The Pulpit Commentary on Exodus 20:13-17

The Pulpit Commentary · Joseph S. Exell and contributors · Public domain

Our threefold duty to our neighbour.

I. HE IS NOT TO BE INJURED IN ACT.

1. His life is to be held sacred. It is God's great gift to him and it is God's only to take it away, by express command, or by his own judgment. This is a law for nations as well as individuals. In every unjust war this command is trampled under foot.

2. His home is sacred. The wreck of homes which lust has made! The holy, loving refuge of childhood and youth desolated, and its very memory made a horror and anguish!

3. His property is sacred. It is the man's special stewardship from God. God can bless us also, for all things are his, but this stands between our neighbour and the Master, to whom he must render his account.

II. HE IS NOT TO BE INJURED BY WORD. We may lay no hand upon his life, his home, his goods, and yet our tongue may wound and rob him. We may cause respect and love to fall away from him wrongfully. Our dimininishing aught of these, save as the servants of truth, is a crime before God.

III. HE IS NOT TO BE WRONGED IN THOUGHT. God asks not only for a blameless life but also for a pure heart, in which lust and hate and envy and greed have no place. Sin is to be slain in its root.—U.

HOMILIES BY G. A. GOODHART

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