The coveting which the tenth commandment forbids is the root from which the crimes forbidden in the four preceding commandments spring. Coveting is a desire to possess what we cannot get in an honest and legal manner. An instance of such coveting is the desire of Ahab to possess the vineyard of Naboth. It must have been more than an ordinary desire, for it led him to most wicked acts (1 Kings xxi.). It is not every desire that is prohibited. If we see a thing that pleases us, we begin to feel a desire for its possession. Our reason must then step in and tell us whether we can obtain it in an honest way or not. In the latter case we must conquer our desire and suppress it, lest it obtain the mastery over us. We must work and try to make progress. We cannot be blamed if we are not quite content with our present condition, and wish to improve it. Without such a desire all industry and progress would disappear. But we must consider that the improvement of our material condition, the increase of our property, is not the whole mission of man. We must not forget that we have a higher mission: to improve our heart and our moral conduct, and to make ourselves worthy of being called “the children of God.” The increase of our property must not impede the progress of the purity and goodness of our heart. The tenth commandment— (1.) Forbids us to covet that which does not belong to us; and (2.) Commands us to suppress any such desire when it rises in our heart. Note 1.—There is another way of enumerating the Ten Commandments, namely, to combine the first and the second into one, and to divide the tenth into two. The Masoretic text seems to point in this direction; for there is no pause between the first and the second commandments, while there is one in the middle of the tenth. The inference from the Masoretic text, however, is not quite certain. It is possible that the first two commandments were joined closely together in order to separate more pointedly those commandments in which God speaks of Himself in the first person from those in which He speaks of Himself in the third person; or, to use the words of the Midrash, to separate the first two, which the Israelites heard directly from God, from the rest, which they heard through Moses. The last commandment was, on account of its great importance, given in two different forms. In the first the general term “house” is employed; in the second the various elements constituting the “house” are enumerated instead. The two forms of the commandment are separated by the sign of a pause, because each of them is complete in itself. Tradition supports our division of the Decalogue. “I am” (‏אנכי‎) and “Thou shalt not have” (‏לא יהיה לך‎) are mentioned in Talmud and Midrash, also in Targum, as two distinct commandments. According to Philo (On the Ten Comm.) and Josephus (Antiq. III. v. 5), the verse, “Thou shalt have ... before me” belongs to the first commandment.