Exodus 20:17: “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that [is] thy neighbor’s.”
For you King James only people I just want to assure you that it is ok to substitute the word donkey in this verse. Especially if you happen to be reading this verse to a Junior High Sunday school class. Take it from a man of experience. There is no quicker way to lose control of your class than by quoting this verse directly from the King James Version. The Bible does not change, but the English language does. Actually, I would be more incline to suggest that the word for donkey chamar would best be suited to a mule. However, that is a city boy talking and I must defer to my Uncle Otto who was a farmer (you can read about him in my book, Biblical Truths from Uncle Otto’s Farm). Apparently a mule is not a donkey but a hybrid of a horse and a donkey. Mules were apparently specifically bred because they were considered to be more patient, hardy, faster, less obstinate, more intelligent and lived longer than a donkey.
Mules have been breed as far back as 3,000 BC in Ancient Egypt. They is no mentioned of mules in the Bible simply because we have traditionally taken the word gimmel to mean a camel. Yet, new research using radioactive-carbon dating techniques shows that camels weren’t domesticated until hundreds of years after the events documented in the Book of Genesis in fact camels were not domesticated until the 10th Century or the time of King David. This, little known fact would call into question such passages as Genesis 24:11, “And he made his camels to kneel down without the city.”
The good scholars of the National Geographic and CNN’s Joe Baden are very charitable in explaining that the Bible authors simply transplanted the nomadic standards of their time into the distant past and deception was not intended. In other words the Bible was not being deceitful just not accurate. It was written over a period of thousands of years by different writers and of course they could not know camels were not domesticated at that time. Of course for us evangelical Christians them are fightin words. All these scholars are doing is to use a pleasant way of saying that the Biblical record is not accurate and is fallible, proof positive. Well, I am not about to go to the mat without a good linguistical fight. If you take the Hebrew word for camel, gimmel, and trace it to its Semitic root you find it does not have to be restricted to a camel but only to an animal or even a person that carries a burden for another. In fact the ancient sages took the word gimmel as the name for the letter gimmel which represents lovingkindness or one who shows loving kindness by accepting the burden of another.
Mules are actually, in many ways, better desert animals than camels, they are faster and more intelligent and less obstinate than camels and much easier to manage. Unless we know for sure that the Bible is referencing camels we should render the word gimmel as mules and chamor as donkeys. I know this might upset your image of Abraham riding along on a camel as you see in your phony Hollywood movies, but, hey I have scientific carbon dating on my side.
So this brings up the question. If mules or gimmels were to be more highly prized than donkeys chamor in Biblical times then why does the commandment in Exodus 20 command us to not covet our neighbors mules or gimmels rather than chamors or donkeys? An even better question would be why does the Bible even list the things we are not to covet? I mean it does not give a list of things not to steal, it just says don’t steal. I mean my neighbor doesn’t even have an ox or donkey and I certainly would not covet his pet pit bull dog Sparky.
I believe the answer lies in the Hebrew word for covet. It is the word chamed which is closely related to the word chamor, or donkey. It actually carries the same Semitic root and would suggest that there is a play on words. The chamor (donkey) in its verbal form means to be agitated, to ferment or to be obstinate. That is a good description of a donkey. Actually, the word chamor is sometimes used for wine. The old saying should be rendered as stubborn as a donkey, not as a mule. The word chamed (covet) means an object of desire or something in which you delight. I once heard a Jewish grandmother refer to her granddaughter as her little chamed. So when we are commanded not to covet, it is more than just to desire something that belongs to our neighbor but we are not even to delight in something owned by our neighbor, lest we desire to steal it.
It seems the commandment runs from the most important possession of your neighbor to the least important. It starts with not coveting his wife to his manservant and maidservant to his ox and finally his chamor, the thing that is least value in his household. That is where we might find a play on words. We are not to chamed (delight, desire) something that is chamor (that which is the least valuable). How many times have you heard someone say, “Well, he will never miss it anyway.” “He has a millions dollars in the bank, he will never miss the thousand I can con him out of.”
When we see the list of the Ten Commandments it often just says, “Thou shalt not covet.” But that is not what the Bible is saying. It is ok to covert, chamed (delight, desire), like that Jewish grandmother chamed her granddaughter. What we are commanded to not do is chamed (delight, desire) something that belongs to our neighbor even that which is of the least value, causing you to seek to own it.
Well, at least I don’t have that problem with Sparky the Wonder dog.
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