The Ten Commandments
Part 5 of 5
The ninth commandment: Exodus 20:16, “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.” Deuteronomy 5:20, “Neither shall you bear false witness against your neighbor.” The three preceding commandments concern wrongs inflicted upon a neighbor by actual deeds. The ninth commandment concerns wrongs inflicted by word of mouth.
You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor: This prohibition embraces all forms of slander, defamation and misrepresentation, whether on an individual, a group, a people, a race or a faith. This is not only in court but also in every day in dealings. This commandment prohibits any words that increase the amount of
misinformation in the world.
This commandment includes any words that enable a person to take advantage of another. When one bears false witness to another, he or she misleads that person. He or she is attacking the ability of a neighbor to make informed decisions.
Many misquote the commandment saying, “Thou shalt not lie.” You shall not bear false witness is far more comprehensive. “A truth told with bad intent beats all the lies one can invent.” Truthfulness must be moral. When words cease to be truthful or when used as a tool of revenge or malice, they become an abominable form of lying. God will not have us use truth to ruin another person or put one to open shame.
Words can endanger one’s neighbor in so many ways. I know that in my career as a professional manger that many times I have heard someone convincingly accuse another person of a wrong only to find out upon further investigation that the talebearer was wrong or had an ulterior motive. I learned to handle such information carefully until it could investigate thoroughly for some people use lies to hurt others in particularly evil ways. Matthew 26:59-62, “Now the chief priests and the whole council were looking for false testimony against Jesus so that they might put him to death, but they found none, though many false witnesses came forward. At last two came forward and said, ‘This fellow said, “I am able to destroy the temple of God and to build it in three days.” The high priest stood up and said, ‘Have you no answer? What is it that they testify against you?’”
Leviticus 19:16, “You shall not go about as a talebearer among your people.” (KJV) This commandment sees a talebearer as equal to a murderer since lies destroy a most precious possession in life, a person’s reputation. Bearing false witness means that we are not even to repeat unverified information that may get someone in trouble. “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself” means that we not only not say anything against our neighbor; we are to say positive things, honest things, optimistic things or say nothing at all.
Paul covers this quite well in Ephesians 4:25-32. “So then, putting away falsehood, let each of you speak the truth with your neighbor, for we are members of one another. … Let no evil talk come out of your mouths but only what is good for building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with which you were marked with a seal for the day of redemption. Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you.”
Lying or deceiving in ways that do detriment to the neighbor’s goods or property and theft are bound up with one another, restitution is a must. Leviticus 6:2-7,“When any of you sin and commit a trespass against the LORD by deceiving a neighbor in a matter of a deposit or a pledge or by robbery or if you have defrauded a neighbor or have found something lost and lied about it—if you swear falsely regarding any of the various things that one may do and sin—when you have sinned and recognize your guilt and would restore what you took by robbery or by fraud or the deposit that was committed to you or the lost thing that you found or anything else about which you have sworn falsely, you shall repay the principal amount and add one-fifth to it. You shall pay it to its owner when you recognize your guilt. And you shall bring to the priest, as your guilt offering to the LORD, a ram without blemish from the flock, or its equivalent, for a guilt offering. The priest shall make atonement on your behalf before the LORD, and you shall be forgiven for any of the things that one may do and incur guilt thereby.”
Restitution is an outward manifestation of an inward desire for repentance. It is a sign before God and the liar that the heart has changed. “Love the Lord ... and Love your neighbor?” God forgives while the people benefit. Both were offended, and both are reconciled.
In summary, the prohibition against bearing false witness is a guard against the capacity of words to endanger a neighbor’s reputation or to bring about a violation of the preceding commandments. Safeguarding thy neighbor by protecting truth protects thy neighbor’s marriage, life and property, for lying against a neighbor undoes reality. This commandment is a form of love thy neighbor and a significant sponsor of communal relations. Truth or pain, that is the choice.
The tenth commandment: Exodus 20:17, “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, male or female slave, ox, donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.” Deuteronomy 5:21, “Neither shall you desire your neighbor’s house, or field, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.” When comparing the Exodus and Deuteronomy versions, Exodus includes, “you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife.” Deuteronomy includes, “or field.” The Exodus and Deuteronomy versions together make the point: do not covet anything that is your neighbors.
If you will remember, in part of 1 of 5 in this series on the Ten Commandments, I explained that Protestants separated “Thou shalt have no other Gods before me” as Commandment 1 and “Thou shalt not make unto the any graven image” as Commandment 2. However, Roman Catholics combine those two commandments. Now we see that the Roman Catholics separate the Protestant tenth commandment into their ninth and tenth commandments. The Roman Catholics consider the verbs desire and covet as having different modes because they have different objects of the verbs. To Roman Catholics, one kind of covetousness looks only to usefulness and eye-appeal, the other to unlawful desire and criminal pleasure. For instance, he or she who covets a field or house pursues profit rather than pleasure, while he who covets another man's wife yields to a desire of pleasure, not of profit.
For Protestants, to covet is to desire anything that we cannot get in an honest and legal manner. The longing for what neighbor can be detrimental to him or her. The focus is on greed. That often results in insatiable desire for a neighbor’s possessions, material or relational. Coveting is about consuming thoughts that may lead to a strong desire. That desire may grow stronger to the point of one is devising schemes to obtain it. This Commandment goes to the root of all evil actions—the unholy instincts and impulse of predatory desire—which are the start of nearly every sin against a neighbor’s goods or false witness against a neighbor or to rob or to murder or to commit adultery. The commandment asks us to kill covetous thoughts at the very start, not to linger on them.
It is troubling to some people that this commandment is an apparent prohibition against feelings for the other commandments are about behavior and not feelings. Some people feel that it is not a sin to want someone else’s property as long as you do not act on that impulse. The question for them is, when does desire turn to lust and then to action. The response from those who disagree with even thinking about a want, a desire, squelching it at the very beginning so that it will not turn to lust and subsequently to action is the proper state of mind. In fact, both stances on this commandment demands self-control. Every person has in their power to determine whether their desires are to master him or her or is he or she the master of desires. Without self-control, there can be no worthy human life; control our passions is the measure of true manhood or womanhood.
Proverbs 21:26, “All day long the wicked covet, but the righteous give and do not hold back.” This last commandment warns against the kind of desire for what another has that may lead to violations of the other commandants specifically the prohibition against killing, adultery, theft and false witness. Coveting and taking arise out of a lack of trust in the God who has made and provided for us. Coveting turns possession of goods and accumulation of wealth into a god. This stands in sharp contrast to the generosity that lets go of possessions because of gratitude and trust in God. Trust God that one will have enough and does not need to covet or act to take from others what they have is a positive manifestation of the First Commandment to love and fear of God (Deuteronomy 6:4, 13). The prohibition against coveting is thus a safeguard of the goods of our neighbor.
It is not bad to desire. If we did not desire, we would not be human. However, we are to keeps our desires directed toward God. He made us for His joy. He wants us to trust and depend on Him. If we do not, we become inhumane.
No single commandment embodies the love of neighbor more that the commandment against coveting. It is a prohibition that from the start inhibits whatever inclinations we may have to do bad in our neighbor’s life or property or marriage or honor and all that is our neighbor’s. Avarice and desire when uncontrolled take over and turn us away from our ultimate devotion to the LORD of heaven, and earth who has made us and redeemed us. At the same time, we are reminded that when God created us (Genesis 2:7), then “the LORD God planted a garden” and made it a “desirable” place for us (Genesis 2:8-9) full of pleasant things. We live with both possibilities and restraint. With this desirable place, God gave us responsibilities that maximize our enjoyment and our neighbor’s enjoyment.
Matthew 19:16-30, Luke 18:18-30 and Mark 10:17-31, “As he [Jesus] was setting out on a journey, a man ran up, knelt before him and asked him, ‘Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ Jesus said to him, ‘Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments: You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness. You shall not defraud. Honor your father and mother.’ He said to him, ‘Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth.’ Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, ‘You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.’ When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.”
Paul in Romans 7:7-12, “What shall we say, then? Is the law sinful? Certainly not! Nevertheless, I would not have known what sin was had it not been for the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, ‘You shall not covet.’ But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of coveting. For apart from the law, sin was dead. Once I was alive apart from the law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died. I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death, or sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, deceived me, and through the commandment put me to death. So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good.”
We live in an increasingly consumer-oriented culture that clearly presumes the importance of desire in the human experience and shows us the possibility of human desire run wide. The first and primary restraint of the Tenth Commandment is on the desire that leads to violation of our well-being and the well-being of our neighbor. The second restraint is a reminder of the biased aspect of desire: even when not directed toward our neighbor, it may take over and become our consuming passion if not our god. “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, male or female slave, ox, donkey, [field] or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”
A brief word to end this series: The Ten Commandments are the foundation of Western Civilization’s culture and laws. They have a simplicity and reasonableness that when obeyed open up into a greater and richer life for all. They function as a guide to a moral life with God and neighbor. Thus, our obedience to them is an obligation to God and neighbor. The ten Commandments are divine in origin. If the world kept them, they would lead to all people living and flourishing.
