Exodus 20:17

20:17 “You shall not covet ¹  your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that belongs to your neighbor.” ² 

Exodus 22:26

22:26 If you do take ³  the garment of your neighbor in pledge, you must return it to him by the time the sun goes down, ⁴ 

Exodus 2:13

2:13 When he went out ⁵  the next day, ⁶  there were ⁷  two Hebrew men fighting. So he said to the one who was in the wrong, ⁸  “Why are you attacking ⁹  your fellow Hebrew?” ¹⁰ 

[20:17]  ¹ tn The verb חָמַד (khamad) focuses not on an external act but on an internal mental activity behind the act, the motivation for it. The word can be used in a very good sense (Ps 19:10; 68:16), but it has a bad connotation in contexts where the object desired is off limits. This command is aimed at curtailing the greedy desire for something belonging to a neighbor, a desire that leads to the taking of it or the attempt to take it. It was used in the story of the Garden of Eden for the tree that was desired.

[20:17]  ² sn See further G. Wittenburg, “The Tenth Commandment in the Old Testament,” Journal for Theology in South Africa 21 (1978): 3-17: and E. W. Nicholson, “The Decalogue as the Direct Address of God,” VT 27 (1977): 422-33.

[22:26]  ³ tn The construction again uses the infinitive absolute with the verb in the conditional clause to stress the condition.

[22:26]  ⁴ tn The clause uses the preposition, the infinitive construct, and the noun that is the subjective genitive – “at the going in of the sun.”

[2:13]  ⁵ tn The preterite with the vav consecutive is subordinated to the main idea of the verse.

[2:13]  ⁶ tn Heb “the second day” (so KJV, ASV).

[2:13]  ⁷ tn The deictic particle is used here to predicate existence, as in “here were” or “there were.” But this use of הִנֵּה (hinneh) indicates also that what he encountered was surprising or sudden – as in “Oh, look!”

[2:13]  ⁸ tn The word רָשָׁע (rasha’) is a legal term, meaning the guilty. This guilty man rejects Moses’ intervention for much the same reason Pharaoh will later (5:2) – he does not recognize his authority. Later Pharaoh will use this term to declare himself as in the wrong (9:27) and God in the right.

[2:13]  ⁹ tn This is the third use of the verb נָכָה (nakha) in the passage; here it is the Hiphil imperfect. It may be given a progressive imperfect nuance – the attack was going on when Moses tried to intervene.

[2:13]  ¹⁰ sn Heb “your neighbor.” The word רֵעֶךָ (re’ekha) appears again in 33:11 to describe the ease with which God and Moses conversed. The Law will have much to say about how the Israelites were to treat their “neighbors, fellow citizens” (Exod 20:16-17; 21:14, 18, 35; 22:7-11, 14, 26; cf. Luke 10:25-37).