"Coveting"
The Unitarian Universalist Church
Rockford, IL
David R. Weissbard
April 27, 1997
In the 17th verse of the twentieth chapter of the Book of Exodus, we read: You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.
In the 21st verse of the fifth chapter of the Book of Deuteronomy, we read: Neither shall you covet your neighbor's wife. Neither shall you desire your neighbor's house, or field, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.
We have, after what seems like three years, reached the last of the Ten Commandments. A reminder once more that there is a difference in numbering between the various traditions. For Roman Catholics and Lutherans, for whom the prohibition against idol worship was a bit much to handle, it was bundled into the second Commandment as an afterthought, and often then omitted altogether. That left them one Commandment short of a full deck, hence the final Commandment was divided into numbers IX & X - number nine dealt with coveting the wife of the neighbor, and the tenth, all the rest of his property. Jews, many of whom count what we consider the Preface, "I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt . . . " as the first Commandment, also combined the second and third, but since they were not short any, the Commandment on coveting is still counted as singular. The Reformed Protestant tradition's numbering, which is the dominant one, also has this as a singular final Commandment. The differences in the lists of the Commandments is one reason, although not the most important one, to argue against the posting of the Commandments in schools and court houses - which tradition's version would we use?
There is no Commandment over which there is more disagreement about the appropriate translation. I will also suggest that there is no Commandment which speaks more directly to our contemporary needs.
All of the other nine Commandments speak directly to behaviors: the object to be worshiped, the means of worship, the use of the name of the holy, the keeping of the Sabbath, the honoring of parents, killing, adultery, stealing, and bearing false witness. "Coveting," as it is commonly understood, has to do with an attitude, with thoughts rather than actions. Many scholars over the years have therefore maintained that this Commandment does not fit if we understand it in this way. It is the odd one out. What this commandment really refers to, they say, is actively creating and executing plans to take that which is the neighbors, which makes it parallel to the other commandments.
The Hebrew word used twice in the Exodus version of the Commandment is hamad. In some manuscripts of the Book of Deuteronomy, hamad is also used twice - in other ancient sources, the verb used in the second occurrence is tit'aweh which is translated "crave." Some say that shows that hamad does not simply refer to cravings or why would the Deuteronomists have differentiated? Others, taking the same approach, suggest that the fact that hamad is used in many places in conjunction with words specifying taking or stealing means that it does not carry those active connotations.
In The Ten Commandments in History and Tradition, a scholarly Jewish anthology of articles on the Commandments published by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Alexander Rofé, begins an article on "The Tenth Commandment in the Light of Four Deuteronomic Laws" by observing, "The exact meaning of the Tenth Commandment has been disputed by both ancient and modern interpreters of the Bible. Does, "You shall not covet" simply forbid envious desire for what is not ours? Or is it more concrete, prohibiting the taking of steps to satisfy that desire?"
In the same volume, Moshe Greenberg in an article on "The Decalogue Tradition Critically Examined" also notes "The meaning of the Tenth Commandment has been, and still is, the subject of controversy, on account of the ambiguity of the verb hamad (modern scholars [he says] are often unaware that they are repeating the arguments of the ancients)."
According to Rofé, many Christian scholars insist that the concept of "covet" referred to must include action because they insist that Judaism must be differentiated from Christianity because of its concrete legalism, so much less sophisticated than Christianity's teachings.
Some scholars go so far as to insist that since the tenth Commandment really implies acting on detailed plans to carry out acquiring the neighbor's property, it almost seems like a repetition of the eighth Commandment against stealing. They decide, therefore, that the eighth Commandment is really only about kidnaping and it should be translated, "Thou shalt not steal any man from thy neighbor." Those adopting this position are reputable scholars, but their position is by no means unanimously accepted.
Rofé points out that the ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, known as the Septuagint, which dates back to the third century before the common era, translates hamad as ouk epithumesis which means "'crave,' 'desire,' 'long for.'" The Hellenic Jewish philosopher, Philo, in the first century of this era, clearly developed the tenth commandment in the context of "desire" and not of action. He observed:
Last of all, the divine legislator prohibits covetousness, knowing that desire is a thing fond of revolution and plotting against others; for all the passions of the soul are formidable, exciting and agitating it contrary to nature, and not permitting it to remain in a healthy state, but of all such passions the worst is desire. On which account each of the other passions, coming in from without and attacking the soul from external points, appears to be involuntary.
Ancient Jewish commentators for generations tended to center on the active interpretations of covet until the middle ages when they began to adopt the more psychological interpretation.
Those who argue that the ancient Hebrews at the time of Moses could not have been astute enough to appreciate the impact of the psychology of coveting, are hard pressed to explain why it was that the Egyptians of three hundred years earlier were able to include in a ritual of purity (that has many parallels to the commandments) a declaration that "I have not coveted" in a context that is clearly dealing with thought and not action.
Another argument that is raised regarding this commandment is that it makes no sense to speak of the ancient Hebrews having a law against coveting the "house" of a neighbor at a time when they were all living in tents. The response most often offered to that is that "house" really refers to "household" and not to a physical structure.
The other dimension we must once again acknowledge is that the original Commandment said nothing about coveting the spouse or the property of anyone who was not a fellow Hebrew. Like all the Commandments, it was directed to adult Hebrew males for whom the neighbor in question was another member of the same community. It was only later, when the Jews settled in established communities that the Jewish ethic became universalistic and was extended to include all people. Therefore, some commentators stress the intent of this commandment as being to maintain harmony within the community by holding down competition among neighbors.
A. Powell Davies, the Unitarian Minister who wrote a popular book on the Commandments forty years ago suggested that there were some scholars who linked coveting to the casting of spells or the "evil-eye" on those who had what one desired, thus relying on the power of sorcery. I have not encountered that interpretation in any of the scholars I've read, and Davies did not footnote.
OK. So there are two historical lines of interpretation of the tenth commandment: one having to do with coveting in the sense of desiring that which the neighbor has; the other interpreting "covet" to mean, "obsessing on something the neighbor has to the degree that one makes and carries out plans to get that which the neighbor has that you want."
Rabbi Robert Klein tells the story of a man who was caught in a conflict between the commandments against stealing and coveting:
A gentleman with a fair reputation as a respectable citizen was caught stealing. When hauled into court he was asked by the judge whether he knew that stealing was forbidden in the Ten Commandments/ The accused replied that when he first saw the object he stole, he sensed immediately that he would have to break one of the Ten Commandments. He would have to transgress either the Eighth Commandment, "Thou shalt not steal," or the Tenth Commandment, "Thou shalt not covet." After weighing in his mind the gravity of each transgression, he decided to violate the Eighth Commandment. He reasoned this way: If he stole the object, he would commit a crime once and the sin would have run its course. If he didn't steal the object, it would lead to the violations of the Tenth Commandment again and again, for each time he beheld it he would covet it.
That, I suspect, is not what was intended.
Fr. Andrew Greeley has another take on the tenth commandment which I suspect is familiar to those of us who have a Roman Catholic background. He says:
There was never very much concern about the tenth commandment in the old Church. We agonized at great length over the actual theft and had little time to worry over plans to steal. However, the detailing of the variety of offenses that could be committed through "impure thoughts" was extensive. While it was conceded that sexual fantasies (though the words were never used) were only sinful if one "consented to them," the impact on most religion classes about "impure thoughts" was such that most Catholics seemed to think that sexual fantasies had to be confessed in the sacrament of penance. How human beings could live in a world peopled by bodies approximately half of which were of the opposite sex and escape sexual fantasies was never made clear. In the moral theology books and the catechism, the ideal solution appeared to be to withdraw into a monastery where the half of the world's bodies of the opposite sex would never appear. A happy solution, and not quite so drastic, for many Catholics was to admit in the confessional that they had "dirty thoughts" but to affirm that "I didn't take any pleasure in them." Most of us who were confessors were willing to accept descriptions of mitigating circumstances without bothering to wonder how sexual fantasies could fail to be pleasurable, much less if there was much point in engaging in them if they weren't.
This relates to Jimmy Carter's famous Playboy interview in which he confessed to having "lusted in my heart." We liberals tend to want to separate the thought from the deed, and fantasies can indeed be differentiated from actions, but at the same time, we are compelled, I believe, to concede that there is a relationship between them. Anti-social or destructive acts do begin with a thought, a desire. It is easier not to act if the thought never occurs to you in the first place, if you are satisfied with what you have so that what the neighbor has is of no concern to you. The next best is to reject the thought as inappropriate, rather than to try to turn around only after you have proceeded to make intricate plans to get what you want.
King David's seduction of Bathsheba followed upon his noticing her and lusting after her in his heart. He had to inquire who she was. And then he sent messengers to invite her to his chambers. Then when he learned he had impregnated her, he tried to arrange for her husband to sleep with her so his responsibility might be obscured. When Uriah refused, David got him drunk. He still refused to sleep with his wife, thinking it unbecoming of a man whose comrades were on the battlefield. So then, David decided his only recourse was to put Uriah in the front of the troops where he would be certain to be killed. There were many steps between the initial view of Bathsheba and the murder of her husband, but as Confucius is said to have observed, "A journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step." This commandment addresses those first steps.
Although Martin Luther continued the Roman Catholic practice of dividing the coveting commandment into two, he addressed them together in his catechism. It was his contention that the difference between the commandments on adultery and theft and the two on coveting was that the first two dealt with illegal acts and the last two dealt with achieving the same ends through legal means. He saw the last two commandments as being addressed not to rogues but to those who are seen as upright - "people who wish to be commended as honestt and virtuous because theyu have not offended against the preceding commandments." Said Luther:
Such is nature that we all begrudge another's having as much as we have. Everyone acquires all he can and lets others olook out for themselves. Yet we all pretend to be upright. We know how to put up a fine front to conceal our rasality. We think up artful dodges and sly tricks (better and better ones are being devised daily) under the guide of justice. We brazenly dare to boast of it, and insist that it should be called not rascality but shrewness and and business acumen. In this we are abbetted by jurists and lawyers who twist and stretch the law to suit their purpose, straining words and using them for pretexts, without regard for equity or for our neighbor's plight.
Amazing, isn't it, that this was written four hundred years ago? Regarding the ways in which one person can legally usurp the property of another, Luther goes on to say:
God does not wish you to deprive your neighbor of anything that is his, letting him suffer loss while you gratify your greed, even though in the eyes of the world you might honorably retain the property. To do so is dark and underhanded wickedness, and as we say, it is all done "under the hat" so as to escape detection. Although you may act as if you have wronged no one, you have trespassed on your neighbor's rights. It may not be called stealing or fraud, yet it is coveting - that is, having designs on your neighbor's property, luring it away from him against his will and begrudging what God gave him. The judge and the public may have to leave you in possession of it, but God will not, for he sees your wicked heart and the deceitfulness of the world.
There is another perspective on the subject which was made part of the Westminster Shorter Catechism a central document of the Calvinistic churches written in 1647. It says:
The tenth commandment requireth full contentment with our own condition, with a right and charitable frame of spirit toward our neighbor, and all that is his. The tenth commandment forbiddeth all discontentment with our own estate, envying or grieving at the good of our neighbor, and all inordinate motions and affections to anything that is his."
This is the kind of interpretation that was near and dear to the hearts of the Calvinist merchants. It said that it was wrong for those who were on the bottom of society to want the things that the wealthy had. If God wanted them to be wealthy, they would have been. It was their responsibility to be satisfied with what they had and not to try to change things. In contrast to Luther's suggestion that the powerful had no right to exploit those who had less power, the Calvinists insisted that it was a sign of God's blessing to be rich and that God wanted the imbalance to stay just as it was.
Ah, how the Bible has been used by people to justify the maintenance of the status quo.
The meaning of the tenth commandment is not that we should never want anything more than we have, that we cannot admire what others have. Most commentators on the Commandment have seen it as addressing one of the most compelling issues of our time, which was suggested by our reading from Joy Davidman. We have built our culture on the assumption that the accumulation of property and power and luxuries is the sign of successful living. We have turned coveting into an art form. The problem is not only that it is immoral, but also that it demonstrably does not succeed. The dream of a promised land has turned into a nightmare.
I suggested at the outset that I saw this as one of the most important commandments for our times. Two weeks from now we will explore the contemporary implications of the commandment against coveting in greater depth.