coveting

[cellio]

Our torah-study group got to the last of the ten commandments on Saturday. In English it's usually rendered "do not covet your neighbor's wife; do not covet [property, livestock, etc]". In the first version, in Exodus, the same word is used for "covet" both times -- "tachmod". In the repetition in Deuteronomy, the first is "tachmod" and the second is "titaveh".

"Titaveh" is the word that's used when the people demand meat instead of manna in the wilderness. It's a strong, negative, feeling. JPS translates it as "crave", which fits the incident with the quail. The people were so persistent and demanding that God rained down dead quail upon them until they were waist-deep in it. The people gorged on it and a lot of them died.

It's possible that the second phrase, which lists a bunch of things not to covet (or crave), is just amplification, as it ends with "nor anything that is his". If it's not amplification, and we're meant to see these as two ideas -- don't covet the wife and don't crave the property -- it's striking that the property gets a sterner warning than the wife. I mean, isn't it more important to protect people from unwanted attention than to protect property? Or is it, instead, saying that craving property is bad and merely desiring another's spouse is equally bad? Could be either, both, or neither -- there are 70 faces to the torah. So nothing deep here, but the question grabbed me.

This is the sort of thing I'd expect Rashi to have something to say about, but he just says the words are synonyms. Gee, thanks. :-)

Comments

[cellio]

It is true that wives are a kind of property -- with the protections of the ketubah, to be sure, but marriage is a business transaction in which the man acquires a wife.

But wives seem to be different from other property. The penaltry for adultery is death; the penalty for other theft is compensation and fines. I had read this as saying that wives are more important than other property, but maybe I've got that backwards -- if someone steals your flock you at least get something out of it (if the guy is caught). Hmm. *twists brain*

I don't necessarily emphasize individual word choice all that much -- it's a curiosity and sometimes a jumping-off point for a train of thought, but not necessarily any more. The classical commentators, though, believed that every word of the torah was written by God, who of course is perfect, so there would be no mistakes. It's those sources that I would expect to have something to say on this.

[goldsquare.livejournal.com]

But wives seem to be different from other property. The penaltry for adultery is death; the penalty for other theft is compensation and fines. I had read this as saying that wives are more important than other property, but maybe I've got that backwards -- if someone steals your flock you at least get something out of it (if the guy is caught). Hmm. *twists brain*

Indeed, wives were a special class of property, where the property had RIGHTS. Backwards from today, forward looking for then..

It is true - what does a dead mamzer gain me? Revenge does so little..... And it is also true that sheep and cows are fungible, but wives (one hopes) are not. And the "theft" changes/ruins the value of the property.

Hmmmm.... I am increasingly uncomfortable with discussing people as property, and yet somehow fascinated with the twists and turns of all that it implies.

[cellio]

Hmmmm.... I am increasingly uncomfortable with discussing people as property, and yet somehow fascinated with the twists and turns of all that it implies.

Same here.

And despite the property status, tradition gives women elevated status in some areas. Maybe property in the historical context, but valuable property.