Avarice

Avarice is the inordinate love of money and the appetite for gain that is never filled. Scripture treats it as a covenantal sin (the tenth commandment), as a recurring failure of leaders both civil and pastoral, as an inner wound that destroys the household and the soul, and finally as a folly the wise man names plainly: silver does not satisfy the man who loves silver.

The Tenth Word and the Reach of Coveting

The decalogue closes with avarice as a sin of the heart, naming both household and neighbor. "You will not covet your fellow man's house, you will not covet your fellow man's wife, nor his male slave, nor his female slave, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your fellow man's" (Ex 20:17). The prophets pick up this line and trace covetousness through every rank — "from the least of them even to the greatest of them everyone is given to covetousness; and from the prophet even to the priest everyone deals falsely" (Jer 6:13) — and through the courtroom and the dock alike: "they covet fields, and seize them; and houses, and take them away" (Mic 2:2). Even those who sit before the prophet to hear his words can be condemned by their own appetite, "for with their mouth they show much love, but their heart goes after their gain" (Ezek 33:31).

The Psalm sets the heart-attitude in worship terms. "For the wicked boasts of his soul's desire, And the covetous curses, [yes,] scorns [the Speech of] Yahweh" (Ps 10:3). Proverbs reaches the same verdict: "The leader who lacks understanding is also a great oppressor; [But] he who hates covetousness will prolong his days" (Prov 28:16).

The Love of Money in the New Testament

Jesus issues the umbrella warning. "Take heed, and keep yourselves from all greed: for a man's life does not consist in the abundance of the things which he possesses" (Luke 12:15). The Pharisees, hearing him on stewardship, reveal their own diagnosis by their reaction — "the Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all these things; and they scoffed at him" (Luke 16:14).

The Pauline catalogues of vice put greed alongside the gravest sins of the body and rank it as idolatry. "But whoring, all impurity, or greed, don't let it even be named among you⁺, as becomes saints" (Eph 5:3); "put to death therefore your⁺ members which are on the earth: whoring, impurity, immoral sexual passion, evil desire, and greed, which is idolatry" (Col 3:5).

The pastoral epistles compress avarice into the now-classic line: "For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil: which some reaching after have been led astray from the faith, and have pierced themselves through with many sorrows" (1 Tim 6:10). The same letter warns that "those who are minded to be rich fall into a temptation and a snare and many foolish and hurtful desires, such as drown men in ruin and destruction" (1 Tim 6:9). Hebrews names the alternative — contentment held up by divine presence: "Be⁺ free from the love of money; content with such things as you⁺ have: for he himself has said, I will never fail you, neither will I ever forsake you" (Heb 13:5).

The Disqualified Overseer

The qualifications for the overseer make the absence of avarice a structural requirement, not a moral garnish. "The overseer therefore must be without reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate, sober-minded, orderly, given to hospitality, apt to teach; no brawler, no striker; but gentle, not contentious, no lover of money" (1 Tim 3:2-3). Titus echoes the line: "For the overseer must be blameless, as God's steward; not self-willed, not soon angry, no brawler, no striker, not greedy of monetary gain" (Tit 1:7). The reverse profile is also given — the corrupted teacher is "supposing that godliness is a way of gain" (1 Tim 6:5).

The same disqualification reaches Israel's earlier leadership. Samuel's sons "didn't walk in his ways, but turned aside after greed for monetary gain, and took bribes, and perverted justice" (1 Sam 8:3). Isaiah's negligent shepherds match them: "Yes, the dogs are greedy of soul, they can never have enough; and these are shepherds who cannot understand: they have all turned to their own way, each one to his gain, from every quarter" (Isa 56:11). Micah condemns judge, priest, and prophet together: "The heads of it judge for reward, and its priests teach for wages, and its prophets tell the future for silver" (Mic 3:11).

Wisdom on the Insatiable Eye

Wisdom literature watches the avaricious man closely and finds him solitary. Ecclesiastes draws the portrait: "Then I returned and saw vanity under the sun. There is one who is alone, and he has not a second; yes, he has neither son nor brother; yet is there no end of all his labor, neither are his eyes satisfied with riches. For whom then, [he says], do I labor, and deprive my soul of good? This also is vanity, yes, it is an intense travail" (Eccl 4:7-8). The same book gives the line that has come to stand for the whole topic: "He who loves silver will not be satisfied with silver; nor he who loves abundance, with increase: this also is vanity" (Eccl 5:10). Even gathered abundance dissipates among the eaters: "When goods increase, those who eat them are increased; and what advantage is there to the owner of them, except for looking at [them] with his eyes?" (Eccl 5:11).

Proverbs makes the household consequence concrete. "He who is greedy of gain troubles his own house; But he who hates bribes will live" (Prov 15:27). The greedy man devises ambush — "we will find all precious substance; we will fill our houses with spoil" (Prov 1:13) — but the path doubles back on him: "So are the ways of everyone who is greedy of gain; It takes away the soul of its owners" (Prov 1:19). And the heart of avarice, set beside the righteous, is exposed for what it is: "There is one who covets greedily all the day long; But the righteous gives and does not withhold" (Prov 21:26).

Sirach extends this same wisdom diagnosis. The avaricious man punishes himself: "There is one who makes himself rich by afflicting himself; And there is one who hides his wages" (Sir 11:18). His withholding becomes another's plunder: "He who withholds from his soul will gather for another; And a stranger will squander his good things" (Sir 14:4); "He who is evil to his soul, to whom will he do good? And he will not meet with his good things" (Sir 14:5); "He who is evil to his soul, none is more evil; And with him is the reward for his evil" (Sir 14:6). The same self-inflicted wound shows in his treatment of others: "In the eye of him who stumbles, his portion is little; And he who takes the portion of his fellow man, wastes his own portion" (Sir 14:9); "The eye of him with an evil eye pounces on his bread; And there is turmoil at his table" (Sir 14:10). Sirach names the moral cost directly: "Many have sinned for the sake of gain, And he who seeks to multiply [gains] turns away his eye" (Sir 27:1). The pursuit is restless: "The rich man labors in gathering wealth, And if he rests it is to gather luxuries" (Sir 31:3); "He who runs after gold will not be guiltless, And he who loves gain will go astray by it" (Sir 31:5).

The Prophets on Ill-Gotten Gain

The prophets pronounce woe on gain wrongly accumulated. "Woe to him who gets an evil gain for his house, that he may set his nest on high, that he may be delivered from the hand of evil! You have devised shame to your house, by cutting off many peoples, and have sinned against your soul" (Hab 2:9-10). Jeremiah uses the partridge-on-stolen-eggs image: "As the partridge that sits on [eggs] which she has not laid, so is he who gets riches, and not by right; in the midst of his days they will leave him, and at his end he will be a fool" (Jer 17:11). Tyre's policy of accumulation is described without comment, the heap itself the indictment: "And Tyre built herself a stronghold, and heaped up silver as the dust, and fine gold as the mire of the streets" (Zech 9:3). Amos sees the same appetite trampling the powerless: "those who pant after the dust of the earth on the head of the poor, and turn aside the way of the meek" (Amos 2:7).

James turns this prophetic register on the wealthy of the last days, and the corroded hoard itself becomes the witness: "Your⁺ gold and your⁺ silver are corroded; and their corrosion will be for a testimony against you⁺, and will eat your⁺ flesh as fire. You⁺ have laid up your⁺ treasure in the last days" (Jas 5:3).

Avaricious Men, Named

Scripture supplies a roll of avaricious men by name. Achan saw the spoil at Jericho and broke the ban: "when I saw among the spoil a goodly Babylonian mantle, and two hundred shekels of silver, and a wedge of gold of fifty shekels weight, then I coveted them, and took them; and, look, they are hid in the earth in the midst of my tent, and the silver under it" (Josh 7:21). Saul kept the spoil of Amalek against the herem: "But Saul and the people spared Agag, and the best of the sheep, and the oxen, and the seconds, and the lambs, and all that was good, and would not completely destroy them: but everything that was vile and refuse, that they destroyed completely" (1 Sam 15:9). Ahab coveted Naboth's vineyard: "Give me your vineyard, that I may have it for a garden of herbs, because it is near to my house; and I will give you for it a better vineyard than it: or, if it seems good to you, I will give you the worth of it in silver" (1 Kings 21:2). Ben-Hadad threatened the same coveting on a royal scale: "I will send my slaves to you tomorrow about this time, and they will search your house, and the houses of your slaves; and it will be, that whatever is pleasant in your eyes, they will put it in their hand, and take it away" (1 Kings 20:6). Gehazi pursued Naaman for the gift Elisha refused: "Look, my master has spared this Naaman the Syrian, in not receiving at his hands that which he brought: as Yahweh lives, I will run after him, and take somewhat of him" (2 Kings 5:20).

The pattern reaches into the Gospel narrative: Judas, the keeper of the bag, "said, not because he cared for the poor; but because he was a thief, and having the bag took away what was put in it" (John 12:6). Peter remembers Balaam in the same line — false teachers "having forsaken the right way, they went astray, having followed the way of Balaam the [son] of Bosor, who loved the wages of wrongdoing" (2 Pet 2:15). Even Laban's twenty-year manipulation of wages is held up as a witness against him: "These twenty years I have been in your house; I served you fourteen years for your two daughters, and six years for your flock: and you have changed my wages ten times" (Gen 31:41).

A National Instance

The descendants of Joseph furnish a corporate instance of the same appetite. Pressing Joshua for more land than they had been allotted, "the sons of Joseph spoke to Joshua, saying, Why have you given me but one lot and one part for an inheritance, seeing I am a great people, since until now Yahweh has blessed me?" (Josh 17:14). Joshua's reply puts the burden back on them — go and clear the forest, drive out the Canaanites — and grants the second portion conditional on labor rather than complaint (Josh 17:15-18).