The Seventh Commandment is not just
about sex. Adultery is not just about the
breaking of marriage vows.
As with the other
Ten Commandments, there is both
a moral and a spiritual
meaning to the Seventh Commandment. Both meanings
are based upon a
universal divine Principle that underlies the Law that was revealed
to Moses.
Because of that universal divine Principle, which could
be called “the Law of Love,”
people’s efforts to dismiss this particular
Commandment as outdated, useless,
unenforceable, forgettable, or not
applicable to modern man, will, at some point,
prove as harmful as
assuming that one can defy gravity by jumping off a cliff. It hurts!
Adultery, seen from a spiritual perspective, may be thought of as
looking outside of
our relationship with God for our completeness,
our happiness, our satisfaction, our
salvation. God commands us to
be loyal to Him. We practice this solemn loyalty by
taking our promises
seriously, and disciplining ourselves to be faithful to those who
are trusting in us to uphold our oaths. We learn in the Bible that
the marriage
covenant was considered to be of utmost importance. Purity,
chastity, and virtue,
both in and out of marriage, were highly valued.
We shall see that in today’s world
our
thinking must also remain pure,
by keeping it free from sinful beliefs which would
muddy or spoil
our spiritual vision. God’s Seventh Commandment, “Thou shalt not
commit
adultery,” speaks to us on many levels, and offers guidance to keep
us safe,
and on track, in our spiritual journey.
We will be exploring
these concepts in the sections below. A separate article with
ideas
for
teaching the Seventh Commandment to children and Sunday School
pupils will follow.
BIBLICAL BACKGROUND
There was already a moral
code against adultery in ancient civilization before
God gave Moses
the Ten Commandments. For example, in the story of
Joseph and Potiphar’s
wife (see Genesis 39), Joseph knew that it would be
a “sin against
God” to have sex with another man’s wife. This was hundreds
of years
before Moses led the Hebrews out of Egypt, and received the Ten
Commandments.
However, not everyone considered adultery a sin against
God – it was
more of a crime against property rights!
In those ancient times, a
woman was considered to be the property of her father,
and later of
her husband. A loss of affection had little to do with the crime of
adultery.
Property rights were involved, especially when it came to
the legitimacy of children.
Husbands had to be very careful to make
sure that the children his wife bore were
his, since his possessions
were to be passed along to them. This was serious
business!
“Because
women could bear a child with an ‘impure’ bloodline, introducing
a
‘foreign interest’ into a family, their sexual behavior tended to
be more
strictly supervised, and females were subject to severe penalties
for adultery
or premarital sex. The laws and moral codes of ancient
states exhorted men
to watch carefully over their wives ‘lest the
seed of others be sown on your
soil.’” (Coontz, Stephanie: “Marriage,
a History,” 2005; pg. 46)
“By the time we have written records of
the civilizations that arose in the
ancient world, marriage had become
the way most wealth and land changed
hands. Marriage was also the main
vehicle by which leading families
expanded their social network and
political influence. It even sealed military
alliances and peace treaties.”
(ibid)
That is why the early Jewish definition of adultery is very
specific. Jewish law states
that adultery is the intercourse of a
married woman with any man other than her
husband. It was not considered
adultery if a married man had sex with an unmarried
woman, such as
a concubine. An example is the relationship Abraham had with
Hagar,
who gave birth to Ishmael, Abraham’s first child. (see Genesis 16).
Chastity before marriage was also important in early Hebrew history.
In his book,
The Ten Commandments, William Barclay writes:
“The
supreme importance that the Jewish mind attached to chastity
can be
seen from the passage in Deuteronomy which provides for the
trial
of a bride whom her husband suspects of not being a virgin at the
time of her marriage, and for her death by stoning if the charge is
proved.”
(Barclay, William: "The Ten Commandments," pg. 88)
The early
penalty for adultery was also stoning. We read in Leviticus 20:10:
“The
man that committeth adultery with another man's wife, even he
that
committeth adultery with his neighbour's wife, the adulterer and
the
adulteress shall surely be put to death.”
So, why, if the penalty
was so severe, would any two people risk death to have sex?
It’s a
question still being asked today. As Barclay puts it:
“It is
the paradox of human nature that there was no sin regarded in
Judaism with
greater horror than adultery, and there was no sin which,
to judge
by the rebukes of the sages and prophets, was more common.”
(Barclay,
William: "The Ten Commandments," pg. 84)
Barclay explains the
influences in the regions surrounding the Hebrews. Ancient
people
worshipped the power of reproduction, because it was so strong. Men
visited
cult or temple prostitutes. Sex with them was “regarded as
an act of worship of the
reproductive force.” Barclay goes on to write:
“To the modern mind the connection of prostitution with religion
is
shocking; but it was extremely widespread in those days; and it
is
perfectly understandable when it is understood as the worship of
the
life and reproductive force. Human nature being such as it is,
it is easy to
see the attraction of this form of so-called worship;
and the basic purity
of Jewish worship is in such an environment all
the more wonderful, and
we shall see later that the Christian ethic
was faced with exactly the
same problem. The wonder was not that sometimes
the Jews drifted
into sexual irregularity; the miracle is that in
such an environment the
ideal of disciplined chastity ever came into
being at all, and that in the
end the ideal of purity won the day.”
(ibid, pg. 89)
Covenant with God
A covenant is a bond or agreement
made between individuals. In the Bible,
God made special covenants.
For instance he made covenants with Noah
(Genesis 9:13) and Abraham
(Genesis 15:18-21; 17:4-14). In Exodus 24,
we read of the first covenant
God made with the Hebrews.
Throughout the Old Testament, we see the
accusation of “adultery” leveled at the
Hebrews when they were guilty
of worshipping idols, or breaking trust with their
promises to God
to obey His laws. Adultery and fornication were useful symbols for
getting the Israelites to understand the crime of idolatry. We read,
for instance, in
Ezekial 16:
“Wherefore, O harlot, hear the
word of the Lord: Thus saith the
Lord God; Because thy filthiness
was poured out, and thy nakedness
discovered through thy whoredoms
with thy lovers, and with all the
idols of thy abominations, and by
the blood of thy children, which thou
didst give unto them; Behold,
therefore I will gather all thy lovers, with
whom thou hast taken pleasure,
and all them that thou hast loved, with
all them that thou hast hated;
I will even gather them round about
against thee, and will discover
thy nakedness unto them, that they
may see all thy nakedness.”
The
Old Testament records the tribulations of the Israelites as they wander
for forty years in the wilderness, their takeover of the Promised
Land, and then
the continuing problems they had keeping their part
of their covenant with God.
When they were obedient to God’s laws,
their society flourished; when they were
disobedient, they brought
punishment upon themselves. But God’s mercy was
ever available:
“The
New Covenant of the prophets grew up in the centuries after
Israel
had entered Canaan, and through experiences of personal and
national
suffering attained a spiritual awareness of the need for salvation.
Israel
had broken her covenant with God, but He was willing to write
in their
hearts a new compact (Jer. 31:30) which would be universally
available.”
(Harper’s Bible Dictionary)
We read in the book of Jeremiah: “Behold,
the days come, saith the
Lord, that I will make a new covenant with
the house of Israel, and with
the house of Judah: Not according to
the covenant that I made with
their fathers in the day that I took
them by the hand to bring them out
of the land of Egypt; which my covenant
they brake, although I was
an husband unto them, saith the Lord: But
this shall be the covenant
that I will make with the house of Israel;
After those days, saith the Lord,
I will put my law in their inward
parts, and write it in their hearts; and will
be their God, and they
shall be my people. And they shall teach no more
every man his neighbour,
and every man his brother, saying, Know the
Lord: for they shall all
know me, from the least of them unto the greatest
of them, saith the
Lord: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will
remember their
sin no more.” (Jeremiah 31:31-34)
In the first Covenant, God was a
“husband” to the Hebrews. They believed that
He promised protection
in exchange for loyalty and obedience. Although
adultery was a strong
symbol to the Israelites, the principle behind the idea of
a “covenant”
does suggest that adultery is more than just illicit sexual relations
between
men and women.
In the New Covenant, man is expected to look within
consciousness for God’s
law. Just as Joseph was able to understand
intuitively that adultery was wrong,
even though he did not have a
tablet of stone with such a commandment inscribed
upon it, we can be
sure that the Ten Commandments are within consciousness,
and operate
as spiritual law. If we live in harmony with God’s law, we prosper;
if
we try to set ourselves apart from the law, or above it, we bring
discord into our
lives. This is true of breaking the Seventh Commandment.
Betrothals and Adultery
Before moving to the teachings of Jesus, there
is some interesting commentary
on the subject of “betrothals” at that
time, which sheds some light on the situation
faced by Mary and Joseph.
The Hebrew custom was to have three steps: first,
an engagement; then
a betrothal, lasting about a year; then the wedding
ceremony. William
Barclay’s book on the Ten Commandments provides details
of what these
three steps entailed, but here is a brief segment on the betrothal:
“Betrothal
was as binding as marriage. A betrothed girl who was
unfaithful was
treated in the same way as an adulterous wife. Betrothal
could only
be ended by divorce. During the time the couple were known
and regarded
as man and wife. Should the man die, the girl was known
as a widow,
and in the law we find that curious phrase, ‘a virgin who is
a widow.’
This explains the relationship of Joseph and Mary as we find
in the
first chapter of Matthew. In verse 18 they are betrothed; in
verse
19 Joseph is called Mary’s husband, and he is said to wish to
divorce
her.” (Barclay, William: “The Ten Commandments,” 1973, pg. 100)
Thankfully,
Joseph listened to the angel message, and took Mary as his wife rather
than divorcing her; or worse, having her stoned. Joseph willingly
obeyed God’s
commands, proving that his allegiance to his covenant
with God was more important
than Jewish tradition. His purity of thought
allowed the angel message to be heard.
Click here to continue
Coming
Up: Jesus and the Seventh Commandment; Early Christianity and the
Seventh Commandment; Christian Science and the Seventh Commandment;
Dealing with the Temptation of Adultery; "Blessed are the Merciful";
Divorce?;
