Chris Gousmett
In Exodus 20:17 we read the tenth of the commandments given by God to Moses for the people of Israel to guide and direct their lives.
You shall not covet your neighbour’s house. You shall not covet your neighbour’s wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbour.
We read this again in Deuteronomy 5:21, with slight changes to the wording.
You shall not covet your neighbour’s wife. You shall not set your desire on your neighbour’s house or land, his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbour.
There have been suggestions that these passages consign the wife to the status of her husband’s property, since she is listed along with other possessions (taking “servant” to mean indentured servant or even chattel slave, rather than a free employee). Vasholz suggests that this is incorrect, and that what is actually being “coveted” is not the woman as such, but the dowry which the woman brings to the marriage.1 This commandment, then, is not a redundant repetition of the prohibition of adultery, but a fresh provision against coveting your neighbour’s wealth in the form of his wife’s dowry.2 This then leads in to an examination of the way the prohibition of coveting has been understood,3 and also thereby help us to discern where it has been misunderstood.
Some suggest that the tenth commandment is the only one which addresses an attitude of heart, whereas the others address actions (theft, adultery, sabbath-breaking) but that will not do. The attitude of the heart is as much involved in making idols, in sabbath-breaking, in theft (putting into action the prior coveting) adultery (lust) and lying (rejection of the truth for one’s own ends).
My focus here, though, is on the way in which this commandment has been taught, which generally focuses on those of little or modest means, cautioning them against envy of the possessions of their more wealthy neighbours. While this is a legitimate and necessary guidance, there is much less emphasis on how this commandment is directed towards the wealthy.
It is not just the poor who need to hear this commandment. The rich also can covet their neighbour’s possessions and resources. They need not even covet that which belongs to their equally rich, or richer, neighbours. They can just as well covet that which belongs to their poor neighbours. We have an example of that in the parable told by Nathan to King David (2 Samuel 12:2-4).
There were two men in a certain town, one rich and the other poor. The rich man had a very large number of sheep and cattle, but the poor man had nothing except one little ewe lamb he had bought. He raised it, and it grew up with him and his children. It shared his food, drank from his cup and even slept in his arms. It was like a daughter to him. Now a traveller came to the rich man, but the rich man refrained from taking one of his own sheep or cattle to prepare a meal for the traveller who had come to him. Instead, he took the ewe lamb that belonged to the poor man and prepared it for the one who had come to him.
Here Nathan lays a trap for David, by telling a parable of a wealthy man who took the little that belonged to a poor man. This was the way in which he challenged David who had committed adultery with Bathsheba, and then arranged for her husband Uriah to be killed so he could have her as his wife, in addition to his existing wives Michal, Abigail, Ahinoam, Maacah, Haggith, Abital, and Eglah (2 Samuel 3:2-5, 14, 11:27). In spite of having all these women as his wives, he still coveted the wife, the one wife, of another man to the extent of murdering him so he could have her. David sinned against the commandment prohibiting adultery, and the one prohibiting murder. It could be argued that he gave false testimony against Uriah in his scheme to have him killed in battle to make it look like a natural outcome of war. But David also sinned against the tenth commandment in coveting his neighbour’s wife.
Ahab sinned in coveting the vineyard belonging to Naboth (1 Kings 21:2) even if he offered to buy it. Proverbs 22:16 warns against the “one who oppresses the poor to increase his wealth.” How so? Is this not the rich coveting what belongs to the poor? “The poor plead for mercy, but the rich answer harshly.” (Proverbs 18:23) “The epistle of James asserts that “you have dishonoured the poor. Is it not the rich who are exploiting you? Are they not the ones who are dragging you into court?” (James 2:6). Proverbs 28:8 warns against the one who “increases wealth by taking interest or profit from the poor.” The exploitation of the poor by the rich is simply the sin against the tenth commandment: the rich covet what little the poor have, in order to add it to their great wealth.4
Exodus warns “do not show favouritism to a poor person in a lawsuit” (Exodus 23:3) but then balances this with “Do not deny justice to your poor people in their lawsuits.” (Exodus 23:6). Justice demands that both rich and poor need to be treated with justice, although it is more common for the rich to pursue the poor through the courts as they have the resources to allow them to do so, while the poor cannot afford the costs involved. “Do not pervert justice; do not show partiality to the poor or favouritism to the great, but judge your neighbour fairly.” (Leviticus 19:15).
The poor are to be provided for by allowing them to pick the crops which grow during the sabbath year (Exodus 23:11), the second crop of the fruit (Leviticus 19:10) and by gleaning the edges of the fields and that which is dropped by the harvesters (Leviticus 23:22), a provision made use of by Ruth (Ruth 2:2-3).
The rich are commanded to be generous to the poor, “If any of your fellow Israelites become poor and are unable to support themselves among you, help them as you would a foreigner and stranger, so they can continue to live among you.” (Leviticus 25:35), “If anyone is poor among your fellow Israelites in any of the towns of the land the Lord your God is giving you, do not be hard-hearted or tight-fisted toward them.” (Deuteronomy 15:7, cf. 15:11). Those rich enough to employ others are not to deny them their wages: “Do not take advantage of a hired worker who is poor and needy.” (Deuteronomy 24:14). They are to be paid the wages promptly: “Pay them their wages each day before sunset, because they are poor and are counting on it. Otherwise they may cry to the Lord against you, and you will be guilty of sin.” (Deuteronomy 24:15). Equally in Malachi 3:5 there is condemnation of “those who defraud labourers of their wages.” This is again the rich coveting that which belongs to the poor – their wages, which they need to live on, while the rich have enough for each day and to spare: they do not depend on their daily wages for their food. The retention of wages for a day labourer is explicitly prohibited. They were paid each day for the work done on that day, as they did not have the resources to survive while waiting for delayed wage payment: “Do not hold back the wages of a hired worker overnight.” (Leviticus 19:13). Again, Deuteronomy 24:15 says this: “Pay them their wages each day before sunset, because they are poor and are counting on it.” This is the basis for the parable in Matthew 20:1-16, where the day labourers waited in the market for someone to hire them, expecting (and needing) to be paid that day for the day’s work.
Nehemiah 5:1-14 recounts how the more well-off among the people who returned from exile were exploiting those who were poor. Nehemiah demanded that they cease their bad behaviour immediately.
Zophar says in his dialogue with Job concerning the wicked that “his children must make amends to the poor; his own hands must give back his wealth,” (Job 20:10) while “he has oppressed the poor and left them destitute; he has seized houses he did not build. Surely he will have no respite from his craving.” (Job 20:19-20a) The rich man who desires more and more oppresses the poor to gather his wealth.
The Psalmist declaims of the Lord: “Who is like you, Lord? You rescue the poor from those too strong for them, the poor and needy from those who rob them.” (Psalm 35:10) This can only mean that the poor are being robbed and exploited by those richer than they; it is not those even poorer who steal what little they have. Thus it indicates the covetousness of those with more resources who steal from the poor who have fewer resources. The words of the prophets ring in our ears: “You trample on the poor and force him to give you grain.” (Amos 5:11) Those who lend money at interest “make a profit from the poor” (Ezekiel 22:12), even though charging interest on a loan was prohibited by Exodus 22:25, “If you lend money to one of my people among you who is needy, do not treat it like a business deal; charge no interest.” (See also Leviticus 25:36-37; Deuteronomy 23:19-20; Nehemiah 5:7, 10-11). Psalm 15:5 which commends the one who lends to the poor without charging interest. In Ezekiel, there is a contrast between the righteous who do not lend money at interest or make a profit from the disadvantaged (Ezekiel 18:8, 17), and the unrighteous who “oppresses the poor and needy. He commits robbery. He does not return what he took in pledge. He looks to the idols. He does detestable things. He lends at interest and takes a profit. Will such a man live? He will not! Because he has done all these detestable things, he is to be put to death; his blood will be on his own head.” (Ezekiel 18:13-14). The condemnation of lending at interest to the poor is worthy of the death penalty! It is a “detestable thing” along with worship of idols.
Psalm 109:16 puts it even more bluntly, saying of the wicked “For he never thought of doing a kindness, but hounded to death the poor and the needy and the broken-hearted,” while Isaiah 3:14 reports the Lord’s condemnation “the plunder from the poor is in your houses.” Here we have clear statements that it is the rich who are coveting what belongs to the poor.
So then, the sin of covetousness is to be condemned, but in preaching and teaching on this subject, while we must be sure to speak clearly to the poor who covet that which belongs to the rich, even more so, we must speak directly and firmly to the rich who despite their great wealth, covet the little that the poor have of their own.
In a world where obscene disparities of wealth are evident almost everywhere we look, where a few hundred people can own as much as do half of the world’s population, where trade agreements favour rich nations over poor ones, we need more than ever to speak out against the covetousness of the rich for that which belongs to the poor.
1R Ivan Vasholz. You shall not covet your neighbour’s wife. Westminster Theological Journal 49 (1987) 399.
2R Ivan Vasholz. You shall not covet your neighbour’s wife. Westminster Theological Journal 49 (1987) 403. Vasholz notes that Jesus did not cite the tenth commandment in his discussion about adultery (Matthew 5:27). Ibid., p. 398.
3Vasholz considers the interpretations given to the Hebrew חָמַד ḥamad but these need not concern us here. All that is of interest is that there is a prohibition against wanting to own that which belongs to your neighbour. The precise nuances of the verb are irrelevant to my point. Vasholz, ibid., p. 397.
4See the story of Leona Hemsley, fabulously rich, who reputedly said “We don't pay taxes; only the little people pay taxes.” Her attitude towards her employees and others exemplifies the cruelty of the rich against the poor. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leona_Helmsley
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