Leviticus 19:11-18

"The statements in the law were intended as a reliable guide with general applicability-not a technical description of all possible conditions one could imagine. . . . The ’deaf’ and the ’blind’ are merely selected examples of all persons whose physical weaknesses demand that they be respected rather than despised." [Note: G. D. Fee and D. Stuart, How to Read the Bible for All It’s Worth, p. 155.]

God commanded proper attitudes as well as correct actions (Leviticus 19:17-18; cf. Matthew 18:15-17; Matthew 19:19). [Note: See Luke Johnson, "The Use of Leviticus 19 in the Letter of James," Journal of Biblical Literature (1982):391-401.] Compare Leviticus 19:2 and James 4:4-5; Leviticus 19:13 and James 5:4; Leviticus 19:15 and James 2:1; James 2:9; Leviticus 19:16 and James 4:11; Leviticus 19:17 b and James 5:20; Leviticus 19:18 a and James 5:9; and Leviticus 19:18 b and James 2:8.

"To take the name of God in vain (KJV [Leviticus 19:12]) is not merely to use it as a curse word but to invoke the name of God to support an oath that is not going to be kept." [Note: Harris, p. 604.]

Leviticus 19:17-18 show that the Mosaic Law did not just deal with external behavior. The second part of Leviticus 19:17 has been interpreted in two ways. It could mean that one should rebuke his neighbor without hating him in one’s heart (NASB). This is explicitly stated in the first part of the verse. Or it could mean that one should rebuke his neighbor so that one might not become guilty of the same sin himself (NIV). This is probably the intent of the second part of the verse.

In the New Testament Leviticus 19:18 is quoted more often than any other verse in the Old Testament. When Jesus Christ commented on it in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:43), He did not invest it with a new spiritual meaning. He corrected the Pharisees’ interpretation of it that limited it to external action. A common modern perversion of this "second greatest commandment" is that it implies that we must learn to love ourselves before we can love others. [Note: For refutation of this view, see Robert L. Thomas, Evangelical Hermeneutics, pp. 130-31.]