You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife; and you shall not desire your neighbor’s house, his field, his male servant, his female servant, his ox, his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s. (Deuteronomy 5:17-21)
If you were to read these verses in Hebrew, you would see that all five of these commands are linked with the Hebrew letter called ו vav which is translated as the conjunction “and.” Interestingly, the form of the letter is regarded as a “hook” and, therefore, joins things together. The point is that all of these commands — each of them dealing with human relationships — are linked together. We are to conclude, therefore, that God told Moses to link all of these together in order to demonstrate that we should not prioritize human relationships. In other words, all of them very important and should be respected. A willingness to break one suggests that a person might be more inclined to break another.
Of course in our culture, we absolutely prioritize these prohibitions. For instance, murder would be considered more egregious than stealing and stealing more abominable than adultery, at least in the eyes of some. As we proceed through the list we see that society has abandoned the notion that one is as important as the other because, at least in my view, lying is a way of life for many; being jealous of a neighbor and his life has been politicized to the point that it is acceptable and preferred behavior. Let’s put it this way: when we started “unhooking” these commands and lessening their importance, the moral fabric of culture began to unravel — and continues to worsen.
As God’s people, it is part of our calling to make certain that all of God’s ways stay connected in our lives and to our lives. Never should we dilute His Word or diminish anything He has decreed just because culture finds it unpalatable. To the contrary, we should do all we can, as we are led by the Spirit, to reconnect that which has been disconnected by man’s carnal and rebellious nature. Yeshua said that the Adversary comes “to steal, kill and destroy” — or might we say rip apart and divide? We on the other hand are called to be those who are, to quote Isaiah, “Repairers of the Breach” (Isaiah 58:12). So then, let us be about the Father’s business and rebuild, restore and repair.
Blessings and Shalom,
Bill
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