13. Relationship Words in the Word: Neighbor (in OT)
- Relationship Words in the Word: Neighbor (in OT).
“You shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord” (Leviticus 19:18).
Rea is the Hebrew word that is used 80 times in the Hebrew Bible for neighbor. Rea refers to the person who is standing close by, anyone near to them whether intimate or not. So rea was a neutral reference to one’s fellow man, from close companion to distant acquaintance, from lover or sibling to fellow associate. Many times, rea refers to a disadvantaged or needy person close in proximity, such as a stranger. Neighbor had much more to do with who was close nearby rather than level of intimacy. Rea’s root word referred to shepherd as the friend of the flock, feeding the sheep and leading them to a place to graze. Rabbinic tradition is that this command, to treat one’s neighbor as one would want to be treated, sums up the Torah, and the rest of Scripture is merely commentary to that ideal that is so near and dear to God’s heart.
Neighbor-Love. The central importance of loving one’s neighbor, of caring for the person who stands close by in the ordinary flow of daily life, was made obvious in the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5). Half of the “Ten Words” are focused on one’s relationship with and treatment of the neighbor… Honor one’s parents by respecting, caring for and obeying them; do not dishonor human life through the sacrilege of murder; remain faithful in marriage and pure in one’s sexual life; do not take from someone else what isn’t yours; do not lie to your fellow man or manipulate the truth to your advantage; do not lust after, selfishly desire or attempt to acquire anything belonging to your neighbor, including his house and property, his wife, his servants, his domestic animals. Ancient rabbinic teaching centers on neighbor-love being rooted in the belief that every human being is sacred, holy, made in God’s image. The sanctity of every neighbor began at the creation of humanity, and then confirmed by the Lord after the Flood.
Wedding Vows. Jewish tradition considered God’s interaction with His Chosen People on Mt. Sinai to be a ketubah, a wedding ceremony, in which God as Husband promises His faithfulness to His people as His bride, and they in turn promised their faithfulness to Him. The Ten Commandments were the central content of their wedding vows, God’s directives on how He wanted His bride to conduct themselves in their life together. God assured them many times that when His people obeyed these commandments, they would flourish and their relationship with Him would be intact. But if they disobeyed these commandments, they would fracture their relationship with the Lord and deteriorate as a people. These Sinai commands were anticipated much earlier in God’s first Covenant with Noah.
“… And for your lifeblood I will require a reckoning: from every beast I will require it and from man. From his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man. Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image. And you, be fruitful and multiply, increase greatly on the earth and multiply in it.” (Genesis 9:4-6).
In Fellowship with God. Noah seemed to be flourishing in his relationship with God while all around him humanity had descended to the worst of human behavior. The entire world was depraved, violent, cruel, and even the imaginations of the people were evil. We’re not sure how Noah managed to be blameless in a wicked generation, but he did. The Amplified Bible put it that Noah “walked in habitual fellowship with God.” (Genesis 6:9). He found favor in the eyes of the Lord. Peter stated that Noah was a “preacher of righteousness” (2 Peter 2:5), that he “warned the world of God’s righteous judgment.” (NLT). When literally everyone else was going in one direction, Noah was going in the opposite direction. He was going upstream in a downstream world. It wasn’t long before Noah found himself floating happily on that stream.
Noah and the Sanctity of Human Life. Once everyone left the ark after living in it for more than a year, Noah built an altar to Yahweh in dry land. On the altar Noah sacrificed burnt offerings to the Lord, sacrificing some of those clean animals rescued for that purpose as directed by God before the flood (Gen. 7:2-3). Yahweh loved the sweet aroma of the thanksgiving sacrifice (8:21), and made an astounding promise to Noah, and all his descendants, and thus to the world at large…
God’s First Covenant. And then God promised that He would never again curse the ground for man’s sake; that He would never again destroy every living thing; that nature would be predictable and thus facilitate man’s use of it for food. There will be seed time and harvest, cold and heat, the seasons of the year, and day and night. Nature itself would be cooperative so mankind could rightfully use it for the benefit of humanity. God established His first covenant with mankind at this time (9:9), and said it was an everlasting covenant between God and mankind, and between God and every living creature, “for perpetual generations.”
All People are Holy. Noah was obligated in the Covenant to recognize the sanctity of all blood, to especially respect human blood because of each human being made in God’s image. Through rabbinic tradition, this promise with Noah evolved into a universal set of moral laws known as the Noahide Covenant, or the Laws of Noah. These seven laws were written later in history, evidently, and placed into Genesis in the spirit of God’s intentions as promised to Noah. The Noahide covenant is an official rabbinic follow-up to God’s promises to Noah, his descendants, and all living creatures. The seven Laws of Noah, which clearly foreshadowed the Ten Commandments given to Moses on Mt. Sinai, are:
(1.) No idolatry.
(2.) No cursing God’s name or taking it in vain.
(3.) No murder. “Whoever sheds human blood will his own blood be shed.” (9:6).
(4.) No adultery or fornication.
(5.) No stealing or theft.
(6.) No eating of flesh from a living animal or ingesting its blood.
(7.) Establish courts of justice.
These seven laws of the Noahide Covenant were to apply to all humanity. They were universal laws to all people. Jewish tradition claims that “the life to come” is promised to those “righteous Gentiles” that follow this Noahide Covenant. Rabbinic tradition claims that these seven Laws of Noah were first given to Adam in the Garden, but they went unrecorded. These laws were finally made official later in history under the terms of the Noahide Covenant. The official blessing said by Yahweh over Noah also duplicated His words to Adam and Eve, “Be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth.” (9:1).
“This is the sign that I set for the covenant between Me and you, and every living creature with you, for all ages to come. I have set My rainbow in the clouds, and it shall serve as a sign of the covenant between Me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth, and the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will remember My covenant between Me and you and every living creature among all flesh, so that the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. When the rainbow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures, all flesh that is on earth.” (Genesis 9:12-16, Tanakh).