1. Covetousness (Remastered)

Covetousness

R.J. Rushdoony

Our scripture is Exodus 20:17 and our subject is ‘Covetousness.’

“Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour’s.”

This morning we begin our studies in the tenth Commandment, which we will study for the next month and a half. The epilogue to the law and then a study of the law throughout the Old and New Testaments will follow after we study the tenth Commandment.

The tenth commandment is perhaps the least understood of all the Ten Commandments. First of all, as it appear in Exodus, the verse which we just read, it has been a target for no small amount of misunderstanding. During the last century the main concern of many people, and you still find this in modern writers and scholars, was that this commandment was an insult to womanhood. Why? Because it puts the neighbor’s house above his wife as though the house were more important than the wife, and the feminists of the last century raised quite a hue and cry about this particular verse. Well, the answer to that is a very simple one. The word which is translated as ‘house’ in this particular version of the law is a general term; it means the home, the family, the household, the estate. So that it includes everything that is thy neighbor’s; it includes his wife, it includes his farm, his property, his house as we think of the word ‘house,’ it includes everything. So, what the law here is saying is thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house, that is, anything that is thy neighbor’s, and then it goes on to specify his wife, his manservant, his maidservant, his ox, his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbor’s. So the second half simply is a development of the first half, citing specifically everything that the first half covers. This is one great error concerning the law here.

Another even greater one is that ‘covet’ is understood to mean feeling; something within, and it is limited to that. Now, it does indeed cover the thoughts of man, but how can you deal with the feelings of man in law? After all, the Ten Commandments give us a law. You can legislate about murder and about theft, about false witnesses, and adultery, but how are you going to legislate the feelings of man? How can it then be law? It can moral law, but this is civil law, this is given to be a law for the nations. So that word ‘covet’ very obviously means something more than desiring, lusting after something. 

The meaning is not newly discovered, although two German scholars in this century have written concerning the meaning. But it has been known through the centuries, and you can go back to the 1600’s to Dr. Isaac Barrow, one of the greatest scholars of the Church of England. And he was teaching the meaning of cover from Scripture. Why the misunderstanding? 

Now the word ‘covet’ does include the thought of man. And pietism has obscured the rest of its meaning. Pietism was a movement that first sprang up in the Middle Ages, which concentrated exclusively on the inner life of man to the exclusion of his outward life. And it sprang up again in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and is very much with us today. 

The emphasis in pietism is that your heart must be right, which is sound enough, but if your heart is right, your actions are right also - you cannot separate the two, and this is what pietism did. It separated the two, so that the heart was right. Therefore if your actions were wrong, well people just didn’t understand you. If they only knew you better, they’d understand that your heart was right.

And this is passed over from pietism into liberalism. And you get this in the idea that a criminal, who commits fearful crimes, can still be really a good man at heart, if we only understood what made him do these things. That’s secular pietism. And of course political liberalism is secular pietism. What it wants you to do is not to change your actions, but to change your feelings, and maybe put a statute law in the books; you don’t do anything about it. So they make a lot of to-do about how we should love the negro. Well, the average liberal has less to do with the negro than anyone else. They just want everyone to get worked up on an issue, and when they’re through with it, they’ll go on to another issue. And so they’ve left the negro now for ecology. It’s all a matter of feeling, you see. And the crowds who went to Washington D.C. to protest about pollution on Earth Day, polluted Washington so much that it cost the Federal government a sizable sum of money to clean up after them. They were concerned with feelings, they were pietists, secular pietists. And pietism wants your heart to be right, but it separates the heart of man from his actions. 

Now, what does ‘covet’ mean? Covet does mean to desire. That is an aspect of its meaning. But it not only means to desire, but also to desire and to take; it means both. This is why Dr. Isaac Barrow said that it should be translated as deprive not, or seize not thy neighbor’s house, thy neighbor’s wife, do not take her illegally, immorally. ⁱ

Now having said that, we must also add that covet is not necessarily bad in its meaning. The context determines whether covet is illegal, ungodly seizure and appropriation, or godly seizure and appropriation. For example. In Habakkuk 2:9, we have an example of the use of ‘covet.’ It reads, in the King James version:

Woe to him that coveteth an evil covetousness to his house,

That he may set his nest on high, that he may be delivered from the power of evil!

Habakkuk 2:9.

The Berkley version renders it:

“Woe to him who acquires an evil gain for his house, in order to set his seat on high, to be out of the reach of calamity!” ⁱⁱ

Now, the interesting thing is that Habakkuk used the word ‘evil’ to make it clear that he’s talking about the wrong kind of covetousness. He says woe to him that coveteth an evil covetousness. In other words, it’s apparent from Habakkuk’s usage that not all covetousness is evil. It can be a godly ambition. But not if you’re coveting your neighbor’s household, his property, his wife, then it doesn’t even need the modification of evil because the forgoing laws, commandments six through nine, have made it clear that these things are wrong. So that in the law ‘covet’ does not require, at this point, evil to modify it. 

Or to give another example, St. Paul, in 1 Corinthians 12:31, used the word covet in its good sense. He said:

“But covet earnestly the best gifts…”

Now, obvious he is using it in a very commendable sense, and he is telling people, aim higher, desire and take the best gifts, the highest things in life. So it is wrong, as moralists have done for generations under the influence of pietism, to condemn covetousness as such. 

Basic to that has been the Greek idea that the holy man is passionless, he has no feelings.  You know, among the ancient Greeks the holy man was totally passionless. So that if he were sitting, and I’m giving you an example that they gave, if he were sitting, chatting with friends, and someone came up to him and said, “Your house just burned down,” he would say, “Well, it burnt down,” and continue with his conversation. And someone came up to him and said, “Your wife just dropped dead of a heart attack,” he would not interrupt his conversation, he would say, “Thank you,” and go on with his philosophical discourse. And if then they came up to him and said, “Your children were all killed in an accident,” he would continue as though nothing had happened. He was passionless - above feelings. 

And those who have said you should have no covetousness of any sort, good or bad, no ambition, no desire, have been following a Greek standard of morality. We are not called to be passionless - that standard is wicked. St. Paul makes it clear that we should covet, desire and take the best gifts, the better things of life. Thus, Shakespeare was very, very wrong in expressing this kind of pietism when in his play he has Cardinal Woolsey say:

Cromwell, I charge thee, fling away ambition:

By that sin fell the angels… ⁱⁱⁱ

He was all wrong, all wrong. And we cannot follow that kind of standard without sinning.

Clearly then, the commandment means an evil covetousness; desiring and taking that which is not properly ours. 

“Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour’s.”

Thus, what the tenth commandment clearly condemns is every attempt to gain by fraud, coercion or deceit, that which belongs to our neighbor.

One law that we had that reflected the old Puritan understanding of this commandment was the ‘alienation of affection suits’ that used to go to court. They were much abused, and they were made into something that was ridiculous finally, by a godless age. And by the twenties there were many, many of them that were really fraudulent. But the basic idea was that a man who alienated the affections of another man’s wife was violating the law. And originally it was not intended to be a civil suit but a criminal suit. This law, therefore, forbids, by expropriation, by fraud, by deceit, or even by legal means, that which belongs to our neighbor. 

The tenth commandment thus sums up commandments six through through, and gives them an additional perspective. Let’s illustrate that. Now the other commandments deal with obviously illegal acts. Thou shalt not kill, nor commit adultery, nor steal, nor bear false witness. Those are clear-cut violations of the law. 

But let’s examine such a case in the life of David, who violated the tenth commandment. He also, in the commission of that violation, violated others as well. He committed adultery with Bathsheba. He wanted her for a wife. What did he do? He conspired with Joab, his cousin, who was general of the armies, to launch an attack that would be a foolhardy attack on a particular city. It would very obviously go wrong, and then to issue a retreat. He knew that at that point Uriah, the husband of Bathsheba, being the kind of man he was, would not retreat, and he would be killed, and that’s exactly what happened. What they did in that case was not legally to kill the man, illegally, that is. They didn’t violate the law, they didn’t go out and kill a man in such a way that the commandment “Thou shalt not kill” was broken. It was all within the law, and yet it was murder. They were using Uriah’s character to kill him. Their entire action in planning that advance and then the retreat was fraudulent. It was based on covetousness that was evil, and therefore the tenth commandment covers every such case. In other words, it covers cases that cannot be covered strictly by commandments six through nine. 

There are many uses of the law, in terms of this fraudulent use of the law, to defraud or to harm. As we shall see in subsequent weeks, socialism is based upon this fraudulent use of the law to break the law. There are, thus, legal means of seizing what is our neighbor’s, which the tenth commandment clearly forbids. This is why the tenth commandment is so important an addition to the law. And without an understanding of the tenth commandment, there is no way that people can be armed to fight against the kind of thing that is prevailing today on the State, County, City, and Federal levels; the use of the law to seize and to take that which belongs to our neighbor. 

Thus, the tenth commandment is directed not merely against individuals, but also against states, churches, institutions. All can and do use legal means to further injustice and fraud. And how frequently we have seen churches and institutions and the government using legal means to rob people, to deprive them of their rights. And then to turn around and say, “It was perfectly legal, you had your day in court and this is a law-abiding country, and we want the rule of law. So shut up and sit back!”

Thus the law, the tenth commandment, by its legislation against evil covetousness, is a law of especial importance in the twentieth century, as well as in every age. We shall see in subsequent weeks how timely the tenth commandment is.

* * *

Let us pray. 

Almighty God our Heavenly Father, we thank thee for thy Law-Word, and we thank thee that thy Word covers our every condition, our every need. And we beseech thee, our Father, to so teach us thy Law, to write it upon the tables of our hearts. That we might in all our ways acknowledge thee, show forth thy righteousness, and become thine instruments to the reestablishing of thy government over men and nations. Our God, we thank thee that thou hast called us to be thy people, and commissioned us with so great a commission. Make us in all things faithful. In Jesus' name. Amen.

* * *

Are there any questions now, first of all with respect to our lesson?

Yes.

[Audience] How ambitious are we to be in business? 

[Dr. Rushdoony] Yes. How ambitious are we to be in business when our neighbor is also in business for profit? Now, the answer to that is, as long as our business is conducted in a godly manner without fraud, and without any lawless use of the law, we have the right to be as ambitious as we see fit. 

Some years ago a very, very outstanding man, as law abiding as any man I’ve ever known, meticulous in that respect, was severely criticized because when a competitor opened up near him, after a while he ran that man out of business. He cut costs, he worked hard with several sales to run the man out of business, in a way that he did not with other competitors.

And he told me in his old age, he said, “That’s the one thing that people still hold against me.” But he said, “But I think I did that man a favor.” And he said, “I did it because I felt it was my duty to run him out of business. He was not a good businessman. He had no capacity for management. In other lines of work where he went later, he was successful. But,” he said, “he was involving more and more of his friends and relatives in his business in the confidence that he was going to make money for them, and,” he said, “I felt I had a duty to run him out of business, and I did.” And he said, “I don’t think I did anything wrong. I just lowered the boom on him a few years and a few hundred thousand dollars sooner.” Well, I think the man had a real point. There’s nothing wrong in being ambitious. There’s nothing wrong in making money, all the money you can, provided you do it in a godly manner, and you are a good steward thereby. And there’s no harm in competing with others. There is nothing morally wrong in competition provided it’s godly competition. 

Actually, as this man also stated, he said, a small operation can always out compete a larger operation if it is efficiently run because there’s less in the way of labor costs and problems. The bigger you grow, the more your problems are. But he said a one man operation can be efficient in a way that a bigger operation cannot be, if it is properly handled. 

Yes.

[Audience] Is there a difference between covetousness and envy, Dr. Rushdoony? ^iv

[Dr. Rushdoony] Yes there is. Envy is a matter of the mind and heart, it’s an inner attitude, covetousness has both the inner and the outer aspect. It means to desire and to take, so there is a real distinction there.

Yes.

[Audience] What about those who quote Christ when He says, “The love of money is the root of all evil,” as a proof text against ambition, against competition in the marketplace? ^v

[Dr. Rushdoony] This is a part of the pagan, the Greek attitude of passionlessness, of regarding the outer world and everything connected with it as wrong. They use the verse, “The love of money is the root of all evil.” And the answer there is it’s the love of money, not money, that is the root of all evil. It’s the inordinate love, it is making an idol of money, loving that instead of God and your neighbor, your family that constitutes evil. So that evangelicalism, as it has become prone to this kind of pietism which wants to despise the things of this world, is altogether wrong. There is nothing ungodly, nor is there any ground in Scripture for saying that beautiful things are not to be desired, that lovely clothing, lovely hairdos, gold and silver, are not to be desired.

Now the verse that they use with regard to that sort of thing is in Peter. And about a year and half, two years ago, we touched on the meaning of that, because I’ve heard sermons on this, which condemn the, condemn lovely hairdos, and jewelry and the like. 

The verse is 1 Peter 3:2, when it speaks of the godly wife. 

“Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel; But let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price.”

And so the argument runs, you see a woman’s only ornament is to be a meek and a quiet spirit. So fancy hairdos and jewelry are not right. And I do know of churches which have forbidden women members to wear jewelry. And you’re no doubt familiar with some such groups. Well, the answer is, then they should forbid them to wear any clothes either. Because it’s not only the plaiting of the hair and the wearing of gold, but also the putting on of apparel. That is, putting on clothes, dresses. They should be nudists if their interpretation is correct.

But the meaning of the passage is, the real ornament of a godly woman, the thing that she must put her confidence in, is the right kind of spirit before God. Not that dress or jewelry or lovely hairdos have anything wrong in and of themselves, but the woman who puts her confidence in those things rather than in being a godly woman, is altogether wrong in her perspective. This is the point of the passage. But it’s this kind of, really, ridiculous misunderstanding of Scripture that leads to so much nonsense. 

Yes.

[Audience] Are you able to make any headway with these pietists in discussing serious matters? ^vi

[Dr. Rushdoony] Virtually none. When you go to these campus evangelical groups, which I do not anymore, they are not interested in any serious talk. If you try to talk to them about the Biblical answer to the problems, they have in the philosophy department, or the problems they have in economics, or the problems in the history department, or anything in the way of a serious doctrinal study of Scripture, they’re not interested. And they sing the choruses that belong to the primary and junior departments of a Sunday school, and they remain quite childish. 

Yes.

[Audience] Question about a dispute with a neighbour.

[Dr. Rushdoony] Yes. Sometimes it’s useless to do anything with a neighbor. In one case I found finally the only thing I could do was to be friendly, and then little by little they became more congenial about the situation. But that definitely does not always work. Definitely not. 

Yes.

[Audience] When we are forced to join certain State and Federal agencies, such as Social Security and the like, is it right to receive it?

[Dr. Rushdoony] Yes. Now, first of all, we can agree that those agencies are economically, and often morally, unsound, that ultimately they are headed for trouble. There is no possibility, for example, of Social Security enduring. In France, which began its Social Security about ten years before we did, it is now taking up between a third and a half of the annual budget, and the director of the treasury there has said it’s going to destroy France unless they cut back on the benefits. But all that the politicians do is to increase the benefits. We have that same problem here. During the last presidential election, Nixon led off by promising that a 5% increase in Social Security benefits, so Humphrey said 10% increase, and then along came Wallis and said 15% increase. And no doubt we’ll get another round of increases with the next election. Ultimately it will break down; it’s like the chain letter scheme. This does not mean that in the process it is wrong for us to participate in it if we have been compelled to go into it.

I’m not in it. But if I were in it, and were entitled to any benefits, I would take them. It’s my money after all. And my money is taken year in and year out for a variety of things. I have a right to some return on it, and I might as well take it, because had I had the use of that money, I could have gotten, actually, far better protection than Social Security will provide. So there is nothing wrong with obeying the law there, you had to pay, your obedience is compelled to a point, and it’s godly that you obey when the state requires it and you have no choice, it’s godly to take it. In other words, if you say you’re not going to take it, you ought to be logical and say I’m not going to pay it, and I’ll go to prison. It’s either one or the other. 

If a person is in a position where they have to accept it, fine. In other words, once you are in something, you’re in it. You can’t be, it’s like saying I’m going to be halfway married, and not all the way married. You’re ‘married’ into these services by the government. So you might as well live with it. But if you’re going to stay out, stay out. 

It’s like the man who was unhappy at the last minute about getting married and had cold feet, but he was too far along to back out, so he discussed it with his best man who was horrified and said, “You can’t back out now, she’s a wonderful girl, in fact, this marriage is everything you’ve ever wanted, and it’s ridiculous to get cold feet. You’ve got to go ahead with it.” So the groom reluctantly agreed to do it, but he said, “Alright, I will, but I’m not going to enjoy it.”

I like the Jewish proverb: “If you’re going to eat ham, be sure you get a good piece!”

Yes.

[Dr. Rushdoony] Yes. 

[Audience] Question relating to Linda Kasabian and the Manson Family.

[Dr. Rushdoony] Yes. Very good question. Now, let us assume we were back in the United States, say, 1935, ‘37, thereabouts. And the Manson trial occurred then. First of all, at that time no one could testify unless they believed in the Bible as the Word of God, and accepted the doctrine of the Trinity, otherwise their word was worthless. 

Now, the only one who was exempt was someone who was a party to the case, a civil suit, he was one of the parties, or was a party to the offense in a criminal action. Thus, in such a case, Linda Kasabian would have to be one of the defendants. In terms of the general trustworthiness of her testimony, which would have to be subjected to very rigorous standards, not only by the defense attorneys on cross-examination, but also by the prosecution to test its trustworthiness. Then she could be granted some kind of suspended sentence or some kind of immunity from the full sentence because of her cooperation, but she would have to be a defendant. In other words, she would have to be liable if her testimony did not prove to be trustworthy. So that her testimony really would be on trial together with her own person. But today you grant them immunity, and sometimes you have these witnesses back down on you, which very often happens and that blows the case, or at the key point they refuse to remember things. 

Yes.

[Audience] How can you test the reliability of a witness, Dr. Rushdoony? ^vii

[Dr. Rushdoony] You can test it in a number of ways by confirming testimony. For example, I’ll be surprised if they don’t have fingerprints extensively in this case. There are other ways. They are going to have her ex-husband and one or two other people in there to corroborate certain aspects of her testimony. So it will have to be in terms of other witnesses, who will at key points, who will have to confirm her testimony. Unsupported it would not stand in any court today, it will have to be supported. We dealt with corroboration you remember, some months ago. 

We have just a few minutes left, and I’d like to share one or two little things with you.

I read recently a book [Search the Scriptures: A Physician Examines Medicine in the Bible] by Dr. Robert B. Greenblatt of the medical college of Georgia. And it is a popularization of a series of lectures he gave at the medical school on certain aspects of the Bible in relationship to medicine. His perspective is extremely modernistic, so it’s not a book I would recommend, but there are some interesting things. In passing, he has a chapter on circumcision, and he points out that it has been discovered that cases of cancer of the reproductive organ are almost totally lacking, with either husband or wife, where the husband has been circumcised; the difference there is startling. 

Then, this very interesting aspect of the Hebrew use of wine. Now, to this day, many churches mingle water in wine at the communion service and give all kinds of mystical reasons for so doing. This was, of course, the practice of the Hebrews. From the earliest days into the time of our Lord and subsequently, they mingled wine and water. And he says:

“The ancient Hebrews mixed wine and water for their beverage— “she hath mingled her wine”— and the Greeks and their cultural heirs in Rome embraced this gentle custom. In olden times, pollution of streams and of wells caused frequent epidemics of cholera and of dysentery; slowly, experience passed from one generation to another that to drink water plain was hazardous. The addition of wine to water was a safety measure; to ingest mingled wine was healthful. 

…

The reasons for the initial popularity of wines among the peoples that border the eastern and the northern shores of the Mediterranean have become dim, but the custom continues. With Gallic delight, the French have always maintained that wine is for drinking and water is for washing. 

The prophylactic measure of adding wine to water was thought to be a sort of myth, a popular practice handed down from antiquity. But in his charming and scientific book, A History of Wine As Therapy, Dr. Salvatore P. Lucia shows that it is a good deal more. Dr. Alois Pick, of the Vienna Institute of Hygiene, exposed to various mixtures of wine and water the bacilli that caused cholera and typhoid fever— two diseases transmitted by drinking water —and discovered that in them the bacilli were soon destroyed. Further, in World War II, enteric diseases spread by contaminated water presented a severe medical problem in the Mediterranean theater. An American soldier, John Gardner, was impressed by the fact that the natives, who added wine to their water, were free from enteric diseases. Later, in a series of studies at the University of California, he found that red wines possess antibacterial properties that cannot be ascribed to their content of alcohol, aldehydes, tannins, and acids. Finally, investigations by John J. Powers at the University of Georgia, in 1959, proved that other elements extracted from wines also inhibit the growth of bacteria. 

That wine has antibacterial power independent of its alcohol is now well-established, and the wisdom of the ancient custom of mixing wine with water is substantiated by scientific inquiry.” ^viii

A very interesting little point, I thought. 

* * *

Our time is up now, let’s bow our heads for the benediction. And now go in peace, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, bless you and keep you, guide and protect you, this day and always. Amen.

i. Isaac Barrow. The Theological Works of Isaac Barrow, D.D. Vol. VII. Nine vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1859, 498.

ii.  Gerrit Verkuyl, trans., The Modern Language Bible: Berkeley Version (Hendrickson Publishers, 1969), Hab 2:9.

iii.  William Shakespeare, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, ed. W. J. Craig (London; Edinburgh; Glasgow; New York; Toronto; Melbourne; Bombay: Humphrey Milford; Oxford University Press, 1914), 757.

iv.  Question added/modified for clarity and brevity.

v.  Question added/modified for clarity and brevity.

vi.  Question added/modified for clarity and brevity.

vii.  Question added/modified for clarity and brevity.

viii. Robert B. Greenblatt. Search the Scriptures: A Physician Examines Medicine in the Bible. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1963, pp. 30, 31.