What Does Deuteronomy 5:21 Mean in the King James?
Neither shalt thou desire thy neighbour’s wife, neither shalt thou covet thy neighbour’s house, his field, or his manservant, or his maidservant, his ox, or his ass, or any thing that is thy neighbour’s.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The verse draws its boundary before the hand moves: desire can turn a neighbor’s whole life into a collection of things for oneself.
THE MEANING
The command reaches into the moment before possession: desire can make another person’s wife, home, field, work, and livelihood seem like things for the self. Its list, from wife to house, field, servants, animals, and “any thing”, draws one boundary around the neighbor’s whole life. The reader encounters that line at the level of regard, before anything changes hands.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie undone is that coveting is harmless until the hand takes what belongs to someone else; the verse places the boundary at the desire that has already made the neighbor’s good an object for oneself.
THE ROOT
תַחְמֹד
taḥmōd
GROWS FROM
חמד
To desire, take pleasure in, or regard as desirable.
“desire” in this verse is taḥmōd. The root family reaches from the inward pull toward a thing to the thing as prized. The command locates its boundary where another’s good becomes desirable as one’s own.
ALSO GROWS
neḥmād: Desirable, delightful.
נֶחְמָד
In Genesis 3:6, the tree is called desirable before it is taken; the same root shows how seeing another’s good as desirable can precede action.
maḥmād: A desirable or precious thing.
מַחְמָד
This form names something prized, illuminating how desire can reduce what belongs to a neighbor to an object of longing.
תִתְאַוֶּה
tit’avveh
GROWS FROM
אוה
To long for or desire.
“covet” in this verse is tit’avveh. The second verb turns attention from a neighbor’s wife to the house and everything belonging to the neighbor. Its root also names desire as an appetite, showing how the list can become a field of craving rather than a view of another person’s life.
ALSO GROWS
ta’avāh: Desire, longing, appetite.
תַּאֲוָה
This noun from the same root makes the craving explicit; here the command reaches the appetite directed toward what belongs to a neighbor.
hit’avvāh: To long for, crave.
הִתְאַוָּה
This verbal form from the same root describes the movement of craving itself, matching the verse’s attention to desire before taking.
THE PATTERN
Coveting can turn what is seen into something to take, revealing how desire can precede possession.
And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.And they covet fields, and take them by violence; and houses, and take them away: so they oppress a man and his house, even a man and his heritage.But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.THE THREAD
And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.“To be desired” is נֶחְמָד (neḥmād, desirable), from the same root חמד (ḥ-m-d, desire) as the first verb in this verse. Genesis places that root between seeing and taking; Deuteronomy applies its boundary to what belongs to a neighbor.
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