How Should We View the Commandment Given at Exodus 20:14?

 “You shall not commit adultery" (NIV).

Some argue that this commandment is not a matter of ethics, but the Israelites were just promoting this directive because of property law. One writer contends that if we understand this command to prohibit a husband or wife cheating on one another, then we're dragging contemporary views into the passage (interpreting anachronistically). However, is Exodus really teaching that adultery is only wrong because it violates someone's property rights??

As we know, views of how this passage should be understood are diverse, yet I would submit that Jehovah (YHWH) never sanctioned adultery or wanton conduct in the Bible. If this command was just about property rights, then why did Joseph refuse to lay down with Potiphar's wife even before the Law of Moses existed, and articulated this law in writing? And why does the New Testament (Christian Greek Scriptures) likewise condemn adultery when property law clearly is not the issue there? Fornication and adultery are viewed as an affront to God, the one who originated marriage and the gift of sex (1 Corinthians 6:9-10; 1 Thessalonians 4:3-8), and adultery was known as the "great sin" in antiquity.

In addition to considering what the Hebrew Bible and New Testament state, I would like to consider the thoughts of some Hebrew Bible scholars:

Mark Rooker: Adultery, in the ancient Near Eastern world, can be defined as the consensual sexual intercourse of a married woman with a man who was not her husband. Adultery was considered the “great sin” in a number of civilizations, including the Egyptian and Syrian cultures (see Gen 20:9). It represented such a breach of faith in a marriage that it was analogous to treason. The commission of adultery (along with homicide) was so horrendous that it was thought to pollute the culture; these sins were thought to be offenses against the gods themselves.1 In ancient Mesopotamia, the failure to consummate a marriage or the commission of adultery were the only two grounds for a divorce.2 In Old Babylonian law, adultery was regarded as an offense against the woman’s husband,3 who could expel his wife and keep her dowry.

Rooker, Mark. The Ten Commandments: Ethics for the Twenty-First Century (New American Commentary Studies in Bible and Theology) (Kindle Locations 2662-2668). B&H Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

John Durham: Though a milder punishment was specified for other sexual offenses, as for example the seduction (Exod 22: 16– 17) or rape of a virgin (Deut 22: 28– 29), adultery, in any of the liaisons by which it was possible, was punishable by death. This attitude toward adultery is fully understandable only in view of the fact that more than the integrity of marriage and the home and more than the integrity of personal honor were at stake in the covenantal setting of Yahweh’s “ten words.” The integrity of the Israelite’s relationship with Yahweh himself was at stake. Everywhere in the ANE, Israel concluded, adultery was a crime against persons; but in Israel it was first of all and even more a crime against Yahweh (Gen 20: 9; 39: 9; Jer 3: 1, and cf. Kornfeld, RB 57 [1950] 100– 109, A. Phillips, Criminal Law, 117– 18). Most telling of all in this connection is the use of adultery as a description of Israel’s obsession with idolatry (Isa 57: 1– 13; Jer 3: 6– 9; Ezek 23: 36– 49, and all the references to Israel’s “great sin,” predominant among them Exod 32: 21– 34, which may involve, in the light of “to play” of 32: 6, a double entendre). Adultery with the husband or the wife or the betrothed of another was, like idol worship, a turning away from commitment to Yahweh.

Durham, Dr. John I.. Exodus, Volume 3 (Word Biblical Commentary) (p. 478). Zondervan Academic. Kindle Edition.

Douglas K. Stuart (Exodus, NAB Commentary):

This commandment does not explicitly condemn premarital sex, postmarital sex (as by a widow or widower), cohabitation without formal marriage, bestiality, or incest, all of which are dealt with elsewhere in various ways; but by implication it certainly does condemn all those practices.68 These other forms of sex outside marriage are indeed violations of God's laws, but it is sex outside marriage involving married people that is especially threatening to basic family stability and thus receives special focus among the Ten Commandments. Again the principle of law as paradigmatic is essential for appreciating the implications of this command: reasonable and careful extrapolation from the paradigm of the adultery law yields the realization that all sex outside of marriage, whether before, during, after, or instead of a person's actual legal marriage would be a violation of the divine covenant. Likewise, the commandment against adultery does not explicitly outlaw polygamy, a practice that, in fact, is not outlawed in the Bible. It is tolerated in the Old Testament (Deut 21:15–17) and denigrated in the New Testament (1 Tim 3:2,12; Titus 1:6) partly because ancient culture allowed it. Converts to Judaism or Christianity in the ancient world therefore often enough came from situations of polygamy, where a convert's divorcing all but one wife in order to achieve the desired monogamy would have represented an offense against marriage greater than polygamy. So polygamy was accordingly tolerated, but monogamy is everywhere in Scripture assumed as the ideal, as a creation ordinance (Gen 2:24) firmly reinforced by Jesus (Matt 19:5) and Paul (Eph 5:31).

John N. Ostwalt (Genesis and Exodus, The Cornerstone Biblical Commentary): So it is significant that the activity chosen to represent the whole area of sexual ethics is adultery. I think the reason for this becomes clear upon reflection. The Bible declares that any sexual activity outside exclusive, committed heterosexual marriage is contrary to God’s plan. By choosing adultery to represent all the rest, God is underscoring that point. Sexual behavior that destroys marriage is the antithesis of what sexuality was designed for. Furthermore, sexual behavior that undermines and denies covenant faithfulness flies squarely in the face of what sexual behavior was designed to do.