Why is Do Not Covet in the Decalogue?

In his poem, The Tenth Commandment, the immortal Alexander Pushkin (1799–1837), Russian poet, playwrite, and novelist, confides:

His men, his house and his cattle,
I’m tempted not, though all is great.
But let’s imagine that his maid
Is beautiful… I’ve lost the battle!^[1]

Were he able, Pushkin might replicate his friend’s enviable material wealth—serfs, estate, and livestock; but short of abducting her, the beautiful maid remains beyond his reach. Rebelling against God’s severest of Ten Commandments, the poet could do nothing but covet, consigning to the shallowest recess of his heart an envying goal.^[2]

An Odd Commandment in the Decalogue

“Do not covet,” לֹא תַחְמֹד, is the only commandment that, in effect, exclusively addresses men, for whereas in Israel women might reject God, dishonor parents, desecrate the Sabbath, or act criminally, they could not, on their own, acquire the property of others or seize their spouse.

Another oddity makes the Tenth Commandment stand out from the others: The previous commandments forbid patently reprehensible acts such as stealing, murdering, kidnapping, or committing perjury. By contrast, coveting in the Tenth Commandment is an emotional capitulation to intense envy, remediable only through introspection and self-examination.

In an age when coveting is a motor to our economy, we may well ask what moved the Hebrews to have God impose on his flock so arcane a demand, assigning it almost as an afterthought to a series of ten (more or less) commandments in the Decalogue.

Indeed, Jeremiah’s apparent citation of a substantial portion of the Decalogue when he charges Israel with theft, murder, adultery, perjury, and apostasy does not include envy:

^{ירמיה ז:ט} הֲגָנֹב רָצֹחַ וְנָאֹף וְהִשָּׁבֵעַ לַשֶּׁקֶר וְקַטֵּר לַבָּעַל וְהָלֹךְ אַחֲרֵי אֱלֹהִים אֲחֵרִים אֲשֶׁר לֹא יְדַעְתֶּם.

^{Jer 7:9} Will you steal and murder and commit adultery and swear falsely, and sacrifice to Baal, and follow other gods about whom you know nothing?^[3]

The omission of coveting may suggest that the Tenth Commandment was a late addition to the sequence. It may also imply that the prophet hesitated to invoke what could be construed as a potentially victimless offense.^[4]

Why Include the Tenth Commandment?

Most attempts to clarify the inclusion of the prohibition of coveting in the Decalogue only gesture toward an explanation. Many simply stress how pervasive coveting is in Hebrew lore and historiography. Genesis, after all, opens human history with the first woman plucking a fruit she finds נֶחְמָד, “desirable” (from the root ח.מ.ד, the same root as in the Decalogue’s תַחְמֹד):

^{בראשׁית ג:ו} וַתֵּרֶא הָאִשָּׁה כִּי טוֹב הָעֵץ לְמַאֲכָל וְכִי תַאֲוָה הוּא לָעֵינַיִם וְנֶחְמָד הָעֵץ לְהַשְׂכִּיל וַתִּקַּח מִפִּרְיוֹ וַתֹּאכַל וַתִּתֵּן גַּם לְאִישָׁהּ עִמָּהּ וַיֹּאכַל.

^{Gen 3:6} When the woman saw that the tree was good for eating and a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable as a source of wisdom, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave some to her husband, and he ate.

In the story of Cain killing Abel, a jealous firstborn essentially offers his brother as a sacrifice, convinced that God prefers bloodied victims to lifeless vegetation (Gen 4:1–16).[5] The theme recurs in numerous patriarchal narratives, most pointedly within Jacob’s family, as when Rachel envies her sister Leah’s ability to bear children (Gen 30:1), and Leah envies Jacob’s love for Rachel (v. 15).

Some interpreters dilate the sense of חָמַד, “to covet,” into “confiscate,” “plan to appropriate,” “to usurp,” or similar notions that, in fact, turns an intention into acts that duplicate some of the prohibited commandments, such as stealing. Others regard the Tenth Commandment as a relic of tribal morality or patriarchal absolutism, and thus practically inoperative even as it stands codified. Still others range widely through the literatures of Israel’s neighbors, where contexts abounding in jealousy, envy, coveting, or desire are easy to find.^[6]

Is There a Law against Coveting in Hammurabi?

Those seeking a close legal analogue to legislating coveting have identified only one example from Old Babylonian Mesopotamia (18th c. B.C.E.): The nearest idiom for coveting, īnam našûm, “to cast an eye (on something),” occurs in the Laws of Hammurabi, which prescribes on‑the‑spot burning for those who steal property while helping to extinguish a fire:

^{LH §25} If a fire breaks out in a man’s house, and a man who came to help put it out covets (īnšu iššî) the household furnishings belonging to the householder, and takes household furnishings belonging to the householder, that man shall be cast into that very fire.^[7]

This draconian (and rare) capital penalty, however, does not actually target capitulation to temptation; rather, it punishes egregious looting after being tempted—an abuse of communal solidarity at the very moment when neighbors in danger ought to be able to count on one another.^[8]

The biblical prohibition of coveting thus appears unique among the law collections of ancient Near Eastern societies. Yet an anecdote from fourteenth‑century Hittite Anatolia suggests that the origins of restrictions on coveting lie in treaty tradition.

Treaty Prohibitions against Coveting

Hittite King Suppiluliumas I (ca. 1350 B.C.E.), in a treaty with King Huqqana of Hayasa (near Armenia), disparages Hayasa as barbarous for practicing incestuous marriage. After explicitly declaring such relationships as “not permitted,” Suppiluliumas also warns against going near any woman of the palace. He recalls the execution of an individual who dared “look at” a palace woman, implying that the man’s lust was judged insufficiently internal:

^{§28 (A iii 68'–73')} Who was Mariya, and for what reason did he die? Did not a lady’s maid walk by and he look at her? But the father of My Majesty himself looked out the window and caught him in his offense, saying: “You—why did you look at her?” So he died for that reason. The man perished just for looking from afar. So you beware.^[9]

By embedding this cautionary notice in a diplomatic text, the king presumes that even desires lodged deep within the psyche may be explicitly proscribed. Suppiluliumas’s son, Mursili II, follows suit in two vassal treaties, expressly forbidding the craving for further territory or persons. For example, in his treaty with Manapa-Tarḫunta of the Land of the Seḫa River, Mursili states:

^{§5 (A i 63–67)} I have now given you the land of the Seḫa River and the land of [Appawiya]. This shall be your land—protect [it]! You shall not hereafter desire a Hittite person or a border district of Hatti. [If] you do perversely desire a Hittite person or a border district of Hatti, you will have transgressed the oath.^[10]

Proscribing in treaties what cannot be legislated because it is potentially crimeless already appears in the Old Babylonian period (2000–1600 B.C.E.). From Tell Leilan in Upper Syria (late 18th c.) we have an accord between two minor powers (Apum and Kaḥat) that forbids coveting (“casting eyes on”) land or people, especially in wartime.^[11]

A Precursor to the Tenth Commandment

Our closest antecedent to the Tenth Commandment, however, comes in a protocol appended to an agreement that Assyrian merchants imposed on the ruler of Kanesh (modern Kültepe) in central Anatolia (ca. 1800 B.C.E.). Most of the prohibitions in the text are casuistic—focusing on circumstances or hypothetical contexts—and are introduced by šumma, “if,” or inūma, “when”—a style well-known in biblical law. For example, that text reads:

^{Kt 006/k6: 39–44} If there should be shedding of Assyrian blood in your town or land, incurring loss, you then must pay (the standard) blood reparation, and we will kill (the murderer). You must not give us a substitute.^[12]

Only one provision in the agreement is apodictic (an unconditional command), and it deals with coveting:^[13]

^{Kt 006/k6: 61–68} You may not hand over to a citizen of Kanish or to a foreign‑resident (ḫapīrum) the house of a merchant’s widow. You may not covet the fine house, fine slave, fine handmaid, fine field, or fine orchard of any Assur citizen; you may not appropriate it by force or give it to your follower.^[14]

While the terms of this injunction also strive to limit Anatolian abuse of Assyrians, it differs from the previous provision in moving beyond immediate causes to focus on injustice, its nature and application: By first targeting widows, it sharpens the crime’s iniquity; by involving vagrant ḫapīrū no less than local citizens, it broadens its instruments of offense; by focusing on the covetousness of leaders, it isolates its inspiration; by including people and property as objects of desire, it deepens its rapacity; and by allowing servants of leaders as ultimate beneficiaries, it intensifies its arbitrariness and frivolity.

While the onus remains on the ruler of Kanesh, naming his servants and his citizens in the treaty gives the injunction a communal if not also paradigmatic quality. It also invests it with intimacy in personalizing the source of the injustice. Like the Tenth Commandment, the language is categorical, apodictic: in the use of prohibitives as verbal forms, in the inclusive coverage of objects that must not be desired, and in personalizing the potential target. Unlike the Tenth Commandment, however, whose obligations are internal to the community, this stipulation reaches across ethnic lines, protecting the property of Assur citizens against encroachment by locals as well as outsiders.

Coveting Brackets the Decalogue

The distance between Anatolia and Israel is vast, geographically, temporally, and culturally, so the issue is not about “borrowing” or even of indirect linkage between these texts; nevertheless, the comparison offers support to the idea that the Tenth Commandment belongs to a diplomatic rather than a legislative framework.

Treaties are covenants: agreements between powers in which a superior authority (suzerain) imposes its will on a subordinate (vassal).^[15] In Israel’s retelling of its past, renewals of its covenant with God are anchored at several watershed moments, from the emergence of humanity through the return from the Babylonian exile. The terms vary with context and circumstance, yet they always demand fidelity to bonds forged since ancestral times.

At a signal moment at Sinai, where an elaborate Covenant Collection (Exod 20:22–23:19) is preceded by the Decalogue, Israel locates a series of exhortations—some universally acknowledged (such as prohibitions of theft and murder), others distinctive to Israel, such as exclusive allegiance to one God and sanctification of the Sabbath.

Why would such a powerful series of injunctions end on coveting, an error of intent rather than action? I suggest that in the Tenth Commandment, the Decalogue neatly brackets its own opening, where attachment to an unseen and impalpable God must be intentional rather than compelled, coveted rather than coerced:

^{שׁמות כ:ג} לֹא יִהְיֶה לְךָ אֱלֹהִים אֲחֵרִים עַל פָּנָיַ.

^{Exod 20:3} You shall have no other gods besides Me.

The Israelites are expected to reflect on what is available but still decide in favor of a God that they cannot see.

In Deuteronomy, YHWH promises victory to his people when faithful. They are to destroy the images of false gods and לֹא תַחְמֹד, “not covet,” the gold and silver on them:

^{דברים ז:כה} פְּסִילֵי אֱלֹהֵיהֶם תִּשְׂרְפוּן בָּאֵשׁ לֹא תַחְמֹד כֶּסֶף וְזָהָב עֲלֵיהֶם וְלָקַחְתָּ לָךְ פֶּן תִּוָּקֵשׁ בּוֹ כִּי תוֹעֲבַת יְ־הוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ הוּא.

^{Deut 7:25} You shall consign the images of their gods to the fire; you shall not covet the silver and gold on them and keep it for yourselves, lest you be ensnared thereby; for that is abhorrent to YHWH your God.

The fear is contagion, for coveting the body of a foreign god may lead to grasping it; and in doing so there is potential ensnarement and a weakening attachment to the demanding God Israel accepted at Sinai.

Coveting, whether from each other or from others, is the test to overcome.

Excursus

The Two Versions of the Tenth Commandment

The Tenth Commandment reads slightly differently in the Decalogue’s two recensions.^[16] In Exodus, the verb חָמַד, “to covet,” is repeated twice, without a conjunction between the clauses, hinting that the neighbor’s estate, בַּיִת, in the first clause is developed in the second to include his wife, slaves, and edible and draught animals.^[17]

^{שׁמות כ:יז} לֹא תַחְמֹד בֵּית רֵעֶךָ לֹא תַחְמֹד אֵשֶׁת רֵעֶךָ וְעַבְדּוֹ וַאֲמָתוֹ וְשׁוֹרוֹ וַחֲמֹרוֹ וְכֹל אֲשֶׁר לְרֵעֶךָ.

^{Exod 20:17} You must not covet your neighbor’s household: you must not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his male or his female slave, his ox or his ass—whatever belongs to your neighbor.

By contrast, conjunctions do link the prohibitions in Deuteronomy,^[18] suggesting two breaches of equal gravity.

^{דברים ה:כא} וְלֹא תַחְמֹד אֵשֶׁת רֵעֶךָ וְלֹא תִתְאַוֶּה בֵּית רֵעֶךָ שָׂדֵהוּ וְעַבְדּוֹ וַאֲמָתוֹ שׁוֹרוֹ וַחֲמֹרוֹ וְכֹל אֲשֶׁר לְרֵעֶךָ.

^{Deut 5:21} You must also not covet your neighbor’s wife, and you must also not yearn for your neighbor’s household: his field, and his male and female slave; his ox and his ass, and whatever belongs to your neighbor.

In addition, the Deuteronomic edition uses two different verbs: חָמַד applies when the object specifically is a neighbor’s wife, but הִתְאַוָּה (Hitpael of א.ו.ה/י), “to ceaselessly yearn for, incessantly desire” applies when it concerns his בַּיִת, meaning his field, slaves, and animals.^[19]

Though the two verbs are often treated as synonymous, they are subtly different in their connotations.^[20] חָמַד (“to covet”) describes qualities that induce envy when seen (flora, animals, persons). To חָמַד is to so capitulate to a base motive as to invite misconduct. The commandment in Exodus thus appeals to abnegation and self-control.

Deuteronomy distinguishes between חָמַד for someone’s wife and הִתְאַוָּה (“to ceaselessly yearn for/desire”) for the person’s household—a verb that refers to an interior craving for the thing desired.^[21] The impulse that leads a person to הִתְאַוָּה is not necessarily culpable, however; only the context discloses whether the urge is commendable (תַּאֲוָה נִהְיָה תֶּעֱרַב לְנָפֶשׁ, “Desire realized is sweet to the soul,” Prov 23:19) or contemptible (אַל תִּלְחַם אֶת לֶחֶם רַע עָיִן וְאַל תתאו [תִּתְאָיו] לְמַטְעַמֹּתָיו, “Do not share the meal of an envious man or desire his dainties,” Prov 23:6).^[22] In the Tenth commandment, the interior need that Deuteronomy is calling against is greed.^[23]