Following-up on yesterday’s post by Sam Stone: I have a question about a couple of commandments, namely #9 and #10.
Why is it that the coveting your neighbor’s house warrants a distinct commandment? Why couldn’t “the Lord” have combined them by simply placing a comma after the word house? C10 ends with the words, “nor anything that is thy neighbor’s.” Given those six words, C9 could have been clearly expressed as: Thou shall not covet anything that is thy neighbor’s.”
The biggest advantage of such a consolidation, of course, would be freeing space for another much more meaningful commandment like, “Thou shall not sexually molest innocent children” or “Thou shalt not collude with maniacal, murderous thugs and tyrants” or maybe, “Thou shalt not, like fly shit, plaster these edicts on any walls or spaces exempting those in your own homes and places of worship.”
A commandment like one of these could have been of immeasurable help to all of humanity. But I digress. Back to the original question: what the hell is so special about “thy neighbor’s house” that it deserved a special commandment?
Does anyone have any clue? I’m pretty confident that there’s more than a handful of xtian apologists out there who can explain it fully to me. I can’t wait to learn what it is.
Oklahoma State Capital decalogue
