SIN

Part 2 -- COVETOUSNESS
A craving or passionate desire to have something that belongs to another is covetousness. Three words are translated covet in the Old Testament. In one version of the Ten Commandments -- Deuteronomy 5:21, the text reads, -- You shall not covet your neighbour's wife. -- The same Hebrew word occurs in -- Proverbs 21:26: -- All day long the wicked covets. Another word implies dishonest gain -- Hebrews 2:9. In Exodus, a third word is used in the list of the Ten Commandments for craving a neighbour’s wife -- Exodus 20:17. The same word is used to describe Achan’s coveting of the spoils of Ai -- Joshua 7:21; compare Micah 2:2. To covet is to desire something too much, to place the object desired ahead of Elohim. This idea of coveting is conveyed in the New Testament by a Greek word that literally means -- the inordinate desire to have more. This includes gluttony. The apostle Paul listed that kind of covetousness among attitudes that believers must rid themselves of. -- Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire and covetousness, which is idolatry -- Colossians 3:5; see also Ephesians 5:3; 1 Corinthians 6:10. Covetousness is a serious sin that leads to a variety of other sins. The love of money is the root of all evils -- 1 Timothy 6:9-10; compare Proverbs 15:27. It was the sin of Ananias and Sapphira -- Acts 5:1-3; 1 Samuel 15:9, 19; Matthew 26:14-15; 2 Peter 2:15; Jude 1:11. Yeshua warned: -- Take heed and beware of all covetousness; for a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions -- Luke 12:15. Another Greek word is translated as “covet” in the King James Version, but it means an -- earnest desire -- rather than a sinful one -- 1 Corinthians 14:39. The translators of the Old Testament who made the Greek Septuagint used another Greek word for the words that are translated as covet in English Bibles. In the New Testament the verb form of that word is used in both a positive and negative sense. It means -- to desire or long for, -- whether food/gluttony -- Luke 15:16, the divine mysteries -- Matthew 13:17; 1 Peter 1:12, -- some good thing -- Philippians 1:23; Hebrews 6:11 -- or some evil thing -- Matthew 5:28; 1 Thessalonians 4:5; 1 John 2:17. The noun form of the same word generally reflects an attitude of disobedience to the Law of Elohim -- an attitude in which desire has given place to an evil impulse that results in sin -- John 8:44; Romans 1:24; 6:12; 7:7-8; 13:14; Galatians 5:16, 26.