Theology Detail
Applied to: Right to repair and meaningful ownership
Exodus 20:17 is the tenth commandment, forbidding covetousness. It reaches beneath outward actions to the inward disposition—the desire to acquire, control, or monopolize what belongs to another.
“Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour’s.” (Exodus 20:17)
The tenth commandment closes the Decalogue by addressing the root of all violations of the second table: covetousness (chamad—to desire, to take pleasure in, to set the heart upon). Where the eighth commandment forbids the outward act of taking, the tenth forbids the inward disposition of grasping—the disordered desire for what belongs to another.
The scope of the commandment is comprehensive. It lists house, wife, servants, ox, donkey, and then closes with the catch-all: “nor any thing that is thy neighbour’s.” Nothing that belongs to another is a legitimate object of covetous desire.
The Westminster Larger Catechism (Q. 147–148) identifies the duties required by the tenth commandment as “full contentment with our own condition, with a right and charitable frame of spirit toward our neighbour, and all that is his,” and the sins forbidden as “discontentment with our own estate, envying and grieving at the good of our neighbour, together with all inordinate motions and affections to any thing that is his.”
The principle is this: the desire to control, monopolize, or acquire what rightfully belongs to another is sinful, even before it results in outward theft. Covetousness is the root; theft, fraud, and unjust dealing are the fruit.
This commandment addresses not only individuals but the posture of institutions. When a corporation designs its products and licensing structures not merely to protect legitimate interests but to capture the owner’s ongoing servicing, parts, and maintenance revenue—to make the buyer permanently dependent—the underlying disposition mirrors what the tenth commandment forbids: a grasping desire to control what has already passed into another’s hands.
The tenth commandment speaks to the right-to-repair question by exposing the motive behind certain anti-repair practices. Not all manufacturer restrictions are covetous. Some protect genuine safety concerns or legitimate intellectual property. But when restrictions are designed primarily to ensure that the manufacturer retains a monopoly on repair revenue—when the owner’s goods are treated as a perpetual source of extraction—the underlying impulse is the very grasping that the tenth commandment condemns.
Likewise, the commandment challenges consumers who demand access not to steward their own goods but to pirate, exploit, or undermine the legitimate work of others. Covetousness cuts both ways: the buyer may covet the manufacturer’s proprietary work, and the manufacturer may covet the buyer’s ongoing dependency.
The tenth commandment addresses the heart, not the details of commercial law. It does not provide a formula for distinguishing legitimate licensing restrictions from covetous rent-seeking. That judgment requires prudence informed by the principle.
It also does not teach that all profit from ongoing service relationships is sinful. A manufacturer who offers excellent repair service at fair prices is providing value, not grasping. The moral problem arises when the buyer is coerced into dependency—when repair monopolies are maintained not by superior service but by artificial barriers designed to prevent competition and extract maximum revenue from a captive customer.
Nor does this text support an envious populism that treats all corporate profit as inherently suspect. The tenth commandment forbids covetousness in all parties, including those who envy the success of others. The moral standard is contentment with one’s own estate and charity toward one’s neighbor’s goods.
The tenth commandment forbids the inward disposition of covetousness—the grasping desire to control what belongs to another. Applied to the right-to-repair discussion, it challenges both manufacturers who design artificial dependencies to capture ongoing revenue from owners, and consumers who seek to pirate or exploit the legitimate work of makers. The commandment does not settle specific policy questions, but it exposes the root sin that drives unjust practices on both sides: the disordered desire to take or control what rightfully belongs to one’s neighbor.