Another look at sex, lust, and adultery Matthew 5:28 [this article was written several years after the similarly titled article posted already.]

One area of Bible studies that is greatly overlooked is the Septuagint. 

Most of you probably know that the Bible has two main parts: the Old Testament and the New Testament.  And that the Old Testament was originally written in Hebrew with a little Aramaic, and the New Testament was written in Greek.  The two languages are as different as possible. 

Several hundred years before the time of Christ, the Hebrew Old Testament was translated into Greek, and this was the primary Bible used by the New Testament writers.

The New Testament writers refer to the Old Testament hundreds of times, but you can’t really tell where when you compare the Old and New Testaments in English, and you can’t compare them either when one is in Greek and the other is in Hebrew.

But with the Old Testament in Greek, you can and should compare the use of words and phrases across both testaments.

Consider, for example, the Beatitude.  Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. 

What does it mean to inherit the earth?  I think most people will think that Jesus is referring to some future kingdom on earth, maybe the millennium, and you have to be meek to get into it. 

But that expression is found over 40 times in the Old Testament when it talks about the Israelites possessing the promised land.  The same words in Greek and Hebrew are used for to inherit and to possess.

Jesus’ listeners would have understood that beatitude as the meek possessing the land.

And the words for earth and land are the same in both Hebrew and Greek too.  A lot of time you’re not sure if the writer is referring to the earth or to the land, especially in Revelation and some of the prophets.

But our topic today is sex, lust, and adultery.

The most often used Bible passage when the subject comes up is Matthew 5:28:    but I Jesus say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

Now the Ten Commandments has one that says: Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife.  Not only that, but you shall not covet his house, or his male servant or his female servant or his ox or his donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbor.

Now the word for looking at a woman with lust in Matthew is the same word for covet in the Ten Commandments.  It’s a very common word in the Bible.  And you covet your neighbor’s wife in the same way that you covet his property.  It’s not a sexual lust; it’s envy that you act on.  You want what your neighbor has.  You don’t just admire it; you want it.

The word for woman in Greek and Hebrew is the same word as the word for wife.  Unmarried women in those days were very uncommon apart from widows.  And personal pronouns are often assumed rather than expressed.

So a better translation, in my mind, would be something like this: everyone who looks at another man’s wife and covets her has already committed adultery in his heart.

Now adultery and fornication are not the same thing, and the Bible writers, and Jesus here, don’t confuse them.  A few verses later, Jesus talks about divorce and mentions both adultery and fornication. 

Jesus is talking here about adultery.  If He was simply teaching against sexual lust and fantasies, then He would have called it fornication. 

Is there a difference between lust and coveting?  Yes.

 

If Jesus were merely talking about men fantasizing about a woman, then every man who is dating or is engaged is already committing adultery.  Heck, you have 13 year old boys committing adultery all day every day.  But wait.  How can it be adultery if nobody’s married? 

And He wouldn’t have called it coveting if the woman is not married, because an unmarried woman doesn’t belong to someone else.

Your welcome!