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10. Do Not Covet | 5 Minute Video

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The One Thought You Should Never Have

There is only one Commandment that prohibits a thought, and it is this: “Do not covet.” Why does the Bible, which is preoccupied with behavior, legislate a thought? Because to covet, to want what belongs to someone else, is the root of the preceding four commandments and often leads to evil. Before someone murders, steals, lies, or commits adultery, the desire to take what is rightly someone else’s usually comes first.

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Script:

In the Ten Commandments, Commandments Six, Seven, Eight, and Nine are the ones that prohibit acts of evil — murder, adultery, stealing, and perjury. And then there is one commandment that prohibits the thing that leads to murder, adultery, stealing, and perjury. Which one is it? It’s the last of the Ten: Do not covet anything that belongs to others — not their spouse, their house, their servants, their animals, or any of their property.

In order to understand this commandment, and its unique significance, the first thing to understand is that this is the only one of the Ten Commandments that legislates thought. All the other Commandments legislate behavior. In fact, of the 613 laws in the Five Books of Moses, virtually none prohibit thought.

Why, then, does the Ten Commandments include a law that prohibits a thought? Because it is coveting that so often leads to evil. Or, to put it another way, coveting is what leads to violating the preceding four commandments — the ones against murder, adultery, stealing, and perjury. Think about it. Why do people do those things? In most instances, it is because they covet something that belongs to another person. Obviously that is the reason people steal — thieves covet their victim’s property. But it is also the reason for many murders. And coveting is obviously the reason for adultery — wanting the spouse of another person. As for perjury — or “bearing false witness” in the language of the Ten Commandments – that is done in order to cover up all these other crimes that are caused by coveting.

But in order to understand why coveting is the one thought that is prohibited in the Ten Commandments and one of the only thoughts prohibited in the entire Hebrew Bible, we need to understand what coveting means – and, equally important, what it doesn’t mean.

To covet is much more than “to want.” The Hebrew verb, lachmod means to want to the point of seeking to take away and own — something that belongs to another person. Note that there are two operative elements here: “seeking to own,” and “belongs to another person.” “Seeking to own” does not mean just envying or, in the case of your neighbor’s spouse, just lusting after. Neither envy nor lust is prohibited in the Ten Commandments. Uncontrolled envy and lust can surely lead to bad things, and they can both be psychologically and emotionally destructive, but neither one is prohibited in the Ten Commandments. Why? Because neither is the same as coveting. It is coveting that almost inevitably leads to stealing, to adultery, and sometimes even to murder.

For the complete script, visit https://www.prageru.com/videos/do-not-covet

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Tags biblechristianitycovetDennisdennis pragerdo not covetenvyexodusgodislamjealousyJudaismmosespragerprager uprager universityreligionSinaiTen Commandmentstenth commandmentTorah
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36 Comments

  2. just for the record for the scrupulous people with ocd out there like i am, you are NOT covering your beighboor’s goods when you go to the grocery store and you want their products and food. wanting something that someone has for yourself is fine if it’s still respecting that it’s currently THEIR property and you can ASK if you can obtain it. except the wife part, that’s a done deal.

  4. Envy is tied to covetousness, it is nearly synonymous. Envy cannot be divorced from covetousness as it isn't just a wish but a resentment towards what another has, with a desire to acquire what the other has hidden within the resentment. It always results in covetousness and thus cannot be separated from it. Envy is evil. Lust on the other hand is just desire and has nothing to do with covetousness, although if left unchecked, it could lead to covetousness.

  5. You mean like how Bernie Madoff used his position to hide all his transactions in stock trade? Or, the Sacklers ability to not disclosed how addictive their drugs are? Or how the Rothschild help funded the Catholic church money to continue funding their ability to launder money?

  6. Obviously things don't belong to anyone before you buy them…. like wtf? I want to buy something, anything, then I want to own it but it is owned by someone else, so buying or wanting to buy something is a sin??? I want a hamburger because I'm hungry like any human being would be, the only way I can obtain one is to buy it from someone who owns it currently. If I don't already posses the money to buy a hamburger than I want the money first, and I can't obtain the money from anyone without wanting to own money that is owned by someone else…. so.. capitalism is based on a system of coveting, how can a capitalist be a Christian then?

  12. 1st Commandment – This one is just plain bullsht

    2nd Commandment – This is just the 1st one reworded

    3rd Commandment – God damn BULLSHT!

    4th Commandment – Which Sabbath? The Muslims say Friday, The Jews Say Saturday & the Christians say Sunday, da F*CK am I supposed to know?

    5th Commandment – You wanna honor parents who abuse their kids!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! F*CK YOU, I hope you get hit by a car and f*cking Die!!!!

    6th Commandment – More people have died in the name of GOD then any other reason on this planet.

    7th Commandment – Having sex with multiple partners creates genetics that keeps our species alive.

    8th Commandment – What if someone stole something from me and I steal it back?

    9th Commandment – What if lying saves someone life oh you know like Holocausts victims hiding in your attack!!!!!

    10th Commandment – Coveting creates jobs! You want a butt tickler with flashing lights, I want a job.

  22. Thank You PragerU. This is a great series that everyone should hear and further study. I’m inspired!

    In regard to envy and lust 2:32, I looked for a similar PragerU series on the seven deadly sins, but couldn’t find it. Just a thought:
    Pride
    Envy
    Greed
    Gluttony
    Lust
    Sloth
    Wrath

  23. Liberals and especially socialists foster the coveting of the wealth and property of other people. They encourage their followers to resent the success of others and the fact that those others may have something that they themselves do not.

    They operate under the assumption of the zero-sum fallacy, assuming that there is a more-or-less constant pool of wealth and that the players in the economy go after it any way they can, some by playing by “the rules” and other by circumventing the rules. As a result, some get much more of it than others, requiring the government to intervene in order to even it out somewhat.

    The economy is not a zero sum in the least. The GDP would be nearly constant from one year to the next if it were. The total wealth produced is the sum total of the individual producers. The left cannot understand why the wealthiest should be allowed to keep the wealth they have earned. The reason is simply that the wealth that they own would not exist if they had not in the first place done what they did to create it.

    The grossly false assumption is that every thousand dollars held by one person is a thousand fewer dollars to go around to everyone else.

    The success of one party in no way harms the material well-being of another. The increased prosperity of another is in no way at the expense of anyone else.

    The money of a wealthy person needs to be left alone in private sector where it will be pumped into the economy by the bankers who know how to invest it and, in the process, make the economy grow. Lower rates of taxation often lead to an increased tax base and, almost paradoxically, an actual increase in federal revenues.

  24. The tenth commandment demonstrates Jesus' point in the Sermon on the Mount that the Law requires not simply outward obedience but transformation of the heart. The evil that leads one to murder is starts out as hatred in the heart. The evil that leads to committing adultery starts out with lust in the heart. Jesus didn't change the standard of the Law but exposed how the Jews of that day had lowered the Law from what it truly requires. In order to perfectly obey the Law outwardly, you must perfectly obey the Law inwardly, which is why God must change our hearts and atone for our sins (at the cross).

  25. Dennis is being contradictory. He has said, "Looking with lust is not a sin in Judaism." Yet, coveting is a form of lust. Adultery starts with lust or coveting. To say what he said is a cover for sin.

    In Job it says “I made a covenant with my eyes not to look lustfully at a young woman. “If my heart has been enticed by a woman, or if I have lurked at my neighbor’s door, then may my wife grind another man’s grain, and may other men sleep with her. For that would have been wicked, a sin to be judged (Job 31:1‭, ‬9‭-‬11)." Job thought lusting was a sin and to be avoided.

  27. You forget that our bodies belong to ourselves. You claiming lust and envy are excluded from coveting is just flat out wrong. That's why it is difficult for you to justify with any reasonable amount of logic.
    I love you, but you are wrong my friend.

  31. Matthew 5:27-28 – "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall not commit adultery.'
    But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”

  34. Exodus 20:2-17
    You shall not covet (want what they exactly have) your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor’s.”
    Wow honestly ouff