Another Look at Lust and Adultery Matthew 5:28

Matthew 5:28 (NASB95) ²⁸ but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

A lot of Christians, especially those who want to go into the ministry, want to learn some Greek so that they can study the New Testament in its original language.  But that still isn’t the best reason for learning the language.

Most of the Bible was written in Hebrew, a very different language from Greek.  As a result, it is hard to make verbal connections between the two parts. 

However, the Hebrew part, the Old Testament, was translated into Greek about 300 years before the time of Christ, and that Greek Old Testament was the Bible used most often by the New Testament writers.  The Old Testament is alluded to around 4500 times in the New Testament, and it is by using the Greek Old Testament that you can clearly see the connections between the two Testaments. 

The passage quoted above is a good example. 

Comparing the Greek texts of both Testaments, this passage is a clear reference to the Ten Commandments in the Old Testament, the one about not coveting your neighbor’s wife.  The Greek word translated as ‘lust’ is the same word that the Bible uses to express coveting.  ‘Lust’ is a negative word, suggesting an excessive or wrongful desire, perhaps most often associated with sex.  The Greek and Hebrew words are neutral, the contexts defining the moral value of the act, but, as I said, this word is consistently translated as ‘covet’ throughout the Greek Old and New Testaments.  Any translation that translates it using words like lust or sex is interpreting and not strictly translating.  The word simply means desire.  But often in the Bible the sense is coveting.[1]

This word is used for coveting a man’s house, his servants, his animals, and anything that he has, including his wife. 

The Greek word for ‘woman’ is the same word for ‘wife.’  And personal pronouns are often assumed rather than expressed.

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

Why would Jesus add here the idea of looking to the idea of coveting?  In a previous article, we looked at a rich young ruler who had approached Jesus about gaining eternal life.  Coveting was an issue with the man, but Jesus used the expression of defrauding instead of coveting, because the man didn’t think he was coveting, so Jesus explicitly spelled it out for him.  Apparently coveting is not always that easy to recognize.  Here Jesus is noting that coveting can occur without any more physical action than looking. 

Coveting is not merely enjoying the experience of the object in question but the wanting of something that belongs to someone else.

This is a very different understanding of the verse than it is commonly understood.  Are there any other reasons to support this translation over the common one?  The key here is the word ‘adultery,’ which only speaks of a relationship between a married person and someone who is not the spouse.  There is a very common Greek word for fornication, which would express any kind of improper or wrong sexual union, and both words are used together in Jesus’ teaching about divorce a few verses further on.  So the words are not used indiscriminately or interchangeably.

So can a 14 year old boy thinking about his classmate at school be committing adultery?  No. 

When a man meets the love of his life and dwells on the thought of her day and night, is he committing adultery?  No.  As this verse is commonly understood, the courtship process itself would be a sinful process. We would be better off having arranged marriages where we don’t meet the future spouse until the wedding.

The question will be asked at this point: If coveting can occur without any outward action beyond looking, wouldn’t that suggest or mean that sexual thoughts not focused on one’s spouse are sinful, just as the traditional understanding of this verse has been understood.

If that was the point that `Jesus was trying to convey, He would not  have called it adultery, but fornication.  And He would not have called something coveting that applied to all women, because an unmarried woman was not seen as belonging to someone else.  And, lastly, if sexual thoughts were the real intent of Jesus’ words here, calling it adultery would suggest that knowing the marital status of the person involved is relevant, whereas in most cases it isn’t even known.

When you read the words of Jesus for a while, you sense that He clearly says what He means.  I I think His meaning is clear here, and He is not addressing those questions that preoccupy many Christian men today.

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[1] Exodus 20:17 “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife or his male servant or his female servant or his ox or his donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”
wÜoD:ba(ºw !èe("r te$Ø") dîom:xat-)×ol !Õe("r tyØ"B dÙom:xat )Ûol 20.17
p ;!×e("r:l rÛe$A) lÙokºw wêoromAxáw wØorO$ºw üOtfmA)áw
20.17 ou)k e)piqumh/seij th\n gunaiÍka tou= plhsi¿on sou. ou)k e)piqumh/seij th\n oi¹ki¿an tou= plhsi¿on sou ouÃte to\n a)gro\n au)tou= ouÃte to\n paiÍda au)tou= ouÃte th\n paidi¿skhn au)tou= ouÃte tou= boo\j au)tou= ouÃte tou= u(pozugi¿ou au)tou= ouÃte panto\j kth/nouj au)tou= ouÃte oÀsa t%½ plhsi¿on sou/ e)stin.  

Acts 20:33    I coveted no one's silver or gold or apparel.  RSV  Acts 20:33 a)rguri¿ou hÄ xrusi¿ou hÄ i¸matismou= ou)deno\j e)pequ/mhsa: 

Romans 7:7      What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet, if it had not been for the law, I should not have known sin. I should not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, "You shall not covet."      

Romans 13:9    The commandments, "You shall not commit adultery, You shall not kill, You shall not steal, You shall not covet," and any other commandment, are summed up in this sentence, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."