Series: Realities

Title: Thou Shall Covet

Teacher: Jacob Bender

Date: November 8, 2015

scriptures: Exodus 20:1-17, Psalm 19:10, Psalm 68:16, Proverbs 5:18, Philippians 4:11-14, Romans 7, Hebrews 12:2

In English, the word covet, is a bad word. In English it means “a yearning to possess or have something.”

I have heard it put this way, it is an inward grasping for something… something that is not yours... It means you don’t have something, and you yearn for it. Maybe we think we are nothing without it. We hear that word, and right away we default to the Ten Commandments. Right away, we think, this is a bad word. This is something that we must not do. Ever. Under any circumstances. I think that the word we typically associate to it is the word jealousy. Or the word envy… and where the command as a whole may be getting at that, those things are not the same as coveting, in the way it was written on the tablets. Not at all.

The Hebrew word written on the tablet that we translate as “covet” is the word “chamad” (huh-mad). And “chamad” (huh-mad) is a good thing. Its a beautiful word that demonstrates a satisfaction with what God gave you. The word “chamad” (huh-mad) means “Delight.” or “To take pleasure in.”

So when you say that you are coveting something, if you are actually quoting the tenth commandment, you are saying that you “Take delight in that thing.”

I covet my wife. I absolutely covet my wife. I take delight in her. In fact, as the days go by I hope and pray that my delight for her only grows and grows.

I covet my children.

Honestly, you should covet (chamad) your friends. Your friends carry a lot of weight. They are very valuable. You should delight in the fact that you have them. You should delight in your relationships. They are gifts.

To say you chamad something does NOT mean you are jealous of it, it means that you delight IN IT.

What you should not do, is covet your friends house.