February 19, 2011: On The Meaning And Application Of Matthew 5:28

Matthew 5:27-28: You have heard that it was said, ‘Do not commit adultery.' But I tell you that anyone who even tries to seduce a woman has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

It is very unlikely that you have ever seen Matthew 5:28 translated the way I have it above. In all Bible versions I know, and in every sermon I have ever heard on the subject, the Greek wording of Matthew 5:28 is interpreted to mean "Anyone who looks at a woman to lust after her has already committed adultery with her in his heart."

Imagine my amazement when I discovered, in reading a commentary by top Greek scholar D. A. Carson, that the traditional understanding of this verse is wrong. How wrong? Believe it or not, best grammatical evidence suggests that the subject of the verb "to lust" (or "to desire") is not the man but the woman! That is, the sense of the verse is, "Anyone who looks at a woman in order to get her to lust has committed adultery with her in his heart". Or, more succinctly in English, "Anyone who tries to seduce a woman...". Jesus is condemning not merely the act of adultery but even the look (not to mention the schemes!) by which a man would seek to entice a woman who is not, and can never be, his wife.

Carson writes, "The evidence for this interpretation is strong," but now that I have investigated the Greek myself I would go further and say it is decisive. The following discussion is a little technical; if you would like to skip it, go to the practical application that starts several paragraphs below with the words, "Where does that leave us?"

First, the verb. epithumēo means "[I] desire." Sometimes that is a bad thing ("lust," "covet"); sometimes it is a good thing, as in 1 Timothy 3:1: "If any man aspires to be an elder, he desires a good thing." Context determines whether it is good or bad. So I will translate it with the neutral word "desire."

The verb "desire" in New Testament Koine Greek usually does not take a noun as a direct object. Sometimes there is no object at all:

Romans 7:7; 13:9: You shall not desire [i.e., You shall not covet]
James 4:2: You desire but do not have [i.e., You lust but do not possess]

And sometimes the object is a whole verb phrase - the desire to do something:

Luke 22:15: "I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer."
1 Peter 1:12: Even angels desire to look into these things.

In the Matthew 5:28 passage, the traditional interpretation understands the verb to have an explicit direct object: "He desires her." In the interpretation that Carson prefers, "She desires," the verb functions in its more typical role - that is, without an overt nominal direct object.

Second, the case marking. If the Greek word for she/her is the direct object of "desire" in Matthew 5:28, then it's in the wrong case! In every other instance in the New Testament where the verb "desire" takes a noun as its direct object, the noun is in the genitive case:

Acts 20:33: I have not coveted (desired) anyone’s silver [genitive] or gold [genitive] or clothing [genitive].
1 Corinthians 10:6: Now these things occurred as examples to keep us from setting our hearts on (desiring) evil things [genitive] as they did.
1 Timothy 3:1: Here is a trustworthy saying: If anyone aspires to be an elder, he desires a noble task [genitive].

The Greek word for "her" in Matthew 5:28, however, is not in the genitive case. It is in the accusative case.

Third, the verb "desire" in Matthew 5:28 is infinitive: "to desire." Guess what Greek does to a noun when it wants to make it the subject of an infinitive verb? It puts it in the accusative case! English does the same. We say, "I expect him to run for mayor," not, "I expect he to run for mayor." We say, "In order for him to achieve his goal...", not "In order for he to achieve his goal...".

So, the grammatical case of the Greek word "her" is not what you would expect if the woman were the object of "to desire," but it is what you would expect if the woman were the subject of "to desire."

Fourth, we have a parallel grammatical construction in Luke 18:1 that everyone agrees on. In English it reads, "Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up." Very literally in Greek, the key parallel phrase reads

about the to pray them

which matches perfectly with Matthew 5:28's

about the to lust her

In Luke 18:1, it goes without saying that the third person plural pronoun is the subject of "pray": they are the ones who are doing the praying. Likewise, in Matthew 5:28, the third person singular feminine pronoun is the subject of "desire": she is the one who is doing the desiring. If the grammatical construction of Luke 18:1 were interpreted according to the traditional understanding of Matthew 5:28, we would have to assume that the disciples were the ones being prayed to! Carson is correct: Matthew 5:28 means, "Whoever looks at woman in order to inspire her to lust has committed adultery with her in his heart."

Where does that leave us?

In Matthew 5:28, what Jesus is doing is ripping open a man's heart to expose his adulterous intentions. It is not enough to say, as a Pharisee might, "I have never committed adultery or fornicated." There is a deeper question to be asked: "Have you ever tried?" For many men, the only reason they are not adulterers is because the women that they longed to seduce were turned off by them! But their failure to get women to be immoral with them does not count as a point in their favor when reckoning sexual purity. God sees them as adulterers.

Here Jesus condemns even the subtlest measure - the look, the meaningful gaze - whose intent is to arouse an unavailable woman's affection and to win sexual favors from her. Whether the man succeeds in his attempted conquest is beside the point. What matters is his purpose. The "player," as we might call him, sends out signals, subtle or bold, in hopes of inspiring in some woman a desire for himself which might result in sexual gratification without marriage. A good passage to cross-reference with Matthew 5:28 is 2 Timothy 3:5-6, where Paul instructs Timothy to avoid seemingly godly men (they have "a form of godliness") who are actually vile hypocrites. One expression of their wickedness: "They are the kind who worm their way into homes and gain control over weak-willed women." That is, they would exploit a woman's vulnerability rather than protect her virtue.

I mentioned last week that one of the features of George MacDonald's novels that so appeals to me is the gracious and gentle way that the good men in his books treat the women of their acquaintance. Sometimes they marry and sometimes they don't. But whether single, courting, or married, they behave as perfect gentlemen with regard to the opposite sex. They neither exploit them nor shun them. They are sensitive to feminine weakness without being patronizing. When they find that, quite by accident - just by being themselves - they have aroused the passion of some woman whom they will not marry, they treat her with beautiful kindness from a respectful and appropriate distance.

Christian men must do likewise. We must guard not only our own hearts but those of our sisters. The only woman for whom you are permitted to stir up a desire for yourself is the woman whom you are willing to marry. Or to whom you are already married.