Articles
Ten Commandments (10)
The Ten Commandments 10
Mike Willis
The last of the Ten Commandments is abbreviated as “You shall not covet.” The entire verse reads, “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s” (Exod. 20:17). The definition of the Hebrew word translated “covet” (chāmad) is “desire and try to acquire, crave, covet.” The reading of the complete law clearly explains its meaning as applying to the things that clearly belong to someone else.
There is no sin in desiring good things and striving to attain them for oneself (1 Cor. 12:31; 14:39). Our desires motivate us to go through an apprenticeship or college in order to get a job that pays well enough to attain the things we wish for ourselves. These desires inspire us to learn money management (budgeting), disciplined spending, and such like admirable traits. None of this is sinful. The sin of coveting addresses desiring the things that belong to someone else and acquiring them in some sinful way.
Stealing begins with a sinful desire for what rightfully belongs to someone else. Adultery begins with coveting and trying to acquire for oneself the marriage partner of someone else. In this tenth commandment, the Lord addresses the sinful desires that lead to such atrocious acts as murder, adultery, and stealing.
The Old Testament prophet Micah described conditions in Israel during his day saying, “Woe to those who devise wickedness and work evil on their beds! When the morning dawns, they perform it, because it is in the power of their hand. They covet fields and seize them, and houses, and take them away; they oppress a man and his house, a man and his inheritance” (Mic. 2:2).
The daily news reports incidences in America of those who see things that belong to their neighbor, break into their houses, and take them. When it is the wife of another man or an unmarried young lady that one covets, the wicked man may rape and then, to keep her from identifying him, brutally murder his victim. “You shall not covet” is just as relevant in the 21st century as it was in the 15th century BC.
