What Do the Ninth and Tenth Commandments Mean?

The last two commandments—“You shall not covet your neighbor’s house… you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife,” or his workers, animals, “or anything that is your neighbor’s” (Exodus 20:17)—form a fitting climax to the Ten Commandments, because they turn from outward acts to the inward desires beneath them. The others largely address what we do; these address what we want. And that is precisely what makes them so exposing.

Here is the striking thing: coveting is a sin even when it never becomes an action. The other commandments can be broken in deed; these are broken in the heart alone—by the craving itself. This is why Paul said it was the commandment against coveting that finally undid his self-righteousness: he could imagine he’d kept the outward laws, but “I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, ‘You shall not covet’” (Romans 7:7). The commandment against desire reveals that the problem is not merely our behavior but our hearts—which want the wrong things, and want them wrongly.

Luther’s explanations add a subtle point worth noticing. He frames coveting not as merely wishing for good things, but as scheming to get what belongs to a neighbor “in a way that only appears right”—and, positively, as being called instead to help the neighbor keep what is his. So the commandment is not against enjoying good things or working for them honestly; it is against the grasping, envious heart that resents a neighbor’s blessings and would draw them away to itself.

Coveting is really a symptom of a deeper disorder—a heart not content in God, looking to things and to others’ things for the security and satisfaction only God can give. Which is why the cure is not merely willpower but the contentment that comes from trusting God: “keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, ‘I will never leave you’” (Hebrews 13:5; see also “How do I find contentment?”).

Held against these final commandments, no one is innocent—our very desires condemn us. And so the Law, which began by forbidding false gods, ends by exposing the idolatry of the heart—and drives us, one last time, to the Savior who alone can give us a new heart, content in him.