Profuse are the kisses of an enemy. So here, there's a clear difference between someone who is near and hostile and someone who is near and friendly. So friend is someone who's not only near you, but for you. Or Proverbs 18.24, a man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother. So here friend is closer than many companions, but not a biological yet even more committed to you than a brother. And Proverbs 17, 17, a friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity. So it's clear, I think, that even though there is no peculiar word for friend as distinct from neighbor, in the Old Testament, the reality of a close, deep, strong bonding is clearly present in the Old Testament. Earnest counsel, sweetness of camaraderie, faithful wounds, no enmity, closer than a brother, trusted to be there in the worst of times. And like our friend said, who sent in this question, in a God-besotted culture, like the Old Testament Judaism was at its best, this earnest counsel, sweet camaraderie, faithful wounds, brotherly closeness, constancy in the worst of times, all of this is in the service of knowing and trusting and enjoying and obeying the greatness of God. began to take us away from devotion to God, he would by definition pass from being a friend to being an enemy. Now, here's what's remarkable when we turn to the New Testament. We just read in Proverbs 17, 17, a friend loves at all times. Now unlike the Hebrew of the Old Testament, the Greek of the New Testament does not treat neighbor and friend with the same word. It separates friend and neighbor into two words. Neighbor picks up on the idea of nearness. That's what placeon means, essentially, when it's translated neighbor, and that is the word for neighbor in the New Testament, the one who is near. And friend picks up on the idea of love. A friend loves at all times. about 30 of the 36 uses of the English word friend in the English New Testament, is a translation of Philos. Philos is a word relating to love. We get Philadelphia, brotherly love, city brotherly love, we get philosophy, love of wisdom.