Possessive Thinking
You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, and you shall not desire your neighbor’s house, his field or his male servant or his female servant, his ox or his donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbor. Deuteronomy 5:21
Covet – We are certainly familiar with this commandment. Since there is a separate commandment concerning adultery, passionately desiring the spouse of another must have a broader context than sex. It falls into the category of deciding that I deserve what belongs to someone else. It doesn’t matter if it is wife, house, means of livelihood, employees, transportation or anything else. God distributes according to His good pleasure. What God allots to another I have no right to take for myself.
Even as a pagan society, we agree with this one. A man should not fervently desire another man’s wife. Moral decency requires boundaries, even if the members of the society do not believe in a moral government of God. But since there is already a commandment prohibiting sexual lust of another’s wife, why include her in this broader brushstroke? Something else is going on here.
The Hebrew word is hamad. It’s the same word used in the Exodus version (Exodus 20:17). It is not about taking possession of something that belongs to my neighbor. Actually taking something from my neighbor is already covered in the other commandments: lying (taking the truth), stealing (taking his possessions), adultery (taking his wife) and murder (taking his life). The Tenth Commandment is not about physical actions. It is about the mental process that leads to those physical actions. In other words, this commandment prohibits me from thinking about harming my neighbor. It is simply impossible for me to act sinfully toward my neighbor unless I have first entertained the idea. Therefore, the Tenth Commandment targets the idea behind the action. Not only am I prohibited from acting against my neighbor, I am also prohibited from thinking about acting against my neighbor.
Now you can understand Jesus’ commentary on the extension of the law. A man who thinks of anger toward his fellow is guilty of murder. A man who thinks of sexual relations with another’s wife is guilty of adultery. Jesus is not adding to the law. What He says was already in the law. God is first and foremost a God of motives. Now you also know why Jesus can sum up the entire law in just two things: our unqualified love and obedience to the Father and our unqualified compassion for our neighbor.
Suddenly the Tenth Commandment takes a much more serious place in our moral self-evaluation. How many times have I broken this one? Seventy times seven, at least. Thank God He is merciful.
