The commandment Honor your father and mother was discussed at 15.4.

Surprisingly (at least to many English speakers) love often proves to be very difficult to translate. Translators should avoid a word that would mean “lust” and should look instead for a word or phrase that means “to have concern for” or “to care about very strongly.”

Neighbor is translated “fellow man” by Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch. In the Leviticus context the reference is to fellow Jews, but in the setting of the Gospel the word is inclusive of all persons with whom an individual has any contact.

As has been taken by some in the sense of “in the same manner as,” but probably “just as much as” is better. Thus the sentence can be “You should be concerned for your fellow men as much as you are concerned for yourself.” Notice that although neighbor is singular, it is often natural to render it with a plural, “fellow men.”

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Stine, Philip C. A Handbook on the Gospel of Matthew. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1988. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .