Read Exodus 20:17 at Bible Gateway.
Hebrew paragraph divisions
Exo 20:17a {s} You shall not covet your neighbor’s house
Exo 20:17b {p} You shall not covet anything that is your neighbor’s
Why did God split the 10th commandment, you shall not covet, into two paragraphs? I believe it was because the split puts not coveting your neighbor’s wife into its own paragraph, which shines a spotlight on it. It lets the reader know that God does not consider covetousness, especially of another’s wife, a flippant or minor crime.
Exo 20:17 chiastic structure
Hebrew roots
Covet is Strong’s H2530 חמד chamad, a primitive root meaning “to desire, to covet.” The ancient pictograohs are chet + mem + dalet.
chet ח = the wall, thus outside, divide, half
mem מ, ם = the water, thus chaos, mighty, blood
dalet ד = the door, thus enter, move, hang
According to the Ancient Hebrew Lexicon, related words in this family are “cheese,” “heat,” and “sun,” because of the ancients’ method of making cheese. They poured milk in an animal skin bag, and then hung it out in the sun while pushing the bag back and forth to mix the contents. The heat and the mixing activated an enzyme which caused the milk to separate into curds and whey. Thus the separated (chet) milk (mem, as indicative of any liquid) which was moved back and forth (dalet, as a door swings back and forth on its hinges) created cheese.
Then what is the connection of the root chamad to coveting? The related word “cheese” is a concrete noun, and its verbal form means “to heat,” from the heat required to turn the milk into cheese. From its meaning of “to heat,” then, comes the Hebrew word for fury, as hot anger, and interestingly enough, conception. We still say today that animals conceive their young when they are “in heat.”
So to covet something is to desire it like the desire of the heat of lust.
on the godliness with contentment (coveting’s spiritual opposite) 2007 jun 22
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