Covet your neighbour's wife/goods

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Flame4

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I’ve always wondered why these are two different statments : You shall not Covet your neighbour’s wife, You shall not covet your neighbour’s goods. Whats the difference? Why are they seperate commandments.

Thank you in advance
 
Flame4 said:
I’ve always wondered why these are two different statments : You shall not Covet your neighbour’s wife, You shall not covet your neighbour’s goods. Whats the difference? Why are they seperate commandments.

Thank you in advance
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my guess is that if they were one commandment the feminists would be up in arms. as it is I can’t imagine why they are not protesting they need equal treatment with a command not to covet your girlfriend’s husband
 
*Dear Flame4,
I always took it to mean that you do not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor any object that belongs to your neighbor, such a furniture, money, etc. (other things that are objects and not human).
It is definitely wrong (a sin) to do anything that involves stealing or taking something that does not belong to you … human or otherwise.
God Bless,
Angel Face
*
 
Flame4 said:
I’ve always wondered why these are two different statments : You shall not Covet your neighbour’s wife, You shall not covet your neighbour’s goods. Whats the difference? Why are they seperate commandments.

Thank you in advance
Click to expand...
For Protestants, they aren’t two separate commandments. They combine these into one, and split our First Commandment into two.

As to why we keep them separate, see the Catechism: “In the Catholic catechetical tradition, the ninth commandment forbids carnal concupiscence; the tenth forbids coveting another’s goods.”

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There is a parallel structure in the last six commandments: killing/lying are acts/words against a person, adultery/lust (coveting thy neighbor’s spouse) are acts/attitudes of sexual immorality, and stealing/coveting goods are acts/attitudes of greed. This vanishes if you follow the “Protestant” numbering convention.

Having said that, it is true that there are no “numbers” in the Scripture, there are multiple - at least 2 “complete” and several other “fragment” lists of the Commandments in the Torah, which are not exactly the same each time, and in the Exodus 20 version, which is the one generally cited, there are 13 or 14 imperative verbs - so obviously some of them are part of other commandments, if you are going to reduce the whole to a Decalogue that you can count on your fingers.
 
Ah I see that your neighbour’s wife is not a good…but I just assumed covet meant envy and wondered why enving people and goods was seperated. Thank you.
 
Good points all around here. I’d like to add my own $0.02 by noting that while both may appeal to envy they also have accompanying vices that are quite distinct: lust vs. greed.
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