that Jesus is indeed doing something novel: he is consciously surpassing and superseding the Torah, replacing the old covenant’s limited "love your neighbor" with an absolute enemy-love command—a new law with no true roots in the Old Testament.
By saying “hate your enemy,” Jesus acknowledges a natural and widely held inference drawn from the Torah’s repeated permission—and at times command—for lethal violence against Israel’s enemies. The NET Bible note on the word enemy in v. 43 is helpful here:
“The phrase hate your enemy … was commonly inferred from passages like Deut 7:2; 30:7; Ps 26:5; Ps 139:21–22. Jesus’ hearers (and Matthew’s readers) would not have been surprised by the statement. It is the antithesis Jesus gives in the following verses that would have shocked them.”
By antithesis is meant the dramatic, deliberate contrast Jesus sets up between “hate your enemy” and “love your enemies … pray for those who persecute you.”
In the OT the command to “love your neighbor” (Leviticus 19:18) was universally understood to mean “love your fellow Israelite,” i.e., a member of the covenant community. The resident alien (a peaceful gentile living within Israel’s borders) was to be loved “as yourself” (Lev 19:34). But hostile foreigners, personal enemies, and certainly national adversaries fell outside the loving neighbor circle.
Furthermore, limited acts of kindness—such as returning an enemy’s stray ox or donkey (Exod 23:4–5) or feeding a hungry enemy (Prov 25:21–22)—were indeed commanded, but these were pragmatic or humanitarian gestures, not unqualified expressions of neighborly love. Thus, “hate your enemy” summarizes the spirit of Israel’s warfare tradition and covenant boundary markers. Jesus himself treats the phrase as a legitimate representation of “what was said” (Matt 5:43), not as a Pharisaic corruption.
This explains why Jesus does not do what a rabbi correcting faulty interpretation would normally do—what ancient rabbis called “stringing the pearls,” harmonizing various Torah texts (such as Exod 23:4–5 or Prov 25:21). Instead, he speaks with a unique, independent messianic spirit and authority (“But I say to you…”). Jesus grounds the new covenant law in Genesis and the character of God prior to Sinai. For example:
Every human being—evil or not—is made in God’s image (Gen 1:26–27; 9:6).
As a result, Jesus now says God himself shows indiscriminate benevolence (Matt 5:45).
Just as Jesus later appeals to Genesis 1–2 (rather than Deuteronomy 24) to overrule Moses’ "certificate of divorce" (Matt 19:3–9), so here he reasons from God’s pre-Sinai intention for humanity in light of the coming kingdom.
This is not merely an interpretation of the Law; it is a new law from the Messiah who fulfills and surpasses the Old Covenant Law. The crowd were right to say in Matthew 7:28–29:
“He taught them as one who had authority, and not as their teachers of the law.”
That Jesus consciously overrules rather than merely reinterprets the Torah profoundly affects how Christians view the Law of Sinai in relation to the Law of the Sermon on the Mount. Recognizing this is crucial, lest we imagine Jesus never superseded the Law of Moses.
Jesus, the new Moses, establishes a higher law suited to the coming kingdom, not to the political-theocratic structure of ancient Israel. In doing so he identifies himself as the unique lawgiver, inaugurating the New Covenant written on the heart (Jer 31:31–34) and not “written in letters carved on stone tablets” (2 Cor 3:7).
Every would-be follower of Jesus is now placed under the unqualified command to “love your enemies”—a genuinely new and decisive paradigm shift from the Old Covenant Torah to the New Covenant law of Messiah.
"I am giving you a new law: love one another. Just as I have loved you, you must also love one another. This is how everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:34-35)
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