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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Leviticus 19:9 - 19:9
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Laws concerning the conduct towards one's neighbour, which should flow from unselfish love, especially with regard to the poor and distressed.
Lev 19:9-10
In reaping the field, “thou shalt not finish to reap the edge of thy field,” i.e., not reap the field to the extreme edge; “neither shalt thou hold a gathering up (gleaning) of thy harvest,” i.e., not gather together the ears left upon the field in the reaping. In the vineyard and olive-plantation, also, they were not to have any gleaning, or gather up what was strewn about (peret signifies the grapes and olives that had fallen off), but to leave them for the distressed and the foreigner, that he might also share in the harvest and gathering. כֶּרֶם, lit., a noble plantation, generally signifies a vineyard; but it is also applied to an olive-plantation (Jdg 15:5), and her it is to be understood of both. For when this command is repeated in Deu 24:20-21, both vineyards and olive-plantations are mentioned. When the olives had been gathered by being knocked off with sticks, the custom of shaking the boughs (פֵּאֵר) to get at those olives which could not be reached with the sticks was expressly forbidden, in the interest of the strangers, orphans, and widows, as well as gleaning after the vintage. The command with regard to the corn-harvest is repeated again in the law for the feast of Weeks or Harvest Feast (Lev 23:20); and in Deu 24:19 it is extended, quite in the spirit of our law, so far as to forbid fetching a sheaf that had been overlooked in the field, and to order it to be left for the needy. (Compare with this Deu 23:24-25.)
Lev 19:11-13
The Israelites were not to steal (Exo 20:15); nor to deny, viz., anything entrusted to them or found (Lev 6:2.); nor to lie to a neighbour, i.e., with regard to property or goods, for the purpose of overreaching and cheating him; nor to swear by the name of Jehovah to lie and defraud, and so profane the name of God (see Exo 20:7, Exo 20:16); nor to oppress and rob a neighbour (cf. Lev 6:2), by the unjust abstraction or detention of what belonged to him or was due to him, - for example, they were not to keep the wages of a day-labourer over night, but to pay him every day before sunset (Deu 24:14-15).
Lev 19:14
They were not to do an injury to an infirm person: neither to ridicule or curse the deaf, who could not hear the ridicule or curse, and therefore could not defend himself (Psa 38:15); nor “to put a stumblingblock before the blind,” i.e., to put anything in his way over which he might stumble and fall (compare Deu 27:18, where a curse is pronounced upon the man who should lead the blind astray). But they were to “fear before God,” who hears, and sees, and will punish every act of wrong (cf. Lev 19:32, Lev 25:17, Lev 25:36, Lev 25:43).
Lev 19:15
In judgment, i.e., in the administration of justice, they were to do no unrighteousness: neither to respect the person of the poor (πρόσωπον λαμβάνειν, to do anything out of regard to a person, used in a good sense in Gen 19:21, in a bad sense here, namely, to act partially from unmanly pity); nor to adorn the person of the great (i.e., powerful, distinguished, exalted), i.e., to favour him in a judicial decision (see at Exo 23:3).
Lev 19:16
They were not to go about as calumniators among their countrymen, to bring their neighbour to destruction (Eze 22:9); nor to set themselves against the blood of a neighbour, i.e., to seek his life. רָכִיל does not mean calumny, but, according to its formation, a calumniator (Ewald, §149e).
Lev 19:17
They were not to cherish hatred in their hearts towards their brother, but to admonish a neighbour, i.e., to tell him openly what they had against him, and reprove him for his conduct, just as Christ teaches His disciples in Mat 18:15-17, and “not to load a sin upon themselves.” חֵטְא עָלָיו נָשָׁא does not mean to have to bear, or atone for a sin on his account (Onkelos, Knobel, etc.), but, as in Lev 22:9; Num 18:32, to bring sin upon one's self, which one then has to bear, or atone for; so also in Num 18:22, חֵטְא שֵׂאת, from which the meaning “to bear,” i.e., atone for sin, or suffer its consequences, was first derived.
Lev 19:18
Lastly, they were not to avenge themselves, or bear malice against the sons of their nation (their countrymen), but to love their neighbour as themselves. נָטַר to watch for (Son 1:6; Son 8:11, Son 8:12), hence (= τηρεῖν) to cherish a design upon a person, or bear him malice (Psa 103:9; Jer 3:5, Jer 3:12; Nah 1:2).