“Thou shalt not covet thy neighbours house; thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, nor his man-servant, nor his maid-servant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour’s.”

The coveting which the tenth commandment forbids is the root from which the crimes forbidden in the four preceding commandments spring. Coveting is a desire to possess what we cannot get in an honest and legal manner. An instance of such coveting is the desire of Ahab to possess the vineyard of Naboth. It must have been more than an ordinary desire, for it led him to most wicked acts (1 Kings xxi.).

It is not every desire that is prohibited. If we see a thing that pleases us, we begin to feel a desire for its possession. Our reason must then step in and tell us whether we can obtain it in an honest way or not. In the latter case we must conquer our desire and suppress it, lest it obtain the mastery over us.

We must work and try to make progress. We cannot be blamed if we are not quite content with our [[266]]present condition, and wish to improve it. Without such a desire all industry and progress would disappear. But we must consider that the improvement of our material condition, the increase of our property, is not the whole mission of man. We must not forget that we have a higher mission: to improve our heart and our moral conduct, and to make ourselves worthy of being called “the children of God.” The increase of our property must not impede the progress of the purity and goodness of our heart.

The tenth commandment—

Note 1.—There is another way of enumerating the Ten Commandments, namely, to combine the first and the second into one, and to divide the tenth into two. The Masoretic text seems to point in this direction; for there is no pause between the first and the second commandments, while there is one in the middle of the tenth. The inference from the Masoretic text, however, is not quite certain. It is possible that the first two commandments were joined closely together in order to separate more pointedly those commandments in which God speaks of Himself in the first person from those in which He speaks of Himself in the third person; or, to use the words of the Midrash, to separate the first two, which the Israelites heard directly from God, from the rest, which they heard through Moses. The last commandment was, on account of its great importance, given in two different forms. In the first the general term “house” is employed; in the second the various elements constituting the “house” are enumerated instead. The two forms of the commandment are separated by the [[267]]sign of a pause, because each of them is complete in itself. Tradition supports our division of the Decalogue. “I am” (‏אנכי‎) and “Thou shalt not have” (‏לא יהיה לך‎) are mentioned in Talmud and Midrash, also in Targum, as two distinct commandments. According to Philo (On the Ten Comm.) and Josephus (Antiq. III. v. 5), the verse, “Thou shalt have … before me” belongs to the first commandment.

The text of the Decalogue, as repeated by Moses in the plain of Moab (Deut. v. 6–8), differs from the original (Exod. xx. 2–14). One of the differences, the first word of the fourth commandment—‏זכור‎, “Remember,” in Exodus, and ‏שמור‎, “Observe,” in Deuteronomy—is pointed out in Midrash and Talmud, and also in the hymn for the Eve of Sabbath, beginning, “Come, my friend” (‏לכה דודי‎). Tradition explains the first expression as referring to affirmative commandments, and the second to prohibitions; it further teaches that “both expressions were spoken by God simultaneously;” that is to say, the fourth commandment in Deuteronomy, though different in form, does not imply anything that has not been revealed by God on Mount Sinai. The same applies to all points of difference.

Why did Moses introduce the alterations? Ibn Ezra, in his Commentary on the Decalogue, is of opinion that the question need not be asked, or answered if asked, because in the repetition of a Divine message the original words may be changed so long as the sense remains intact. But the addition of the phrase, “as the Lord thy God commandeth thee” in two cases, and the reference to the deliverance from Egyptian servitude, substituted (in Deut.) in the fourth commandment for the reference to the Creation (in Exod.), lead us to think that the changes were not introduced unintentionally or without any purpose. The repeated Decalogue is a portion of an address in which Moses exhorted a new generation in the plains of Moab to obey the Divine Law. It is, therefore, not unlikely that he made additions [[268]]and alterations for the sake of emphasis, where he noticed a certain laxity among those whom he addressed. Having come in contact with heathen nations and observed their rites in connection with their sacred days, the Israelites may have been inclined to imitate them; they were therefore exhorted to sanctify the Sabbath in the way God commanded; hence also the more emphatic “Observe,” ‏שמור‎.—A similar reason may have caused the addition of the same phrase, “as the Lord, &c.,” to the fifth commandment. The participation of a portion of the Israelites in the licentious feasts of the Moabites and Midianites disturbed the peace of their homes and loosened the sacred family tie. Moses therefore points to the Divine origin of the law commanding obedience to parents, and also emphasises the blessings which it will yield by adding the words, “and in order that it may be well with thee.”—The change of circumstances has also caused another alteration in the fourth commandment. During the forty years which the Israelites were compelled to spend in the wilderness, they almost forgot the condition of their former servitude; the new generation did not know it at all, and they grudged their slaves the one day of rest in the week. They were therefore reminded of their servitude in Egypt, and were asked to remember it in order that they might, out of gratitude to the Almighty, keep the Sabbath as He commanded them.

Another indication that changed circumstances caused the alterations is noticed in the tenth commandment. Having arrived at the border of Palestine, the Israelites were about to take possession of houses and fields, and two and a half tribes were already in possession of landed property. The term “house” (‏בית‎), which at first denoted “the home” or “the household,” including the wife, was now in the minds of the people chiefly “a permanent building.” “The wife,” the centre and the chief element in the home, was therefore substituted for “the house” in the first part of [[269]]the commandment, and vice versâ, “the house” for “the wife” in the second part, where appropriately “nor his field” has been added.—The substitution of “Thou shalt not desire” (‏לא תתאוה‎) for the original “Thou shalt not covet” (‏לא תחמוד‎) may have been intended to teach the Israelites that all kinds and degrees of desire were forbidden, and to remind them of the consequences of desire which they had experienced at “the graves of the desire” (‏קברות התאוה‎ Num. xi.).—One more important alteration is to be noticed, the conjunctive “and” (‏וְ‎) before the seventh and the following commandments, which served to create in the minds of the hearers the idea that the crimes forbidden in the second part of the Decalogue are to some extent connected, and that he who broke one of these commandments was likely to break the others also. We are thus bidden to be on our guard, and to take good care that none of them be violated by us.