Does Jesus Contradict the Old Testament? Read Matthew 5 in Context

A common claim goes like this. The God of the Old Testament says “eye for eye”, and Jesus says turn the other cheek. Moses allows divorce, and Jesus forbids it. The Law says love your neighbour and hate your enemy, and Jesus says love your enemy. So Jesus must contradict the Old Testament.

Every one of those examples comes from a single passage, Matthew 5:17-48. Six times in a row Jesus says “You have heard that it was said… But I tell you.” If Jesus contradicts the Old Testament anywhere, it is here. So this is the place to test it, one saying at a time, with the Old Testament open beside it.

Jesus answers the charge before he makes a single point

Before the six sayings, Jesus says what he is not doing.

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets. I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them. For I tell you truly, until heaven and earth pass away, not a single jot, not a stroke of a pen, will disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.”

(Matthew 5:17-18, BSB)

Matthew put this first for a reason. Everything that follows is meant to be read through it.

The word for abolish (Greek: καταλύω, katalyō, “to loosen down, demolish, destroy”) is a building word. It means to take something apart until it comes down. The word for fulfill (Greek: πληρόω, plēroō, “to fill up, make full, complete”) is the opposite picture. It is used of filling a net or levelling up a hollow, making something full. Jesus is saying that he has not come to pull the Law down. He has come to fill it up to its full measure.

“The Law” here is the Torah (Hebrew: תּוֹרָה, torah, “a precept, law”), the five books of Moses. The Hebrew word means instruction, teaching that points somewhere. That matters for everything below. A command is meant to point at something, and Jesus keeps showing what each one points at.

Then he raises the bar rather than lowering it. “Unless your righteousness (Greek: δικαιοσύνη, dikaiosynē, “equity, righteousness”) exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:20). Someone throwing out the Law would not tell people to keep it better than its strictest teachers did.

“You have heard” is not “it is written”

When Jesus quotes Scripture as Scripture, he uses a set phrase. Tempted in the wilderness, he answers three times with “It is written” (Matthew 4:4, 4:7, 4:10). In Matthew 5 he never says it. He says “You have heard that it was said.”

This needs some care. Most people in Galilee heard the Law read aloud in the synagogue rather than reading it themselves, so “you have heard” could simply mean that. The wording alone does not settle anything.

What settles it is the content. Most of the lines Jesus quotes are in the Torah. One is not, and it comes last. “Love your neighbor” is Leviticus 19:18. “Hate your enemy” appears nowhere in the Old Testament. Someone added it. So at least some of what the crowd had heard was the Law plus a gloss, and Jesus is cutting the gloss away.

He does the same thing openly in Matthew 15, where he tells religious teachers, “You nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition” (Matthew 15:6). His argument there is with the tradition, and the word of God is what he defends.

Six sayings, one direction

Go through the six and a pattern shows. In each one, Jesus takes a command about what people do and traces it back to where it starts. Again and again, the Old Testament had already gone there first.

Murder and anger

“You have heard that it was said to the ancients, ‘Do not murder’ and ‘Anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment.”

(Matthew 5:21-22, BSB)

The Greek word for angry (Greek: ὀργίζω, orgizō, “to become exasperated, be angry”) means to be provoked, exasperated, worked up against someone. Jesus moves the line from the act of killing to the anger that leads there.

That sounds new until you read Leviticus 19, which says, “You must not harbor hatred against your brother in your heart” (Leviticus 19:17). The Torah had already forbidden the hatred, not just the murder. Jesus is quoting the sixth commandment and reading it the way Leviticus already did.

Adultery and lust

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Do not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman to lust after her has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:27-28).

Again this looks like Jesus going past the Ten Commandments. But the Ten Commandments go there themselves. The tenth says, “You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife” (Exodus 20:17). The seventh forbids the act, and the tenth forbids the desire that comes before it. Jesus puts the two side by side.

Divorce

Here the tension is sharpest, because Moses really did allow divorce.

“If a man marries a woman, but she becomes displeasing to him because he finds some indecency in her, he may write her a certificate of divorce, hand it to her, and send her away from his house. If, after leaving his house, she goes and becomes another man’s wife…”

(Deuteronomy 24:1-2, BSB)

The Hebrew word for divorce (Hebrew: כְּרִיתוּת, keritut, “a cutting of the marriage bond, divorce”) means a cutting, from the same root used for cutting a covenant. The certificate was a written record that the bond had been cut, and the next verse assumes she can remarry. The rule controlled divorce and gave the woman some protection. It was never a command to divorce.

Jesus explains the rule himself in Matthew 19. Asked why Moses ordered a certificate, he says, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because of your hardness of heart. But it was not this way from the beginning” (Matthew 19:8). Then he quotes Genesis 2:24, “the two will become one flesh.”

So Jesus does not set himself against Moses. He sets Genesis beside Deuteronomy and asks which one shows the design and which one manages the damage. The prophets had already leaned the same way. “‘For I hate divorce,’ says the LORD, the God of Israel” (Malachi 2:16). Jesus is reading the Torah by its first page.

Oaths

The Torah says that a man who swears an oath “must not break his word; he must do everything he has promised” (Numbers 30:2). It also says, “You must not swear falsely by My name” (Leviticus 19:12).

Those laws exist for one reason, so that people tell the truth. Jesus goes straight to that reason. “Simply let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No’” (Matthew 5:37). The verses around it suggest people were swearing by heaven, by the earth or by Jerusalem, and treating those oaths as easier to break than an oath by God’s name (Matthew 5:34-36). If you never lie, you have no need to swear at all. That does not cancel the oath laws. It is what they were aiming for all along.

Eye for eye

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye and tooth for tooth.’ But I tell you not to resist an evil person. If someone slaps you on your right cheek, turn to him the other also.”

(Matthew 5:38-39, BSB)

“Eye for eye” comes from Exodus 21:24, Leviticus 24:20 and Deuteronomy 19:21. In Hebrew the phrase is ayin tachath (Hebrew: תַּחַת, tachath, “under, in place of, instead of”) ayin, an eye in place of an eye. The small word in the middle means under, or instead of. It describes a payment set equal to the harm. It is the language of a settlement, and it sets a ceiling.

Three things in the text show it was never a licence for revenge.

• It was for judges. Deuteronomy 19 sets it inside a court case about a false witness, with judges making the ruling.
• It capped the penalty. Older law codes like Hammurabi’s also had eye for eye, but only between free men of equal rank, and a lower-ranked victim got a fee instead. The Torah gave the same measure to everyone, so the penalty could never go beyond the injury.
• It was not always applied literally. Two verses later, a master who blinds his servant must “let the servant go free as compensation for the eye” (Exodus 21:26). Jewish teaching later read the whole rule as fair payment for an injury. The Talmud does this in Bava Kamma 83b-84a.

Jesus is not talking to judges. He is talking to someone who has just been slapped and wants to hit back. The Torah had already spoken to that person, too. “Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against any of your people” (Leviticus 19:18). And Moses had already said who repays. “Vengeance is Mine; I will repay” (Deuteronomy 32:35). A court rule about fair sentencing and a personal rule against revenge do not contradict each other. Jesus is pointing people from the first to the second. The full study of eye for an eye and the other cheek goes deeper into the slap, the coat and the extra mile.

Love your enemy

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor’ and ‘Hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven.”

(Matthew 5:43-45, BSB)

The first half is Leviticus 19:18, “love your neighbor as yourself.” The Hebrew verb for love (Hebrew: אָהַב, ahab, “to have affection for, love”) is plain affection, the ordinary word for loving someone. The word for neighbor (Hebrew: רֵעַ, rea, “an associate, friend, neighbour”) means an associate, someone near you, a friend or a companion. Read narrowly, that could mean only your own people. Leviticus does not leave it narrow. Later in the same chapter, “love him as yourself” is said of the foreigner living among you as well (Leviticus 19:34).

The second half, “hate your enemy”, is not in the Old Testament. What the Old Testament actually says about enemies is this.

“If you encounter your enemy’s stray ox or donkey, you must return it to him. If you see the donkey of one who hates you fallen under its load, do not leave it there; you must help him with it.”

(Exodus 23:4-5, BSB)

“If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat, and if he is thirsty, give him water to drink.”

(Proverbs 25:21, BSB)

Proverbs also says, “Do not gloat when your enemy falls” (Proverbs 24:17). Saul, standing in front of the David he had tried to kill, asks, “When a man finds his enemy, does he let him go away unharmed?” (1 Samuel 24:19).

To be fair, the Old Testament has darker lines too. A psalmist says of God’s enemies, “I hate them with perfect hatred” (Psalm 139:22). A psalm written in exile blesses whoever repays Babylon (Psalm 137:8). Those are cries of pain and loyalty in prayers, not laws telling Israel to hate. But they show where a teacher could get “hate your enemy” from if he wanted it. In Jesus’ day some did. The rules of the Qumran community, the group linked to the Dead Sea Scrolls, told members to love those God had chosen and hate those he had cast aside.

The Greek word for enemy (Greek: ἐχθρός, echthros, “hostile, an adversary, enemy”) here means someone actively hostile, an adversary. Jesus does not soften it. Love the one who is against you. He grounds it in God himself, who “causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good” (Matthew 5:45). That is the God of Proverbs 25 and Exodus 23, the one who told Israel to feed a hungry enemy and help his donkey up.

Where Jesus really does go further

It would be too neat to say Jesus only repeats the Old Testament. He doesn’t. Three things are new, and they should be named honestly.

The first is his authority. Jesus says “But I tell you” without quoting a rabbi or saying “thus says the LORD” the way the prophets did. The crowds noticed. “He taught as one who had authority, and not as their scribes” (Matthew 7:29). Many readers take the six sayings as Jesus claiming the right to speak over Moses. That reading is fair. But in this passage he uses that authority to deepen the Law, not to drop it.

The second is the standard. The section ends, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). The word for perfect (Greek: τέλειος, teleios, “complete, mature, of full age”) means complete, grown to full measure, from telos, the end a thing is aiming at. It is a cousin in meaning to “fulfill” in verse 17. The Law is filled up, and the people who follow it are meant to be filled up too, grown up into the likeness of their Father.

The third is the hardest case, and it is not in Matthew 5. In Mark 7, Jesus says that what you eat cannot defile you, and Mark adds, “Thus all foods are clean” (Mark 7:19). Christians read this as the food laws being fulfilled and set aside. Many Jewish readers see a real break with Leviticus 11. Either way, Jesus’ own explanation is the same move he makes in Matthew 5. Defilement starts in the heart. That is a question for its own study.

The Law hangs on two commands, and both are from the Old Testament

Asked for the greatest commandment, Jesus does not invent one.

“‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

(Matthew 22:37-40, BSB)

The first is Deuteronomy 6:5. The second is Leviticus 19:18. Jesus’ summary of everything God wants is two quotations from the Torah.

When religious teachers criticised him for eating with sinners, he sent them back to the prophets. “Go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice’” (Matthew 9:13). That is Hosea 6:6. The Hebrew word for mercy (Hebrew: חֵסֵד, hesed, “kindness, favour”) there is hesed, the loyal, covenant kindness that holds on to people. Jesus did not bring hesed into the Bible. He found it in Hosea and told the experts they had missed it.

So does Jesus contradict the Old Testament? Read Matthew 5 with the Old Testament open beside it and the answer is no. Every time, he goes past the letter of a command to the heart behind it. He cuts away what people had added, like “hate your enemy.” He reads the later laws by the first page of Genesis. He keeps the court rule and forbids personal revenge, as Leviticus already did. The Old Testament had already said each thing Jesus says here. He says it louder and goes all the way to the root, and he says it as the one who came to fill it up.

Sources

• Berean Standard Bible (public domain), every verse quoted, including Genesis 2:24, Exodus 20:13-17, 21:23-27 and 23:4-5, Leviticus 19:12, 19:17-18, 19:34 and 24:19-20, Numbers 30:2, Deuteronomy 6:5, 19:21, 24:1-2 and 32:35, 1 Samuel 24:19, Psalms 137:8 and 139:21-22, Proverbs 24:17 and 25:21, Hosea 6:6, Malachi 2:16, Matthew 4:4-10, 5:17-48, 7:28-29, 9:13, 15:3-6, 19:4-8 and 22:37-40, and Mark 7:18-19.
• “Eye for an eye”, Wikipedia, for the Hebrew phrase ayin tachat ayin, the Code of Hammurabi’s rank-based rule, and the Talmud’s reading as monetary compensation (Bava Kamma 83b-84a).
• “Matthew 5:43”, Wikipedia, for “hate your enemy” not being stated in the Old Testament and for the Qumran community rule, citing R. T. France’s commentary on Matthew.
• “Sermon on the Mount”, Wikipedia, for Matthew 5:17-48 as the section traditionally called the Antitheses.
• Strong's Exhaustive Concordance, digitised by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA), for the Hebrew and Greek words, their meanings and roots. Each marked word links to its entry in the word glossary.