"... According to Jesus, if a man looks at another man’s wife for the purpose of coveting her, he has already committed adultery. The words chosen here (coveting somebody’s wife) go back to another provision from the Decalogue. In the Greek, the text of Exodus 20:17 and Deuteronomy 5:21 reads: “You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife”. In Matthew 5:27–28, two provisions from the Decalogue are combined. One provision is explained using the other. As a result of the term ‘to covet’, the focus shifts from the physical act to the step of desiring or lusting that precedes it. The evil is rooted in desire; adultery begins in a person’s heart, which, in the contemporary anthropology, was not primarily the seat of this person’s feelings but of thoughts or intentions. Jesus’ comment considerably tightens the prohibition of adultery. His stricter interpretation corresponds with the early-Jewish exegesis, in which the two provisions from the Decalogue were also frequently combined.10 There are also numerous parallels of the opinion expressed in Matthew 5:28 that adultery already begins with someone’s desires or intentions: see Job 31:9–12; Proverbs 6:25 (here a wife tries to seduce another man by making eyes at him); Sirach 9:8; 26:21; 41:20–21; Testament of Reuben 3:10; 4:1; 6:1; Testament of Issachar 4:1–4; Leviticus Rabbah 23:12; b. Berakhot 16a; 11QTa 59:14 ..."