“Do not covet your neighbor’s wife; do not covet your neighbor’s house, his field, his male or female slave, his ox, his donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”-Deuteronomy 5:21
Alrighty folks, we’re gonna pick up the pace a bit today.
Again, we’re in Deuteronomy Chapter Five and Moses is systematically breaking down and giving a review of the Ten Words of God (otherwise known as the Ten Commandments)…the foundational principles that serve as the bedrock for all the other rules and commands to follow.
He is talking to the second younger generation of Israelites who either were small children or hadn’t yet been born when the Law was first given at Sinai.
So let’s get started.
We next come to the 8th Commandment which tells us “Do not steal“.
The plain meaning of this commandment is as it says.
We are not to take the personal property of something that doesn’t belong to us…
…AND…
…in some cases, “personal property” included other human beings such as the slaves, wives and concubines of an Israelite master.
Onward.
The 9th Commandment tells us that we should not bear false witness against each other.
This is basically referring to what we call “perjury” in our modern legal system.
This is different than a lie we might tell someone during a conversation.
It is specifically referring to the leveling of a false accusation against someone in a court of law that could lead to a criminal penalty.
This is serious…because if you tell a lie during a legal trial, it could result in the guilty being acquitted or the innocent being convicted.
Finally, we come to the 10th and final commandment which starts off by telling us “Do not covet…”and then goes on to list a couple of choice items we are not to lust after.
What sets this commandment apart from all the others is that all the other commandments deal with one’s physical actions and outward behaviors.
However, this commandment focuses on one’s inner thought life.
The 10th Commandment is all about our mindset and state of mind.
In other words, to covet something means to harbor an unlawful desire in your mind to want to possess something that is not yours.
And by the way, when Yeshua said “But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart“, he was specifically referring to this commandment.
He was NOT condemning sexual desire in men which is a perfectly natural and God-ordained desire.
He was saying to NOT covet a married woman and desire to possess her for your own.
Again, to covet means to secretly desire to possess something that is not yours.
And again I reiterate that this is the only commandment that directly addresses one’s state of mind rather than one’s actions.
Many will argue that one’s mindset is linked to one’s actions.
I wouldn’t disagree with that notion but again that is NOT the point of this commandment.
The list of what not to covet starts with a married woman and then goes on to mention one’s neighbor’s house his field, his male or female slave, his ox and so on.
Concerning coveting your neighbor’s house, there is one point I need to clarify.
“House” here is NOT referring to one’s physical dwelling place like the tent, hut or whatever physical construction a family was living in.
Instead, it was referring to the people who comprised the household including the members of the extended family.
In those days, the way a tribe or clan increased their power was by literally taking entire households by force and adding them to their current family members.
Do you remember when Jacob’s sons Simeon and Levi took revenge on the people of Shechem for the rape of their sister Dinah?
After slaughtering all the men who they tricked into becoming circumcised, they literally acquired all of the remaining women and children.
The result of this is that they increased the size of Jacob’s tribe 10-fold or more literally overnight because of all of the new households they had added to their current members.
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