17 “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet
your neighbor’s wife, or his manservant or maidservant, his ox or donkey, or
anything that belongs to your neighbor.”
- Exodus 20:17, The New International Version, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan
Publishing House) 1984.
"The Ninth and Tenth Commandments"
What does this mean?
We should fear and love God that we do not scheme to get our neighbor’s inheritance or house, or obtain it by a show of right, but do all we can to help him keep it.
We should fear and love God that we do not force or entice away our neighbor’s spouse, workers, or animals, but urge them to stay and do their duty.
In the name of Christ Jesus, dear friends:
According to a certain legend, there was a saint who came upon two travelers on a journey. One man was covetous; the other was envious. When they came to the parting of ways, the saint told them that he would give each of them a parting gift. Whoever made a wish first would have his wish fulfilled, and the other man would then get a double portion of what the first had asked for.
The covetous traveler quickly decided what he wanted, but he was afraid to make his wish because he wanted the double portion and could not bear the thought of his companion getting twice as much as him. The envious man was also unwilling to wish first for the same reason. So they stared at each other and waited impatiently for the other to wish first.
Finally the greedy man grabbed the envious man by the throat and threatened to choke him to death unless he made his wish. At that the envious man said, "Very well; I will make my wish. I wish to be made blind in one eye." Immediately he lost his sight in one eye — and his covetous companion went blind in both.
This story may not be very realistic, but it makes a powerful point. Sinful desires lead to sinful (and in this case, self-destructive) actions. The most wicked and diabolical transgressions grow from sinful seeds sown in the human heart.
The first eight commandments explicitly forbid sinful words and actions: "You shall not use God’s name in vain... You shall not murder... You shall not steal." In contrast, the ninth and tenth commandments have as their primary focus what we might call "sins of the heart."
Perhaps God dedicated two commandments to these sins because they are easy to overlook in ourselves. Maybe God dedicated two commandments to coveting because sinful thoughts often go unnoticed by other people.
The text for today quickly reminds us that these sins do not go unnoticed or unpunished by God. On Mt. Sinai, the Lord commanded Moses to write not once, but twice: "You shall not covet..."
On the positive side, God wants his people to have holy desires, to want what is best for our neighbor, to wish success on his family and business, and in a general way, to desire those things that are true, noble, right, lovely, pure and admirable.
And like all of the commandments that preceded, the Lord does not lay down the law about coveting to make our lives miserable. He only wants what is best for us. Therefore, let us make one final trip with Moses to the mountain of God and meditate on God’s will for us in...
The Ninth & Tenth Commandments
In order for us to do what is pleasing in God’s eyes, we must have a clear of understanding of exactly what it is that God commands and forbids. That means we first need to answer the question: "What does it mean to covet?"
Most of us have an understanding of what coveting is, but it might be more difficult to put the concept into words. The dictionary says that to covet means "to wish for excessively or longingly." A text note in my Bible calls coveting "the desire for something with evil motivation." And the short definition for coveting in the Catechism is "the desire for something God does not want us to have."
According to these definitions, it is not a sin to simply want something. There are many things that God encourages us to wish for, both physical and spiritual blessings. It is not wrong to want a good job, a steady income, a stronger faith, or spiritual growth.
Simple desires become sinful desires when the motivation is impure. Coveting is a deadly concoction of envy, jealousy and greed. Greed is the insatiable appetite for more and more and more. Envy and jealousy desire those things that belong to others simply because they belong to others.
Coveting is a sin that begins as a very small spark, but it doesn’t take long for it to blaze out of control. Coveting is a sin that begins in the heart, but it doesn’t stay there. It spreads and eventually entangles its victim in a web of other sins.
The first lesson for today provides a perfect example. King Ahab made an offer to buy Naboth’s vineyard (which was not wrong in and of itself). But when Naboth refused, Ahab was not able to move on. He sulked and pouted and even refused to eat because he was obsessed with what he could not have. Ahab went along with his wife’s plot to take the vineyard by force. And Ahab became guilty of much more than coveting. He became a willing party to cold-blooded murder.
Another king of Israel, King David, was guilty of another kind of coveting. He didn’t covet money or property. He coveted another man’s wife. David’s infatuation with Bathsheba led him to commit adultery with her. And then he attempted to cover it up by killing her husband Uriah. David’s coveting started with lust, but it ended in adultery and murder.
In the cases of Ahab and David, coveting led to sins against the fifth and sixth commandments. But ultimately every sinful urge, every impure thought, every covetous desire that springs up in the human heart goes back to the first sin.
In Genesis, we are told that God placed Adam and Eve in a perfect world. God gave them a perfect place to live. God blessed both of them with a perfect spouse. Still, that was not enough. Eve listened to the serpent’s lies. She coveted the forbidden fruit. She coveted God’s wisdom. And she and Adam took what they were not allowed to have.
At the most basic level, coveting is a sin against the first commandment. In his Word, God declares, "You shall have no other gods." In his Word, God also promises to take care of us and provide for us. When people are unsatisfied with what they have, they are really unhappy with the one who gave it to them.
Adam and Eve had everything, but everything was not enough. They thought that they knew better than God. They tried to take the place of God. Because we are descendants of the world’s first coveters, because we are flesh and blood relatives of Adam and Eve, we are guilty of the same covetous desires.
At this point, it might be a good idea to clear up a common misconception about coveting. Some people assume that coveting is exclusively a sin of the "have-nots," people with limited incomes dreaming about living the lifestyles of the rich and famous. But this is not necessarily accurate.
During an interview, the oil tycoon Paul Getty was asked the following question: "If you retired right now, do you believe that your assets would total a billion dollars?" As he paced back and forth and added up the numbers in his head, he reluctantly responded: "Yes, my estate would probably be worth a billion dollars, but you know, a billion dollars doesn’t go as far as it used to."
Coveting does not discriminate on the basis of race or sex or socio-economic status. Coveting is a sin that affects everyone. And covetous desires can take on many different forms. Still, most often people associate coveting with the sinful desire for things. God recognizes this fact in the commandments by making a list of things that we are not to covet, our neighbor’s house, his property or anything that belongs to him.
If wanting what does not belong to us often leads to taking what does not belong to us, one could raise the question: Why do we need the ninth and tenth commandments at all? Why don’t we include them under the general heading of the seventh commandment instead, "You shall not steal?"
In his Large Catechism, Martin Luther addresses this issue. He makes a distinction between stealing and coveting: "The seventh commandment forbids us to take from our neighbor or withhold from him his property to which we have no right. But here in these two commandments (the 9th & 10th) it is also forbidden to entice anything away from our neighbor, even though you would lose no honor in the eyes of the world by doing so...
Thus this last commandment is not addressed to those whom the world considers scoundrels, but precisely to the most respectable — to those who look for approval as being decent and upright and have not offended against the foregoing commandments."
According to Luther, the ninth and tenth commandments are aimed at what most of us would consider "good people," people who go to church, people who are well respected in the community, people who are well-liked by their peers.
And I don’t think it is too much of a stretch to say that these commandments are aimed directly at people like us. We might not be guilty of adultery or murder or armed robbery, but we are still guilty. God reminds us that even though something may be legal, that doesn’t make it right.
A few examples: failing to mention a few minor flaws in our home when we are trying to sell it at a higher price, using questionable tactics to steal clients from a competitor’s business, stepping on others to climb the ladder of success. Anything we do to take advantage of others, whether legal or not, is acting on a covetous desire to grab more and more for ourselves.
The sad irony is that the more we covet, the more we scheme, the more we take, the less satisfied we become. Coveting never brings the happiness it promises. Instead, coveting dries up the well of faith in our hearts. As a result, coveting leaves us feeling empty inside, with no peace, no security, and no hope.
The antithesis of coveting is contentment. Contentment means being thankful for what we have. Contentment with what we have allows us to look outside of ourselves. Paul had this in mind when he encouraged the Philippian Christians: "Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus" ( 2:4,5).
But Paul didn’t leave it at that. He was right to draw attention to Jesus as our perfect role model. But even more important than that, Paul pointed to Jesus as our perfect Savior. [Jesus] who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death — even death on a cross" (2:6-8)!
Jesus was not content with what he had, but not because he was selfish. He was the almighty God, the supreme ruler of heaven and earth. Jesus was in control everything, but he gave up everything for us. He became one of us. He lived a perfect life for us. He suffered the pains of hell for us. His unselfish love motivates us.
When we see through the eyes of faith that God has already given us everything through the death and resurrection of his Son, we are content. Because God gives us far more than we deserve, it is unnecessary to want anything more. Our value does depend who we are or what we have, but on what God has made us by his grace.
Because God daily gives us far more that we need, we will want to use what we have to help others. We will be generous, not covetous. We will be recognized for our kindness more than our shrewdness. And we will do everything out of thanks for what God has done for us.
This brings our sermon series on the Ten Commandments to a close, but our relationship with God and his Word continues. As we ask the Lord for the wisdom and strength to live according to his will, may our thoughts and words and actions reflect the words of the psalmist printed on the bulletin cover throughout this sermon series.
We pray: Dear Lord, "Your law is the truth...your commandments are my delight" (Ps. 119:142,143). Amen.