FOWC with Fandango — Neighbor
You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or ass, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.
This is the last of the ten biggies, at least as we currently view them. The lack of punctuation and vagueness of Hebrew for that ancient time makes figuring out where one commandment ends and the next begins a bit tricky.
So there we were, Garry and I, in the car. Driving home. I was mentally shuffling a heap of miscellaneous rubbish that passes for my brain and for no particular reason, trying to remember all ten of the commandments.
Why? Because I thought I should know them. Shouldn’t we all? They are supposedly the basis of moral law, right? Why don’t I know them? Why aren’t they all on the tip of my tongue?
I found myself at a full stop around seven or eight, depending on how I divided the “How to behave to God” section which contains a lot of run-on sentences that could be interpreted as two or sometimes even three commandments but all have been lumped into a single “be good to God” commandment.
I asked Garry if he knew the ten commandments. He replied, with some asperity, that he had to pay attention to the traffic. There wasn’t any traffic, except for one slow driver in front of us. I suppose Garry was trying to not ram him. Finally, he admitted he didn’t know all of them, at least not in order. And he spent years in Sunday school and church, too … so he really ought to know. Lutheran. They do that stuff, right?
“A sad state of affairs,” I pointed out, “When two educated souls cannot recite the ten commandments.”
“There’s a lot of stuff about not making idols. Not murdering or coveting.”
“Yeah, and taking one day off each week.”
When I got home, I looked them up.
Charlton Heston and the 10 commandments
It turns out there are many “proper behavior to God” commandments. Not all Christians, or Jews, divide commandments in the same way. You can count as many as fifteen (à la Mel Brooks in “History of the World, Part I”) or as few as eight. It depends on how you look at them — and punctuate the sentences.
Following are the Big Ten according to most Protestant sects.
Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:2-17 NKJV)
1 – “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before Me.
2 – “You shall not make for yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My Commandments.
3 – “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain.
4 – “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.
5 – “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you.
6 – “You shall not murder.
7 – “You shall not commit adultery.
8 – “You shall not steal.
9 – “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
10 – “You shall not covet 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 ass, nor anything that is your neighbor’s.”
I’ve always wondered how come we need laws from God to know that murder is not okay. Aren’t we born knowing this? Don’t we know without being told that stealing is bad? That we should take care of our parents and show them respect? Do we really need laws to tell us?
In the tenth, it’s covetousness, which is not good because jealousy is okay for God, but not for us. That is also where your neighbor’s ass comes into the picture, one of the many things you are not supposed to covet.
I’m just here to help.
