keep the Sabbath as He commanded them. Another indication that changed circumstances caused the alterations is noticed in the tenth commandment. Having arrived at the border of Palestine, the Israelites were about to take possession of houses and fields, and two and a half tribes were already in possession of landed property. The term “house” (‏בית‎), which at first denoted “the home” or “the household,” including the wife, was now in the minds of the people chiefly “a permanent building.” “The wife,” the centre and the chief element in the home, was therefore substituted for “the house” in the first part of the commandment, and vice versâ, “the house” for “the wife” in the second part, where appropriately “nor his field” has been added.—The substitution of “Thou shalt not desire” (‏לא תתאוה‎) for the original “Thou shalt not covet” (‏לא תחמוד‎) may have been intended to teach the Israelites that all kinds and degrees of desire were forbidden, and to remind them of the consequences of desire which they had experienced at “the graves of the desire” (‏קברות התאוה‎ Num. xi.).—One more important alteration is to be noticed, the conjunctive “and” (‏וְ‎) before the seventh and the following commandments, which served to create in the minds of the hearers the idea that the crimes forbidden in the second part of the Decalogue are to some extent connected, and that he who broke one of these commandments was likely to break the others also. We are thus bidden to be on our guard, and to take good care that none of them be violated by us.