Deuteronomy 5:21

The Tenth Commandment, carrying the Law from the sphere of action into that of thought and feeling, and therefore not superfluous even in so brief a summary of the Law nor after the Sixth, Seventh and Eighth Commandments (cp. Calvin, in loco). How necessary the Commandment is not merely as an addition to these Commandments, but as focussing the spirit of them all is clear from the experience of St Paul, who selects the Tenth Commandment to illustrate the power of the whole Law: Romans 7:7-8; Romans cf.14, the law is spiritual. The nature of this Commandment renders it peculiarly susceptible of expansion (as the Sixth to the Ninth are not); details naturally offer themselves under so general a precept; and here the deuteronomists had the opportunity which they loved to use, and were upon their own ground? cp. Deuteronomy 7:25, where the desire for, as well as the actual appropriation of, unlawful silver and gold is forbidden. The two expanded editions of the Decalogue here exhibit the most interesting of the differences which distinguish them. Exodus 20:17, preserving the original form of the Commandment, Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, and repeating the verb, simply details, as upon the same level, the constituents of the house: wife, slaves, animals, all that is thy neighbour's. But this later edition in Deut. makes among these a fundamental distinction of far-reaching moral consequence; takes the wifefirst in a class by herself, then under another verb, as if to emphasise the difference gives the rest together; and, with the peculiar regard which D has for the rural life, adds to them the fieldof thy neighbour.

covet the same Heb. verb as in Exodus 20:17. The rendering of the revisers is not a happy one, because though the English covetoriginally meant inordinate desire, it is now generally used with other objects than wife. The A.V. desireliterally renders the Heb. verb, the meaning of which is neutral and has to be qualified by its object. In Exodus 34:24 of dishonest desire for land; in Deuteronomy 7:25 for silver and gold (cp. Joshua 7:21, JE); Micah 2:2 (cp. Ahab and Naboth's vineyard) for fields and houses. But in Proverbs 6:25 it signifies lust after the beauty of women. So it should be rendered here, and so some of the older Eng. Versions render it. Similarly the ἐπιθυμεῖν of the LXX, always so in Greek when a person is the object; cp. Matthew 5:28. Kautzsch: -verlangen tragen," and in Joshua 7:21, -da gelüstete mich nach."

thy neighbour's wife The way in which (in contrast to Ex.) the wife is placed here first, in a class by herself, may be compared with other laws of D which also seek the elevation of woman, Deuteronomy 21:10-14; Deuteronomy 23:13 ff., Deuteronomy 24:1 ff.

desire Instead of the repetition in Ex. of the original verb, another verb is employed here of stronger meaning but apparently intended as only -a rhetorical variation" (Driver) rather than as a climax. Of longing for water, 2 Samuel 3:15; for dainties, Proverbs 23:3.

field The noun sadehor sadai, which in Heb. poetry (e.g. Deuteronomy 32:13; Judges 5:4) appears to have the meaning of mountainthat it has in Assyrian, and which in earlier Heb. prose (JE) means pasture ground (so too in D, Deuteronomy 11:15 and probably in Deuteronomy 21:1, contrasted with city, Deuteronomy 22:25; Deuteronomy 22:27) uncultivated and the home of wild beasts (beasts of the field), is to be taken here in its later sense of cultivated ground, and that as private property. It is so used by the prophets of the 8th cent.: Isaiah 5:8; Micah 2:2; Micah 2:4. See the present writer's Jerusalem, i. 291.