Deuteronomy 5:21

Neither shalt thou desire thy neighbour's wife,.... Here a neighbour's wife is put before his house, different from Exodus 20:17 and "his field" is added, which with what follows take in everything

Neither shalt thou desire thy neighbour's wife, neither shalt thou covet thy neighbour's house, his field, or his manservant, or his maidservant, his ox, or his ass, or any thing that is thy neighbour's.

In Exodus 20, the order is contrary, and thy neighbour’ s house is put before his wife, whereby it is evident that Moses intended this but for one commandment, wherein the order of the words was an inconsiderable circumstance; for if this were two commandments, as some would have it, it would be altogether uncertain which is the ninth, and which the tenth commandment, seeing the one is first, Exodus 20, and the other here.

(21) His field.—These words are not found in Exodus 20. The children of Israel had now become, or were just about to become, landowners; hence the addition is appropriate in this place. There is also another slight verbal alteration. One word only is used for “covet” in Exodus 20:17; here two are employed. The idea of the one is to “delight in,” and the other to “lust after.”

Verse 21. His field] This clause is not in the tenth commandment as it stands in Exodus 20:17.

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 wife first 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 field of 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 covet originally meant inordinate desire, it is now generally used with other objects than wife. The A.V. desire literally 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 gelόstete 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 THE TEN , Deuteronomy 5:6-21.Here, on the plains of Moab, in sight of the Land of Promise, thirty-eight years after the first announcement of the law on Sinai, Moses repeats the code which Jehovah