Leviticus 19:17

Summary

Leviticus 19:17 prohibits hatred toward a fellow member of the community while it holds inside the heart, and instead commands direct confrontation through rebuke. The verse closes by linking failure to rebuke with bearing responsibility for sin connected to that person.

Key words

• tis.Na' ("you will hate", H8130) — qal imperfect, second person masculine; expresses a prohibited future/ongoing state introduced by the negation lo' (H3808).
• levavecha (bi + l.va.Ve. + kha, H3824) — construct noun "heart" with second-person suffix, marking the internal, hidden location where hatred is forbidden, contrasted with external action.
• ho.Khe.ach / to.Khi.ach ("certainly to rebuke" / "you will rebuke", H3198) — hiphil absolute infinitive followed by hiphil imperfect, a doubled construction that intensifies the verb "to rebuke," marking it as emphatic or certain.
• 'a.mi.Te.kha ("your fellow citizen", H5997) — construct noun with suffix, designating the person toward whom the rebuke is directed, distinct from 'a.chi.kha ("your brother", H0251I) used earlier in the verse.
• chet' ("sin", H2399) — masculine singular noun, the object connected to the verb ti.Sa' ("you will bear", H5375J), forming the consequence clause at the end of the verse.

What the text says

The verse is built in two parallel prohibitive-plus-positive-command units. The first unit uses lo' (H3808) with the qal imperfect tis.Na' (H8130) to forbid hatred, and specifies the location of that hatred as bi-levavecha, "in your heart" (H3824), using the preposition bi (H9003) plus the construct noun. This placement is grammatically significant: the prohibition targets an internal state, not merely an external act, and the object of that hatred is marked by 'et (H0853) as 'achicha, "your brother" (H0251I).

The second unit shifts to a positive command using the hiphil doubled construction ho.Khe.ach tochiach (H3198 twice): an infinitive absolute followed by the finite imperfect verb, a common Biblical Hebrew pattern that intensifies or makes emphatic the verbal action — here rendered by translations as "surely rebuke" or "directly rebuke." The object of this rebuke is 'amitecha, "your fellow citizen" (H5997), again marked by the object particle 'et.

The final clause, joined by ve- (H9002) and the negation lo', uses tisa' (H5375J, "you will bear") with the preposition 'alav ("on him," combining H5921A and the suffix H9033) and the noun chet' ("sin," H2399). Grammatically this forms a bearing/carrying construction — the subject "bears sin" in connection with the other person — linking the omission of rebuke to a consequence expressed through this verb of carrying rather than a verb of causing or committing.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders chet' ("sin," H2399) with ἁμαρτίαν and the bearing-verb construction as οὐ λήμψῃ δι' αὐτὸν ἁμαρτίαν ("you will not take sin because of him"), preserving the bearing sense. The Vulgate diverges by rendering the final clause as ne habeas super illo peccatum ("lest you have sin upon him") and adds publice ("publicly") before argue, a specification not present in the Hebrew hokheach tokhiach, which conveys intensity of rebuke but not explicitly its public or private setting.