Enemy in Matthew 5:43?

Jesus’ counsel to love one’s enemies is in full harmony with the spirit of the Hebrew Scriptures (Matt. 5:44). Faithful servant Job recognized that any feeling of malicious joy over the calamity of one intensely hating him would have been wrong (Job 31:29).

The Mosaic Law enjoined upon the Israelite people the responsibility to come to the aid of other Israelites whom they might view as their enemies (Exo. 23:4, 5). Instead of rejoicing over the disaster of an enemy, God’s servants are instructed that if the one hating you is hungry, give him bread to eat; and if he is thirsty, give him water to drink(Prov. 24:17, 18; 25:21).

The idea that enemies were to be hated was one of the things added to God’s law by the Jewish teachers of tradition. Since the Law directed that the Israelites love their neighbors (Le 19:18), these teachers inferred that this implied hating their enemies. “Friend” and “neighbor” came to be viewed as applying exclusively to Jews, whereas all others were considered to be natural enemies.

In their traditional understanding of “neighbor” and in view of tradition that fostered enmity toward others, like the Gentiles, it can readily be seen why they added the unauthorized words “and hate your enemy” to the statement in God’s law as we read Matt. 5:43.

Other than that, I am very tired and do not have access to my full note and information to better focus this, so that is what I can say for now.

I'm going to give you an answer without enough citations because I don't have the time to find them. I apologize for that.

Love your neighbor and hate your enemy

That isn't found anywhere in the Old Testament. It comes from the oral law, "the hedge" created over time to both guarantee Israelites wouldn't transgress the law and determine what limits the law had in an imperfect world. What Jesus is doing is challenging (Matt 5:44-45) the beliefs of the time that allowed people to excuse themselves from loving everyone.

That challenge, especially verse 44, is important (and here's where I don't have the time to hunt down the citations). He gives three commands:

• Love your enemies
• Bless those that curse you
• Pray for them that despitefully use/persecute you

Those three types of people: your enemies (people that hate you), those that curse you, and those that use or persecute you... just happen to be the oral law's three justifications for not loving people. Jesus is literally telling people that to be true followers of God you must love those you've been taught all your life you don't need to love. There are no excuses. There can be no excuses.

He then makes the point (Matt 5:46-47) that it's easy to love people who love you. And He's right.

But the fun is that last verse — 48. Most people read that verse ("Be ye therefore perfect...") in isolation and ask themselves how anyone can be as perfect as a God. But in context with the story, what is being commanded is very possible: love people as perfectly as God loves people. God, indeed, loves everyone. He may not be happy with what we do from time to time and we may not love Him at all, but He loves us nonetheless.

Finally, let me point out that the World tends to teach a very two-dimensional view of "love." Indeed, 99.9% of the time, from the World's perspective, love=sex. What Jesus is asking you to do is not feel an emotion, but to make a choice. Love is the choice to seek the best welfare of others before your own. This is epitomized in John 3:16... "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son..." and John 15:13... "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends."