The Ten Commandments Don’t Forbid Coveting
In the original Hebrew, the Ten Commandments don’t address coveting, so common renditions like “do not covet” or “thou shalt not covet” are mistranslations.
The Hebrew verb in the 10th commandment (or, for some, the 9th and 10th commandments) is chamad. As usual, we learn what the word means by looking at how it is used elsewhere.
The clearest case against “covet” is Exodus 34:24, which has to do with the three pilgrimage holidays, for which the Israelites would leave their homes and ascend to Jerusalem. Exodus 34:24 promises that no one will chamad the Israelites’ land when they leave for Jerusalem to appear before God.
It seems absurd to me to think that the Israelites were afraid that in leaving their land for a while, other people would desire (“covet”) it. After all, other people could desire the land whether or not the Israelites were around.
So it’s pretty clear that chamad doesn’t mean “covet” or “desire” there.
In Deuteronomy 7:25, we see chamad in parallel with “take” (lakach): “Do not chamad the silver and gold [of statues of false gods] and take [lakach] it…” Just from this context, the verb could mean “covet,” but other than our preconceptions of what the text should mean, we see nothing to suggest that translation. (By similar reasoning, it could mean “draw a picture of” or any number of other possibilities for which there is no evidence.)
Furthermore, the parallelism here suggests that chamad is like lakach. That is, to chamad is to take in some way, not to want in some way.
We find the same juxtaposition of chamad and lakach elsewhere. For example, in Joshua 7:21 we read “[Achan said,] `when I saw among the spoil a beautiful mantle from Shinar, and two hundred shekels of silver, and a bar of gold weighing fifty shekels, then I chamaded them and took them” (NRSV, my emphasis). Proverbs 6:25, too, puts the two verbs together. These examples further reinforce the close connection between chamad and lakach.
And in Proverbs 12:12, we see a pair of opposites: “righteous” and “give” versus “wicked” and “chamad.” So chamad seems to be the opposite of “give.”
All of these point in a clear direction: chamad doesn’t mean “covet” or “want.” It means “take.”
So the last commandment should read: “Do not take…”
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I was just going through all these references in Hebrew myself the other day. I’m not sure it means the same as לקח, however. It seems to indicate something just prior to the “taking” action, though implying the “taking” that is coming later.
I think the real problem here is that we don’t have an English word that appropriately encapsulates this idea, as it seems to mean “desire and decide to take.” As such, I don’t think “take” works either, but if you took something right in between the two concepts of “covet/desire” and “take,” that would be it.
How about “claim”? Does that work?
I am thinking of how minority owned land was “acquired” during reconstruction here. Some people went to Courthouse and claimed property that belonged to their Black or Indian neighbors.
Could the same process work in ancient Israel? There was no courthouse, but if the officials of the town allowed a land-owner to slowly move his boundary markers, that would establish a “claim” that result in a “take”.
These guys beat me to it, but yes, I assume you don’t mean to say that one should translate Joshua 7:21 as “then I took them and took them”. I’m fine with a definition of chamad that isn’t “desire” or “covet,” but surely it holds some shade of meaning different than lakach or why would the Hebrew text use the two different words?
I think you’re right, Mark, that the words are different, but they could be very close in meaning. As you know, Hebrew frequently uses the rhetorical device of pairing up near synonyms. (Shim’u and ha’azinu — “listen” and the absurd “give ear” — come to mind.)
So far I haven’t been able to figure out in any convincing way how the two words were different, but as a guess, chamad meant to take with intent to return, while lakach was more general. (And ganav — “rob” — meant to take with no intent to return.) It makes sense, but it’s really speculation on my part.
Maybe, Jason. It could mean “to go through the steps of imagining ownership,” the way one might plan a road trip with a car even before actually buying the car. But I don’t see any particular reason to think that chamad is a precursor to lakach, just as we have so many other doublets where we don’t make that kind of assumption. And, equally, chamad could mean “take with intent to return” (which one might do to land if the occupants were expected back based on a fixed schedule).
I can think of other possibilities that make sense, too, but I haven’t been able to find any evidence to convince me of one over the other.
Based on what I know about the Ten Commandments, though, I do think that chamad was an action.
How about “seek”? Webster’s gives the 4th definition of seek as: “to try to acquire or gain : aim at.” An example would be to ” seek the overthrow of the governmen.” Linguists speak of *success terms.” In baseball, “hit’ is a success term; “swing” is not. Perhaps lakach is the success term, meaning a successful taking, as opposed to the attempt. This would explain the parallelism (although, as Joel H. points out, many translations would explain it equally well.) I agree that several of the references suggest this sort of precursory meaning for chamad.
I heard somewhere recently that the reason coveting was taken seriously by the Hebrews was due to the “evil eye” superstition of Middle-Eastern cultures, in which a malicious gaze or intent towards someone and their property could have a tangible negative effect on them.
I wonder how your linguistic analysis here impacts that. What does the LXX say, out of curiosity?
I once heard Dennis Prager say that the sense of “covet” there would have to mean wanting to have something at the expense of someone else’s having it. So I guess that matches pretty well with “take.”
BTW, awesome blog. You understand that I’m going to have to read your book now. It’s what I do. I have the spiritual gift of reading.
Thank you for your kind words, Seth.
I don’t see that the context of Exodus 34:24 is a definitive case against ‘covet’. It is not inconceivable that when a real opportunity to take something arises, the underlying or latent desire can be aroused and become magnified and pronounced. Think about a petty thief who suddenly sees an empty car with the driver’s door unlocked and the key still in the ignition.
I see the promise (that no one will ‘chamad’ the Israelites’ land when they leave for Jerusalem to appear before God) as conveying that the fear and terror of God had already fallen on the surrounding inhabitants, thus restraining any pre-existing desire that those people had to occupy the land.
I can see that Deuteronomy 7:25 and Joshua 7:21 portray the close connection between ‘chamad’ and ‘lakach’. But how does translating two different Hebrew words, which occur in the same breath, into the same English word bring out the original meaning of the text?
To me, these passages indicate that not only did they possess different meanings, but also ‘chamad’ is a precursor to ‘lakach’.
As for Proverbs 12:12, yes ‘chamad’ seems to be the opposite of ‘give’, but this poetic example doesn’t come across to me as clear evidence that it is the opposite in a semantic sense.
More importantly, is there any evidence from the Hebrew literature that the word order (chamad and lakach) is ever reversed? If so, such evidence would look much more like a bulletproof argument for establishing a case against ‘covet’.
I’m not sure we would expect to find the reverse order.
In English, we have (near) synonyms that always appear in the same order, like “aid and abet.” “Aid” isn’t meant to be a precursor to “abet.” (Originally, they were meant to be synonyms. The point was to use both a Romance word and a Germanic word, to help as many people as possible understand the concept.)
At any rate, looking at the evidence, do you think that it points toward chamad meaning “want,” or are you trying to justify an opinion that was formed in part by (what I think are) mistranslations?
For example, I see chamad as the opposite of lakach, and I don’t see any reason not to draw the conclusion that it therefore means “take.”
Wow, a very interesting post!
The LXX has epithumeis, which I believe means “crave.” As it is written…
“Thou shalt not crave thy neighbor’s wife, his ass or his wife’s ass.”
You made me look that up. ! Dirty dog.
Jeff
According to my cursory research, doesn’t ‘chamad’ firstly occur in Genesis 2:9 (translated ‘pleasant’ in KJV)? If so, what do you think it means there?
And doesn’t it also occur in Genesis 27:15, where the word order is reversed in a slightly different manner (‘lakach’ immediately precedes ‘chamad’)?
What do you make of this?
What we find in Genesis 2:9 is not the verb chamad but a different word from the same root: nechmad.
One of the biggest Bible translation traps is relying too heavily on roots. In this case, I wonder if the similarity of the two words helped create the wrong translation “covet” for chamad.
Genesis 25:9, too, has a different word from the same root.
I do not think the argument as sufficiently been made to abandon the use of “covet”. First, it is clear that chamad qualifies lakach so the two are not the same. This is precisely why the word, “covet” was chosen.
To covet is not merely to “want”. Rather, to covet is a class of wanting whose nuance must be attended to in order to appreciate its use. Coveting exceeds wanting, it is a kind of wanting that implies entitlement and inordinate desire. In other words to merely “want” something does not communicate the disposition of the covetous desire.
Therefore merely to “want” or “desire” then to “take” fails to bring to light the cause for the taking which is a certain kind of wanting, namely the covetous kind which compels.
When we want something we do not always find ourselves taking that something, but when we take something we are not to take we will always find it preceded by our having coveted it.
If ‘chamad’ and ‘lakach’ merely form a rhetorical device, wouldn’t you expect it to occur this way in the 10th commandment?
My perception of ‘chamad’ as a precursor is based on the fact that, when paired with ‘lakach’, the consequence of the act is either acknowledged or confessed – in Deut 7:25 (‘you will be snared by it’) and Josh 7:21 (‘they are concealed in the earth inside my tent’).
As the 10th commandment does not deal with consequences, this appears to be consistent with the fact that it also makes no mention of ‘lakach’.
Wouldn’t this be a valid argument that the pair is not a rhetorical or literary device, but a two-step process that leads to inevitable consequences? (And where only ‘chamad’ is mentioned, those consequences also need not be mentioned.)
in spanish we have “quitar” meaning to get/ take off/pick up and “quedarse” meaning to take/own/possess
Well, my Esperanto Bible which was translated in 1880 by a native Hebrew speaker, has “Ne deziru la domon de via proksimulo;”- “Don’t DESIRE or WANT the house of your neighbor”
The word for covet is “avidi” which is not used here…hmmm….
There is obviously some difference between the 8th and the 10th commandments, but “steal” and “take” seem mostly synonymous to me.
I agree Dannii. Why would God instruct His people “do not steal” and then say “do not take”?
Any lexicons I’ve referred to define chamad as: to delight in, greatly beloved, covet, desire. I suppose the writers of Theological word books could have just been in love with their translation and wanted to preserve good old King James’ rendering, but that seems unlikely, since most scholars are interested in truth first. It also seems to me that Jesus’ reference to murder and lust in Matthew 5 deals directly with commandment #10. And, since Jesus is God, if he said it, God said it!
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“Do not seek to appropriate by dishonest means” perhaps. Not blatant stealing, but usurping by deviousness or opportunism. Sort of like conspiracy to commit a crime is a distinct offense in modern penal codes.
I am not sure what “covet” means, as I am not conversant in old English.
As for “chamad”, it is used about 20 times as a verb, several more times as a noun and adjective. What we find when we look at all its uses, it refers to desire, but a unique type of desire, for a particular person or object, not a generalized desire. That desire for a particular object or person will often lead to taking it, e.g. Aachen at Jericho desired a particular set of items, so he took them. A generalized desire would be more willing to leave those specific items alone, hoping to get the value from other sources.
In a negative sense, the Lord’s slave in Isaiah 53:2 would not have the looks that we would want specifically him.
I don’t know of any single word in English that carries that meaning.
You mean that the root Ch.M.D is used about 20 times as a verb, etc., right? The actual Kal verb chamad is rarer.
I think it’s a mistake to assume that the Kal verb must be directly and clearly related to, for example, the Niph’al verb nechmad, or to the noun machmad. More specifically, even if nechmad means “desirable,” it doesn’t follow that chamad means “desire.”
By comparison, the Niph’al of R.A.H, nir’ah, means “to appear,” not just “to be seen,” even though the Qal ra’ah means “see.”
In fact, it may even be this kind of reasoning — which in And God Said I call the translation trap of relying on “internal structure” — that led to the mistranslation of the Ten Commandments in the first place.
Joel, my research indicates that the 10th commandment as it is found in Deuteronomy 5:21 contains two different Hebrew words that are translated into covet and desire respectively (in contrast to Exodus 20:17 where ‘chamad’ occurs twice).
Could you please confirm whether this is indeed the case, and how do you propose to address this? Would you say that the second Hebrew term was also mistranslated??
Yes, the version of the Ten Commandments in Deuteronomy is more complicated, because there are two verbs there where the version in Exodus has but one. (This is true only in Hebrew. The Greek translates both Hebrew verbs as epithumeo.)
Not only is the second Hebrew verb in Dueteronomy, hitavah, complicated, but we don’t find it Deuteronomy in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Rather, the Dead Sea Scrolls (4Q41) have chamad twice there (even though the rest of the text is the same).
All of which is to say that I’m not sure what to do with hitavah there.
As a compromise between ‘covet’ and ‘take’, I would propose ‘plot/scheme/plan in order to possess’ as a plausible meaning.
I think this works pretty well with all of the passages mentioned in this post for the following reasons:
(a) It occurs prior to ‘take’, and is therefore clearly distinguished from ‘lackach’.
(b) It is an action, and is therefore worthy of the context of Exodus 34:24.
(c) It is not stealing, and is therefore not confused with the 8th commandment.
(d) It is not necessarily dishonest, and is therefore not confused with the 9th commandment.
On the spiritual level however, as Jesus told it, the 10th commandment would prohibit coveting in the same way that the 6th commandment prohibits anger/malice and the 7th commandment prohibits lust.
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This is a very late comment, but I recently presented your Book to my Men’s Bible Study (and other interested members of our congregation).
Thank you for your support, Michael. (And incidentally, I also travel to communities to present and expand on the material in And God Said. Please be in touch directly if this is something your congregation might be interested in.)
It’s an interesting suggestion. I’m less convinced by the ordering of the commandments, but I think it’s reasonable to suppose that such a short list wouldn’t contain any duplicates. One possibility, then, is that chamad is non-sexual. Another possibility, though, is that “adultery” refers to something consensual, while chamad is taking by force.
Seems like just adultery to me, though, more generally, King David is hardly a model of morality.
Joel, the suggestion that ‘chamad’ is taking by force doesn’t appear to work well in relation to the objects mentioned. I can’t conceive how one could take their neighbor’s wife, male servant, female servant etc. as if to merely force a transfer. The term indicates some kind of complex transaction so as to fulfill the desire for function of the person being taken, and possibly even the person himself/herself. One would think that this requires consent, at least from the person to be taken, if not from the one to whom the person belongs.
In other words, it may be ok to ‘chamad’ your neighbor’s female servant if you want her as a wife, but not so if you want her as a servant.
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The “Year in Review” post led me to read this for the first time.
I suggest that chamad could be translated as “seize.” This would make the pairings with lakach into a pair of closely related, but also chronologically sequential actions: First you chamad the gold and silver, then you lakach it away with you.
The promise in Exodus 34:24 seems to support this translation. As you noted, it’s absurd to think that the Israelites feared that their brief absence from the land would lead other to “covet” it; rather, they feared that it might be seized. Land, however, cannot be taken away like a sack of plunder, so chamad does the job here by itself.
The commandment, then, is “do not seize.” Or if you want to be informal, “do not grab.” If this is correct, then the commandment is a vividly expressed prohibition of greed.
I looked up “commandeer” at reference.com and it gave me these suggestions:
Main Entry:
commandeer [kom-uhn-deer] Show IPA
Part of Speech:
verb
Definition:
seize, take over
Synonyms:
accroach, activate, annex, appropriate, arrogate, assume, confiscate, conscript, draft, enslave, expropriate, grab, hijack, liberate, moonlight requisition, preempt, requisition, sequester, sequestrate, snatch, take, usurp
In Portuguese we have two distinct words. Pegar, take with you, and levar, take there. I can say in the same sentence: “Pega e leva isso!” we can also say: “don’t take what is not yours”