LITERARY AND CULTURAL REPRESENTATIONS AND MEDIATIONS OF NEIGHBOURLINESS IN THE OLD TESTAMENT AND ITS IMPLICATIONS FOR CONTEMPORARY NIGERIA

Abstract

The term “neighbour” can be explained as a person who lives near or next to you. This can also mean a nearby object, a bordering country or any fellow human being. In the Old Testament, the term means a fellow Israelite, a member of the same covenant community or a compatriot rather than someone just living nearby. It implies a bond of kinship, shared faith, and covenant responsibility extending to resident foreigners but distinct from distant hostile nations. The term, “neighbour” is derived from the Hebrew word rea, it implies more than just physical proximity and denotes a close associate, friend or relative. In the Old Testament, “neighbourliness” acts as a foundational covenant ethic that mediates communal survival, requiring fair trade, resource sharing, and the protection of vulnerable groups. For contemporary Nigerians, these ancient literary and cultural paradigms offer profound models to bridge ethnic divides, combat corruption and foster social cohesion in a pluralistic society. Old Testament neighbourliness was highly ethnocentric and bound by purity laws. These texts present others (foreigners) with inherent bias. For contemporary Nigerians, this challenges inter-ethnic and inter-religious coexistence, necessitating critical re-interpretation to promote inclusive national unity over tribal division. This inter-ethnic and inter-religious coexistence has posed lots of threat to lives and properties emanating from insecurity in some parts of the country and this is the area that this paper opines to investigate using historical-critical and theological methods, and findings are derived from the exegetical study of Leviticus 19:9 – 18.