Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Exodus 20:15
Thou shalt not steal.
15. The eighth commandment. The rights of private property to be respected. Cf. in H Lev 19:11. For penalties for stealing, see Exo 21:16, Exo 22:1.
It is hardly necessary to quote from the prophets passages illustrative of these duties: but Hos 4:2, Jer 7:9 are particularly worth referring to.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Exo 20:15
Thou shalt not steal.
The Eighth Commandment
I. In this Commandment the institution of property is recognized and sanctioned by the authority of God. The institution of property is necessary–
1. For increasing the produce of the earth;
2. For preserving the produce of the earth to maturity;
3. For the cultivation and development of the nature of man;
4. For the intellectual development of man.
II. The institution of property imposes upon all men the duty of industry in their callings; the duty of maintaining independence; the duty of avoiding any, even the least, invasion of the rights of others; the duty of self-restraint in expenditure, as well as of honesty in acquisition.
III. If property is a Divine institution, founded on a Divine idea, protected by Divine sanction, then in the use of it God should be remembered, and those whom God has entrusted to our pity and our care. (R. W. Dale, D. D.)
The Eighth Commandment
To steal, I am sorry to say, is a universal temptation, common to all sorts of people. It often springs from the sense of necessity: this it is which, as you remember, gives such tragic power to Victor Hugos Les Miserables, whose hero, Jean Valjean, stole a loaf of bread. Again the temptation to steal springs from indolence, or, to use a good, or rather bad, old French-Latin word, laziness; for there are not a few persons who, instead of getting an honest living by working, prefer to get it by what they call their wits, resorting to all sorts of shifts and tricks, which are really stealings. Again, the temptation to steal springs from dissolute or what is called fast living; how many of the embezzlements which so often startle the community spring from the fact that the embezzlers had entered on careers of personal debauchery! Again, the temptation to steal springs from the love of display; how many of the defalcations which land our citizens in prison or in Canada are owing to their passion for equipage, for furniture, for jewelry, for fashion! Again, and chiefly, the temptation to steal springs from the haste to become rich; how true it is that the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil! Let us first glance at the case of private stealings. For example: there is the taking advantage of the ignorant in a bargain. Again, there is the taking advantage of the necessitous, when they lie prostrate and helpless, demanding from them, for instance, extortionate interest for the use of money, exorbitant rent for premises or tools, or extravagant prices for commodities. Again, there is the refusing, I will not say lawful wages, but I do say fair wages–that is, just compensation to servants, whether in the family, the farm, the factory, the store, or the bank; for every man born into this world is entitled, by the very fact of his existence upon this footstool of God, to a living. Again, there is the delay in the payment of debts when due. Again, there is the contracting of debts beyond any reasonable possibility of paying them, the indulgence in venturesome speculations, the living beyond income–these, and such as these, morally surveyed, are stealings. Again, there is the practice of endorsing, or going security. It is right for you to help your friend when he is in trouble; but it is not right for you to help him, however much in trouble, if your endorsement of his note is going to cost some other friend of yours his comfortable home. To aid one man by endorsing him may result in stealing from many men. Again, there is the habit of begging for endorsements; for example: tempting one to misrepresent, on the one hand, the amount of assets, and, on the other hand, the amount of liabilities; contracting liabilities without the knowledge of the endorser; keeping up appearances when insolvent; in brief, offering a premium for the use of your name. Again, there is the evading of government taxes and custom-house duties by making defective or ambiguous returns–a mode of stealing which, I regret to say, is not altogether unfashionable among people of position. Once more, there is the lazy subsistence or dependence on charity (and there is a great deal more of this than we at first recognize); the dependence on friends to eke us out, when, if we had been a little less slothful in diligence as well as a little more fervent in spirit, we might not have needed their aid; the sluggard, I take it, is quite a prince among thieves. Let me now speak of the case of official stealings, no matter what the office is, whether public or private, whether in a bank, or in a store, or in an institution, or under the government. Office is in its very nature a trust; and as such it is a sacred thing. And to betray a trust is the worst, because the meanest, kind of stealing. And now let me pass from official stealings to what I may call associated or corporate stealings. There is something in the very nature of the organization of a company which somehow tends to the extinction of personal responsibility. It is well understood that many a man will, as a member of a corporation–no matter what kind, whether a trust company, like a bank or a charitable institution, or an executive company, like a railroad or a telegraph organization–do things as a manager of that company which he would scorn himself for doing as a private individual on his own personal responsibility. In fact, it has become an aphorism that corporations have no souls. And monopolies, or corporations granted the exclusive privilege of manufacturing or selling certain articles of commerce:–what are they but oftentimes organized robberies of society, thefts of your purse and my purse? But there are other kinds of property besides those which we call real and personal, which may also be stolen. For example: There is the stealing of time; and time, you know, or will know, is money. When a man comes and takes up twice the time that is necessary in arranging with me for his own advantage, or even the advantage of a good institution, he steals my time, and in stealing my time, he steals my patience as well as my money. Again, there is the petty larceny of writing a letter of inquiry for your own advantage, and omitting to enclose a postage stamp; for he that is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and he that is unrighteous in a very little is unrighteous also in much. Again, there is the stealing of anothers time and opportunity and serenity when you keep him waiting and fuming through your own failure to keep your engagement with him punctually. Again, there is the theft of plagiarism, the stealing of ideas, the withholding of credit or praise when credit or praise is due. Again, there is the stealing of reputation or character. Lastly, irreligion is the typical specimen of perfect theft. For while man in relation to his fellow-man has right to own property on his own account, yet man in his relation to his God is but a trustee. Steal not, then, O friend, from a greater than thy neighbour, even thy Divine Master! Language fails you when you undertake to denounce a defaulter against man. But where is your language when you think of a defaulter against Almighty God? (G. D. Boardman.)
Property sacred
I. Property as a sacred right. A mans right in justly-acquired property is a reflection of Gods rights in all His works. All property is the outgrowth of life, the results in houses, harvests, machinery, manufactures, commerce, and art of creative power. But that creative power is the gift of God, and therefore both its rights and responsibilities have their foundation and standard in God Himself. The property belongs to the man, but the man belongs to God. Thus the honest gains of toil, skill, judgment, self-denial, and good fortune are a mans own by a Divine right of which the civil right is the echo.
II. Property as a sacred trust. The same fact which makes property sacred gives birth to sacred responsibilities. As in old feudal days lands were given by the king on certain conditions of service, so now Gods gifts have always duties attached to them. Sacredly given, they are to be sacredly used.
Application:–
1. As to our use of our money. Is it not significant that God claimed tithes? Not to pay a tenth of His income into the temple treasury God considered a sacrilege in a Jew. Do we give a tenth to God?
2. Our use of ourselves. Wealth is more than money. It comprises all that God gives us, our talents, our influence, our whole self. He who might do good, who might heal and comfort and bless if he would, and yet does not, is guilty of unfaithfulness. (W. Senior, B. A.)
The Eighth Commandment
I. We may cause injury to others through lending and borrowing.
II. We shall do wrong to our fellow-men by inflicting injury on property that is open, through kindness of the owners, to the public, as gardens, private picture-galleries, etc. It is mean, dishonourable, to do hurt to such property.
III. Through incurring of debts or obligation to our fellow-men.
IV. The wrongs done in mercantile pursuits. This is done–
1. By selling to customers goods of inferior value.
2. By inferior weights.
3. By the adulteration of merchandise.
4. By false pretences. The placing the best strawberries or apples on top of the measure, etc.
V. Breaches of trust.
VI. Gambling. Property is a trust. You have no right to squander your own, or to lead another to squander what he has in trust. (W. Ormiston, D. D.)
The law of property
I. Consider, first, what it means–the rights of property.
1. In a country like this, long occupied and thickly peopled, almost everything belongs to somebody; and most of us possess a few things that we call our own, either earned or inherited, or otherwise received. In a new country the first-comers enter upon unoccupied ground, and each, while making his own claim, recognizes the claims of others. The relations of property are expressed by the possessive pronouns, and it is remarked that these are found in all languages. On what, then, is this right of property grounded? Not on social compact, not on the law of the land, not on the principle of utility, but on the will of God revealed in the constitution of our nature, and in the teaching of His Word. All acquired property is the product of labour, or the fruits of labour; and why do men labour? Is it not for the means of living? If, then, the constitution of our nature is such that we must labour for the means of living, it must be the will of Him who made us that we should receive and possess the fruits of our labour (see Pro 16:26; Eph 4:28; 2Th 3:10).
2. The principle of possession excludes the principle of communism. If the fruit of my labour is mine, the fruit of another mans labour is his to do as he will with it. Communism has always ended in disaster; and always must. It is a tissue of mistakes. It is wrong in its original inference that the principle of property is the cause of destitution, whereas the real cause is selfishness and sin; it is wrong in its ruling idea that all should share and share alike, a notion which would tax industrious people for the benefit of idlers, and rob the skilful for the advantage of the incompetent; it is wrong in its proposed method, for force is no remedy, and the circumstances of men can only be mended by mending the men themselves; and it is wrong in its cherished hopes, for if by some fatal success the communists should break down the present social system and suppress private wealth, the result would be to take all heart of enterprise out of the worlds workers, to dry up the waters of progress at their source, and to crush the human race under a final incubus of intolerable woe. Not in the suppression of property, but in a wise understanding of its uses, and in a right direction of its powers, lies the redress of human wrongs, with the hope of a good time coming.
II. What it ensures–the use of property.
1. Property has economical uses. It increases, protects, and stores, the produce of the earth.
2. Property has also its moral uses.
(1) Its steady stimulation of labour is alone a mighty helper of our manhood. It is where men have to work that they acquire robustness of frame, alertness of mind, and firmness of moral fibre.
(2) The way in which a man acquires property, and the way in which he uses it–resisting temptation to get it unlawfully, and making it a field for exercise of all the virtues; or dealing oppositely, so as to win it by fraud, and use it for vice–these things make all the difference between a hero and a scoundrel, between a son of God and a child of the devil.
III. What it forbids–the violation of property.
1. There are robberies over and above those which policemen investigate. Private gambling. Betting. Extravagance and petty theft on the part of domestic servants.
2. Fraud, or the withholding of a mans due. Trade practices.
IV. What it involves–the responsibilities of property. We are Gods stewards. (W. J. Woods, B. A.)
The Eighth Commandment
I. What it forbids.
II. What it requires.
1. It requires restitution of whatever we have, at any time, unjustly taken or detained. For, that being in right not our own, but anothers; keeping it is continuing and carrying on the injustice.
2. This Commandment also requires industry; without which, the generality of persons cannot maintain themselves honestly.
3. To observe it well, frugality must be joined with industry, else it will be all labour in vain.
4. This Commandment requires in the last place, that we neither deny ourselves, or those who belong to us, what is fit for our and their station, which is one kind of robbery; nor omit to relieve the poor according to our ability, which is another kind. For whatever we enjoy of worldly plenty is given us in trust, that we should take our own share with moderation, and distribute out the remainder with liberality. (Abp. Secker.)
The Eighth Commandment
I. Whence doth theft arise?
1. The internal causes are:
(1) Unbelief. A man hath an high distrust of Gods providence: can God furnish a table in the wilderness? So saith the unbeliever, can God spread a table for me? no, He cannot. Therefore he is resolved he will spread a table for himself, but it shall be at other mens cost, and both first and second course shall be served in with stolen goods.
(2) Covetousness. The Greek word for covetousness signifies an immoderate desire of getting; this is the root of theft. A man covets more than his own, and this itch of covetousness makes him scratch what he can from another.
2. The external cause of theft is, Satans solicitation: Judas was a thief; how came he to be a thief? Satan entered into him. The devil is the great master-thief, he robbed us of our coat of innocency, and he persuades men to take up his trade; he tells men how bravely they shall live by thieving, and how they may catch an estate.
II. How many sorts of thefts are there?
1. There is stealing from God; and so they are thieves, who rob any part of Gods day from Him.
2. There is a stealing from others.
(1) A stealing away their souls; and so heretics are thieves, by robbing men of the truth, they rob them of their souls.
(2) A stealing away their money and goods from them; and under this head of stealing away others money, there may be several arraigned for thieves. The highway thief who takes a purse contrary to the letter of this Commandment. The house-thief, who purloins and filches out of his masters cash, or steals his wares and drugs. The house-thief is a hypocrite, as well as a thief; he hath demure looks, and pretends he is helping his master, when he only helps to rob him. The thief that shrouds himself under law, as the unjust attorney or lawgiver, who prevaricates and deals falsely with his client. This is to steal from the client. The church-thief or pluralist, who holds several benefices, but seldom or never preacheth to the people; he gets the golden fleece, but lets his flock starve. The shop-thief; he steals in selling, who useth false weights and measures, and so steals from others what is their due. The usurer who takes of others even to extortion; he seems to help another by letting him have money in his necessity, but gets him into bonds, and sucks out his very blood and marrow. The feoffe in trust, who hath the orphans estate committed to him; he is deputed to be his guardian, and manage his estate for him, and he curtails the estate, and gets a fleece out of it for himself, and wrongs the orphan. This is a thief; this is worse than taking a purse, because he betrays his trust, which is the highest piece of treachery and injustice. The borrower, who borrows money from others, with an intention never to pay them again. The receiver of stolen goods. The root would die if it were not watered, and thievery would cease if it were not encouraged by the receiver.
III. What are the aggravations of this sin of stealing?
1. To steal when one has no need. To be a rich thief.
2. To steal sacrilegiously. To devour things set apart to holy uses.
3. To commit the sin of theft against checks of conscience, and examples of Gods justice: this is like the dye to the wool, it doth dye the sin of a crimson colour.
4. To rob the widow and orphan; ye shall not afflict any widow or fatherless child; it is a crying sin; if they cry unto Me, I will surely hear them.
5. To rob the poor. (T. Watson.)
The Eighth Commandment
I. Stealing by forgetfulness. People with these bad memories borrow things from their neighbours and friends, and forget to return them. Now, to the persons who lend those things, it is just as bad as if a thief should come into their house and steal them. Umbrellas, and books, and things of that kind are most likely to suffer in this way.
II. Cunning, is another branch of it. Did you ever see a counterfeit bank-note? It passes for a good note, though it is not worth a straw. And gold and silver coin are counterfeited in the same manner. The people who make them think themselves very cunning. But they are not a bit better than thieves. But a great many other things may be counterfeited as well as money. When God shall come to reckon with them at last, they will find that the real name for what they called smartness was stealing. This is the name by which God calls it.
III. Those who break the Eighth Commandment by deceit. For instance, a lady goes into a shop to buy a dress. She finds one of the colour she wants. If she could be sure that the colours would not fade she would take it. She says to the shopkeeper, Will these colours stand? Oh, yes, madam, they are the very best colours to wear. They will stand as long as the dress lasts. The lady buys the dress on this assurance, though all the while the shopkeeper knows the colours will not stand at all. In this way he steals the ladys money.
IV. Those who break the Commandment by extortion.
V. Those who break the Commandment by violence and fraud. We must resist little temptations. Everything must have a beginning. I remember reading once about a man who was going to be hung for robbery and murder. On the scaffold, he said he began to steal by taking a farthing from his mothers pocket while she was asleep. Many children begin to steal at the sugar-bowl or the cake-basket. To take the smallest thing that does not belong to us, without permission, is stealing. And, then, there is another thing to do: we must pray to God to keep us from temptation. (R. Newton, D. D.)
True honesty
There is an anecdote told of a brave general of the American Revolution, that he one day overheard the remark of a grandson, that he hoped to be middling honest. The old gentleman stopped, turned short upon the speaker, and broke out: What is that I hear? Middling honest! let me never hear again such a word from your lips. Strictly honest is the only thing you ought ever to think of being.
Praying better than stealing
Some poor families lived near a large wood-wharf. In one of the cabins was a man who, when he was sober, took pretty good care of his family; but the public-house would get his earnings, and then they suffered. In consequence of a drunken frolic he fell sick. The cold crept into his cabin, and but one stick was left in his cellar. One night he called his eldest boy, John, to the bedside, and whispered something in his ear. Cant do it, father, said John aloud. Cant–why not? asked his father, angrily. Because I learned at Sabbath-school , Thou shalt not steal, answered John. And did you not learn, Mind your parents, too? Yes, father, answered the boy. Well, then, mind and do what I tell you. The boy did not know how to argue with his father, for his father wanted him to go in the night and steal some sticks from the wood-wharf; so John said to his father: I can pray to-night for some wood; its better than stealing I know. And when he crept up into the loft where his straw bed was, he did go to God in prayer. He prayed the Lords Prayer, which his Sabbath-school teacher taught him, only he put something in about the wood, for he knew God could give wood as well as daily bread. The next noon, when he came home from school, what do you think he caught sight of, the first thing after turning the corner? A load of wood before the door, his door. Yes, there it was. His mother told him the overseers of the poor sent it; but he did not know who they were. He believed it was God; and so it was.
What is stealing
Two old men were once arguing upon the question of venial sin. Their faces one could not forget. One said, Well, after all you have to say, you will not tell me that the theft of a pin and a guinea are the same. The other said, When you tell me the difference between a pin and a guinea to God, I will give you an answer. It at once settled the point; and there was no more said about venial sin.
The rights of property defended
It must be acknowledged that the sufferings and crimes which are incident to the institution of property are so grave as sometimes to provoke the inquiry whether, after all, the institution itself can be defended. Selfishness, covetousness, dishonesty, fierce and angry contention, are among the worst vices of which men can be guilty; and it may almost seem as though we might escape from them all by abolishing the rights of property. What are the grounds, then, on which the maintenance of these rights, in some form or another, can be defended? Archdeacon Paley, in one of the chapters of his Moral Philosophy, has illustrated some of the advantages of the institution of property, with his usual clearness and felicity. He shows that it both increases the produce of the earth, and preserves it to maturity. Houses, ships, furniture, clothes, machinery, pictures, statues, books, require a great amount of labour to produce them; the stimulus to production would be altogether destroyed if after they were produced they belonged to nobody, and if people who had done no work were as free to use them as those by whose self-denial and labour they were produced. No mines would be worked, no fields would be cleared, no waste land would be brought into cultivation, no marshes would be drained, unless the men who did the work had the hope either of owning the property which they created, or of receiving in some other form compensation for their labour. The material wealth of the world would almost disappear, and the poorest and most wretched would have even less than they have now, if the rights of property were abolished. But there are other grounds on which the institution may be defended. The rights of property are essential not only to the creation and preservation of material wealth, but to the cultivation and development of the nature of man. It is only because corn belongs to the farmer, and coal to the mine proprietor, and bread to the baker, and meat to the butcher, it is only because clothes belong to the tailor, and houses to the builder, and because the law protects every one of them in the possession of his property until he is willing to part with it, that men work in order that they may get coal, and corn, and bread, and meat, and clothes, and house room. The Indian would sit idle in his cabin if the game he hunted did not become his own. Excessive physical labour is no doubt a great evil; but the evils of indolence are still greater. There are parts of the world where it is hardly necessary for men to work at all in order to get the bare necessaries of life, and the result is a miserable want of physical vigour and a portentous development of vice. We were made to work. It is by work that muscle is created and the whole body kept free from disease. Work as a rule is good for health, and good for morality and happiness too. Moreover, the institution of property supplies a most powerful motive to intellectual exertion. We want food, clothing, and a thousand other things; but they belong to people who will not part with them, except for the results of our own work. Inventive genius is stimulated to improve the processes of manufacture; administrative skill is exercised in lessening the cost of production; merchants watch the rise and fall of the markets in remote countries, estimate the effect of good and bad seasons and of political events on the probable price of commodities. There is not a counting house however small, there is not a workshop in a back court, where business can be carried on without thought. The institution of property secures an amount and variety of intellectual activity for which, perhaps, we have never given it credit. It has also very important relations to the moral life of man. The whole organization of the world is intended to discipline our moral nature; and the very variety of the sins to which the existence of property gives occasion, illustrates the variety of the virtues which it is intended to exercise. (R. W. Dale, D. D.)
Dishonesty in trade
If a manufacturer charges you twenty pounds for a hundred yards of cloth and sends you only half the quantity, he as really steals ten pounds as though he broke open your cash box and took out a ten pound note. If he engages to send you cloth of a certain quality and charges you for it, and then sends you cloth which is worth in the market only two-thirds the price, he is just as much a thief as though he stood behind you in a crowd and robbed you of your purse. No one disputes this. The same principle holds in every business transaction. To give short weight or short measure, is to steal. To supply an article of inferior quality to that which it is understood that the buyer expects, is to steal. To take a Government contract and send to Weedon or Portsmouth articles which you know will be worthless, or which you know are of a worse kind than it was understood that you would furnish, is to steal. To take advantage of your superior knowledge in order to pass off on any man articles for which he would never give the price that he pays for them but for his confidence in your integrity, is to steal. To start a company and to induce people to take shares in it by false representations of the amount of the subscribed capital and of its probable success, is to steal. If a workman who is paid to work ten hours, takes advantage of the absence of the master or foreman to smoke a pipe and read a newspaper for one hour out of the ten, he steals one-tenth of his days wages. He does the very thing that a shopkeeper would do who gave him fourteen ounces of butter or sugar instead of a pound, or nine yards of calico when the bill charged ten. An assistant in a shop, who instead of caring for his masters interests as if they were his own, puts no heart into his work, exercises no ingenuity, treats customers carelessly instead of courteously, and so diminishes the chances of their coming again, gets his salary on false pretences, does not give the kind of service which he knows his employer expects, and which he would expect if he were an employer himself. (R. W. Dale, D. D.)
An example of honesty
Speaking of the early American prairie settlements, a modern historian says: Theft was almost unknown; the pioneers brought with them the same rigid notions of honesty which they had previously maintained. A man in Maucoupin County left his waggon, loaded with corn, stuck in the prairie mud for two weeks near a frequented road. When he returned he found some of his corn gone, but there was money enough tied in the sacks to pay for what was taken.
Honesty
In Abraham Lincolns youthful days he was storekeepers clerk. Once after he had sold a woman a little bill of goods and received the money, he found, on looking over the account again, that she had given him six and a quarter cents too much. The money burned in his hands until he had locked the shop and started on a walk of several miles in the night to make restitution before he slept. On another occasion, after weighing and delivering a pound of tea, he found a small weight on the scales. He immediately weighed out the quantity of tea of which he had innocently defrauded the customer and went in search of her, his sensitive conscience not permitting any delay.
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT
Against stealing and dishonesty.
Verse 15. Thou shalt not steal.] All rapine and theft are forbidden by this precept; as well national and commercial wrongs as petty larceny, highway robberies, and private stealing: even the taking advantage of a seller’s or buyer’s ignorance, to give the one less and make the other pay more for a commodity than its worth, is a breach of this sacred law. All withholding of rights and doing of wrongs are against the spirit of it. But the word is principally applicable to clandestine stealing, though it may undoubtedly include all political injustice and private wrongs. And consequently all kidnapping, crimping, and slave-dealing are prohibited here, whether practised by individuals or by the state. Crimes are not lessened in their demerit by the number, or political importance of those who commit them. A state that enacts bad laws is as criminal before God as the individual who breaks good ones.
It has been supposed that under the eighth commandment, injuries done to character, the depriving a man of his reputation or good name, are included, hence those words of one of our poets: –
Good name in man or woman
Is the immediate jewel of their souls.
Who steals my purse steals trash, —
But he that filches from me my good name,
Robs me of that which not enriches him,
And makes me poor indeed.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
i.e. Either by deceit or violence, or without his knowledge and consent, take away another mans goods, Eph 4:28; but, on the contrary, shalt preserve and increase them, as need requires, and occasion is offered.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
Thou shall not steal. Which is to take away another man’s property by force or fraud, without the knowledge, and against the will of the owner thereof. Thefts are of various kinds; there is private theft, picking of pockets, shoplifting, burglary, or breaking into houses in the night, and carrying off goods; public theft, or robbing upon the highways; domestic theft, as when wives take away their husbands’ money or goods, and conceal them, or dispose of them without their knowledge and will, children rob their parents, and servants purloin their masters’ effects; ecclesiastical theft or sacrilege, and personal theft, as stealing of men and making slaves of them, selling them against their wills; and Jarchi thinks that this is what the Scripture speaks of when it uses this phrase; but though this may be included, it may not be restrained to this particular, since, besides what have been observed, there are many other things that may be reduced to it and are breaches of it; as all overreaching and circumventing in trade and commerce, unjust contracts, not making good and performing payments, detention of servants’ wages, unlawful usury, unfaithfulness with respect to anything deposited in a man’s hands, advising and encouraging thieves, and receiving from them: the case of the Israelites borrowing of the Egyptians and spoiling them is not to be objected to this law, since that was by the command of God, and was only taking what was due to them for service; however, by this command God let the Israelites know that that was a peculiar case, and not to be drawn into an example, and that they were in other cases not to take away another man’s property; and so the case of an hungry man’s stealing to satisfy nature is not observed as lawful and laudable, but as what is connived at and indulged, Pr 6:30, this law obliges to preserve and secure every man’s property to himself, as much as in men lies: this is the eighth commandment.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Since charity is the end of the Law, we must seek the definition of theft from thence. This, then, is the rule of charity, that every one’s rights should be safely preserved, and that none should do to another what he would not have done to himself. It follows, therefore, that not only are those thieves who secretly steal the property of others, but those also who seek for gain from the loss of others, accumulate wealth by unlawful practices, and are more devoted to their private advantage than to equity. Thus, rapine is comprehended under the head of theft, since there is no difference between a man’s robbing his neighbor by fraud or force. But, in order that God may the better withhold His people from all fraudulent injustice, He uses the word theft, which all naturally abhor as disgraceful. For we know under how many coverings men bury their misdeeds; and not only so, but also how they convert them into praise by false pretexts. Craft and low cunning is called prudence; and he is spoken of as provident and circumspect who cleverly overreaches others, who takes in the simple, and insidiously oppresses the poor. Since, therefore, the world boasts of vices as if they were virtues, and thus all freely excuse themselves in sin, God wipes away all this gloss, when tie pronounces all unjust means of gain to be so many thefts. Nor let us be surprised that this decision should be given by the divine tribunal, when the philosophers deliver nearly the same doctrine.
We must bear in mind also, that an affirmative precept, as it is called, is connected with the prohibition; because, even if we abstain from all wrong-doing, we do not therefore satisfy God, who has laid mankind under mutual obligation to each other, that they may seek to benefit, care for, and succor their neighbors. Wherefore He undoubtedly inculcates liberality and kindness, and the other duties, whereby human society is maintained; and hence, in order that we may not be condemned as thieves by God, we must endeavor, as far as possible, that every one should safely keep what he possesses, and that our neighbor’s advantage should be promoted no less than our own.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT VERSUS THEFT
Exo 20:15
IT is perfectly evident to all that any right consideration of the eighth commandment would lead to a discussion of the question of property: its ownership, its transference, its temptations, its advantages, etc.
All of these questions should come into the light of this commandment, and still more into the light of Gods special revelations regarding them.
The first thing with which the study of this text impresses one is
THE DIVINE OWNERSHIP OF PROPERTY
It is because God owns all that He has a right to prescribe concerning property. If there is one Scripture doctrine touching possessions which has been persistently overlooked, and constantly neglected in these last days, it is that of divine ownership.
David prayed, Keep back Thy servant also from presumptuous sins, but the colossal sin is committed when man denies that what he seems to have is Gods. There are two or three facts of which we need to remind ourselves often.
First, property belongs to God by right of creation.
Have you ever thought of that wonderful sentence with which the Word opens, and how it covers and compasses this whole question? In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Who then will dispute His ownership of them all, seeing that they are the product of the Divine will and word.
The first offerings ever made. Abels lamb and Cains fruit, were presented upon the basis of Divine ownership. They did not bring the firstlings of the flock and the fruit of the ground because God had need of either, nor yet because there were the poor whose suffering excited their sympathy, or heathen whose darkened lives laid the children of light under tribute, but simply in recognition of Gods ownership of the flocks and of the fields.
Some years ago, an acquaintance said, A friend of mine was receiving some money at the hands of a bank officer the other day, when he noticed pending from one of the bills a scarlet thread. He tried to pull it out, but found it was woven into the very texture of the bill and could not be withdrawn.
Ah, said the banker, you will find that all the government bills are made so now.
So every dollar that we handle, whether it be the government note, silver, or gold, or whatsoever possessions, there runs through it and them, entering not only into the texture, but making up the texture itself, the threads of the Divine creation that tell us to whom it belongs.
It is God who says,
Hear, oh My people, and I will speak * *. I will take no bullock out of thy home, nor he goats out of thy folds, for every beast of the forest is Mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills. I know all the fowls of the mountains; and the wild beasts of the field are Mine. If I were hungry, I would not tell thee; for the world is Mine, and the fullness thereof (Psa 50:1-12).
Again, property belongs to God by reason of reservation.
Since He finished the work that flowered the earth and caused it to bring forth fruit, He has never signed to mortal man a quit-claim to one square foot of it.
In these days, when men have taken to claiming the earth and have gotten unto themselves titles and what they term warranty deeds, it is well to trace back the ownership and see whether the title is clear. The attorney may learn that the Government granted this land to Paul Jones, who sold it to James Black, from whom Jane Adams acquired it, and through whose hands it passed to John Smith. But I want to know where the Government got it? God has never transferred His right to the earth to any government, and He never will until Jesus Christ, His Son, sits upon the worlds throne.
Truly, as Dr. Talmage said, in speaking of the possessions that make life pleasant, From the apples you ate in the orchard, when a boy, to the luscious fruit you ate last night upon your table, it all came from the same hand. From the horn that called you out of the hayfield years ago, to the silver bell that tinkled on your table at todays dinner, calling you in each instance to plenty, God was the Giver. Though you have consumed acres of corn, flocks of birds, droves of sheep, and herds of cattle, you have been living on what was Gods.
Do not err, my beloved brethren. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning (Jas 1:16-17).
Again, we should learn from our text the
HUMAN INTEREST IN PROPERTY
What a recent writer calls a mans original commissionhumanitys primal charter is written into the very first chapter of Genesis. God said,
Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat (Gen 1:26-30).
Whatever interest of a pecuniary and permanent kind a man has in the wealth of this world comes out of this Magna Charta with which God enriched man from the beginning.
His is the interest of delegated possessions. That which Jehovah created and which He must therefore own, He has, to a great extent, delegated to men for their uses, and for their advantages.
Solomon wrote, The lot is cast into the lap; but the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord (Pro 16:33). And the Psalmist sang, Jehovah is the portion of mine inheritance, and of my cup. Thou commandest my lot. The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places; yea, I have a goodly heritage.
I doubt if there is any worse infidelity known to these times than that which disregards God, while taking account of the wealth into which one has come. Men sometimes talk of giving in response to this call or that, as if their free offerings were putting God under obligation, making Him a debtor to them. But David did not so regard the gifts of man. When on one occasion thousands of talents of gold and of silver had been taken into the temple for its trimming and adornment, and when precious stones had been provided to the treasurer of the House of the Lord, and the people with perfect heart had offered willingly, we read,
David blessed the Lord before all the congregation; and David said, Blessed be Thou Lord God of Israel, our Father, for ever and ever. Thine, O Lord, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty; for all that is in the heaven and in the earth is Thine; Thine is the kingdom, O Lord, and Thou art exalted as head above all. Both riches and honour came of Thee, and Thou reignest over all, and in Thine hand is power and might; and in Thine hand it is to make great, and to give strength unto all. Now therefore, our God, we thank Thee, and praise Thy glorious Name. But who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able to offer so willingly after this sort? for all things come of Thee, and of Thine own have we given Thee (1Ch 29:10-14).
We moderns need to learn of the ancients touching the truth that what we own has been delegated to us by our God.
And yet, ours is the interest of partners in profits. From the very first God gave promise of partnership in the profits of our so-called possessions.
The grant in Genesis was so perfectly understood that the Psalmist long after voiced a kindred claim when he said,
Thou hast made man but little lower than God, and crownest him with glory and honour. Thou makest him to have dominion over the works of Thy hands; Thou hast put alt things under his feet; all sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field, the fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas (Psa 8:5-8).
Jesus Christ emphasized this thought in the parable of the talents,
For the Kingdom of Heaven is as a man travelling into a far country, who called his own servants, and delivered unto them his goods. And unto one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one; to every man according to his several ability; and straightway took his journey. Then he that had received the five talents went and traded with the same, and made them other five talents. And likewise he that had received two, he also gained other two.
But he that had received one went and digged in the earth, and hid his lords money. After a long time the lord of those servants cometh, and reckoneth with them. And so he that had received five talents came and brought other five talents, saying, Lord, thou deliveredst unto pie five talents: behold, I have gained besides them five talents more. His lord said unto Mm, Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord. He also that had received two talents came and said, Lord, thou deliveredst unto me two talents: behold, I have gained two other talents beside them. His lord said unto him, Well done, good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord (Mat 25:14-23).
Both of the men who took the lords money and properly employed it, received more than his enconium, Well done, thou good and faithful servant, for the Lord never rewards His faithful ones with easy compliments, but in good cash instead, for He added, Thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things. Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.
I remember to have read how in the days of the Evangelist Finney, a man professed conversion, and Mr. Finney knelt to pray with him, and the evangelist said, Lord, here is a man that gives Thee his whole heart, to which the penitent heartily responded, Amen! Lord, here is a man that will share with Thee his home. He wants Thee to come into it and control it; claim the wife and children as Thine. And again the response came, Amen. But Finney continued, Lord, here is a man who wants to share with Thee his business, and invites Thee to come in as partner and conduct all the terms of trade, and there was a silence, and Finney said, Why dont you say, Amen? And the man replied, Because I am not ready to take Christ into my business and consult and share with Him. Foolish man! Christ was in the business before he was, and the greatest honor as well as the greatest advantage of life, was offered in that the Son of God was willing to share with him, if only he had come with whole heart and ready hand. And I say to you, beloved, that if in your business you have usurped first place and the whole place, putting God aside, you have dissolved a partnership at your own expense, and by starting on an independent life, have begun to describe a tangent to the bankruptcy of both finance and faith.
Again, mans interest in property is the interest of a steward.
If the possessions have been delegated and the profits you are sharing, yet your office is that of Gods steward.
You remember Christs parable of the ten pounds:
A certain nobleman went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom, and to return. And he called his ten servants, and delivered them ten pounds, and said unto them, Occupy till I come. But his citizens hated him, and sent a message after him, saying, We will not have this man to reign over us. And it came to pass, that when he was returned, having received the kingdom, then he commanded these servants to be called unto him, to whom he had given the money, that he might know how much every man had gained by trading. Then came the first, saying, Lord, thy pound hath gained ten pounds. And he said, unto him, Well, thou good servant: because thou hast been faithful in a very little, have thou authority over ten cities. And the second came, saying, Lord, thy pound hath gained five pounds. And he said likewise to him, Be thou also over five cities. And another came, saying, Lord, behold, there is thy pound, which I have kept laid up in a napkin: For I feared thee, because thou art an austere man: thou takest up that thou layedst not down, and reapest that thou didst not sow. And he saith unto him, Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee, thou wicked servant. Thou knewest that I was an austere man, taking up that I laid not down, and reaping that I did not sow: Wherefore then gavest not thou my money into the bank, that at my coming I might have required mine own with usury?And he said unto them that stood by, Take from him the pound, and give it to him that hath ten pounds (Luk 19:12-24).
And God will call every one of us to give the stewards account at last. It is common for those who act as stewards in this world to take even more care in their transactions than do the men who trade upon their own responsibility, feeling obligation to no others. Would that we could so realize our high officean office that suggests at once dependence and privilegeas to stimulate us with proper sense of our stewardship.
Spencer tells of a beggar who asked a six-pence of a wealthy woman, who, in handing it to him, said, This is more than God ever gave to me. Oh, madam, replied the beggar, say not so. God hath given you all that you have. No, she replied, God hath not given me, but lent to me what I have that I might bestow it upon such as thou art.
And now having seen the Divine ownership of property, and having considered the human interest in property, we are prepared for the
PROHIBITIONS OF THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT
Thou shalt not steal. There is more covered by this commandment than would appear to the inconsiderate.
It sets itself against covetous desires. The tenth commandment is touched upon by the eighth.
Paul wrote to Timothy,
They that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is the root of all evil; which, while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows (1Ti 6:9-10).
Dr. Parkhurst, of New York, in his Talks to Young Women on the passion of money getting, said, The acquisition of wealth in the form and animus with which it is being currently conducted, is distinctly a passion, which is to say that it is an impulse so earnest and heated in its energy as to defy the results both of reason and conscience. It is at once a mental and a moral mania. It is a disease that feeds upon its own work of disintegration. It is like a flame of a candle, which wins support from the very wax which it consumes. A confidential friend of mine once told me that he felt himself just on the verge of breaking down with the malady. He had accumulated quite a fortune without having yet been made irrational or vicious by it, but he was beginning to detect the premonitory symptoms of such an issue. He was still rational enough to know that he was becoming unreasonable, and principled enough to know that it would not take a great deal to make of him a rascal.
Oh, that men might more often see the danger of covetous desire before they have yielded to it to be destroyed. But of this we shall speak more fully in treating the tenth commandment.
Our text sets itself against the cheating methods of the modern mart.
Thou shalt not steal, is a commandment more needed today than ever before. Men never stole from their fellows by insinuation, as they do now. Words of deceit never were so common to clerks as now. Dangerous weights are only kept down by the eternal vigilance of the state. Lying of a certain sort is sine qua non of most of the salaried offices. The ignorant must be taken advantage of. The dependent and helpless must pay exorbitantly for any assistance granted. The weak must consent to unfair wages. The unsophisticated must take a foreign coin in change. The kindly disposed must call again and yet again to get their bills met. The public is drinking as much of false advertisement as of patent drugs. The benevolent are imposed upon by the indolent. The treasuries of the land, from that of the House of God up to that of the Bank of England, are peculated from by stingy spirits, itching palms, ambitious beaux, and belles, and would be bulls and bears; while corporate wealth is throwing away its conscience, and. government offices go largely to feed the godless greedy. Ah, we have been thinking that this text referred only to the highway robber, or to the purse-snatcher, or to the absconding bank cashier, but I tell you that every man that takes any advantage whatsoever of his fellow needs to have the eighth commandment thundered into his ear, Thou shalt not steal, for it is true, as James Russell Lowell says,
In vain we call old notions fudge,
And bend our conscience to our dealing,
The Ten Commandments will not budge
And stealing will continue stealing.
It matters not how you have educated your conscience, or whether, instead of educating it, you have deadened it, so that you can go on and justify extravagance on the ground of sustaining your social position; justify unpaid debts on the ground of misfortune; excuse beggary as a result of being out of business. The fact remains that the whole tenor of Gods Word turns your acts under the light of the eighth commandment, and in that light they are condemned. Thou shalt not steal.
Of course our text has special reference to clear robberies.
The men who held up that train in the West some time since are spoken to by this text. The man who robbed that young woman of her purse the other evening is condemned by this text. The cashier who departed thirty-six hours ago, leaving the County Bank $100,000 short, is condemned by this text. The son, if he is guilty of slaying his father for forty acres of land, is condemned by this text. Every man, from the one who rides on the street car and dexterously escapes the conductor, keeping his fare, up to him who prefers the gains of the midnight assassin to a steady job, is condemned by this text.
They are all condemned, and we can say with Beecher, Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Riches got by deceit, cheat no man so much as the getter; riches, bought with guile, God will
pay for with vengeance; riches, got by fraud, are dug out of ones own heart and destroy the mine; unjust riches curse the owner in getting, in keeping, in transmitting. They curse his children in their fathers memory, in their own wasteful habits, in drawing around them all bad men to be their companions. You may be rich and pure, but it will cost you a struggle. You may be rich and go to Heaven, but ten, doubtless, will sink beneath their riches where one breaks through them to Heaven.
But if you are rich, see to it that not one cent is stolen; and if you are poor, let no pinches of poverty, een though they be such as goaded Jean val Jean to break the window and snatch a loaf, drive you to such desperate acts; for it is written, and the Word will not change to suit any circumstance, Thou shalt not steal.
A few words now on the
PLAIN DUTIES IMPOSED BY THIS COMMANDMENT
Its first requirement is righteous living for all.
George Washington said a noble thing when he uttered these words, I hope I will always possess firmness and virtue enough to obtain what I consider the most envious of all earthly titlesthe character of an honest man.
Paul penned to the Romans these precious words, Provide things honest in the sight of all men (Rom 12:17). And to the Corinthians, he said, Providing for honest things, not only in the sight of the Lord, but also in the sight of men. Henry Clay was worthy of the office when he said, I would rather be right than be president.
Some time ago, searchers through the old ledgers of a Scotch merchant, long since deceased, found one upon the back of which was written, God blis this buik and kape me and it honest. Oh, that all the ledgers of the land might be kept by men of kindred sentiment!
From those who have departed from such righteous living, restitution is required.
The Levitical law demanded of the one who had taken from his neighbor, unjustly, that he return the same increased by one-fifth. Zacchaeus, the Publican, was soundly converted to Christ, as is evidenced in the fact that wherein he had taken from any man by false accusation, he restored him fourfold. We believe, with F. B. Meyer, that the men who have aught that belongs not unto them, must, by restitution, roll away this stone, or the dead joy can never arise, however loudly you may call it to come forth.
Dwight L. Moody was preaching in one of our large cities when a nice-looking gentleman came up to him and said, Oh, Mr. Moody, I am a defaulter. I have taken $1500 in money that belongs to my employers, how can I become a Christian without restoring it? Have you got the money, said Moody. No, only $950! Cannot I take that and go into business and make enough to pay them back? No, said Moody, that would be dealing in a way that would please the devil. But, said the man, they would put me into prison. No matter, said Moody, you must do right. Go and give the money that you have, and confess your fault. At first the man could not bring himself to do this, but he was so troubled in spirit, that he saw he must make restitution or never know joy or peace, and so he made an appointment with Moody to meet these men. He paid them over $950 and some cents, and told them if they would give him time, he would pay the rest. The tears trickled down the cheeks of the former employers. They said, We are glad to forgive you and will grant you this time, and the four men got down on their knees and had a blessed prayer meeting, for the hand had made restitution and the soul was saved.
But I dont want to seem to make your salvation rest upon a single act without explaining what the one essential act is, namely, the repentance of all sin. It is not sufficient that the dishonest man be saved from his dishonesty any more than it is sufficient that the drinking man be saved from his cups. What you want is the salvation from all sin, and I call you to repentance tonight.
When the man Peter had charged the Jews with murder, and the murder of the very Son of God, men came and asked, What shall we do? and Peter said unto them, Repent, for the promise is unto you and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call, and it is not mine to preach any other Gospel.
The starting point of my sermon may be a commandment of the Old Testament, but the goal of it must be the commandment of the New Testament, Repent, the commandment John voiced; the commandment Peter urged; the call of Christ when He said, Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.
I dont know what your sins are; I dont care. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord, and He will have mercy upon him, and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon. Forsake your way, and turn to God, eer it be too late.
At Columbus, Ohio, a man was imprisoned. For weeks he had been slowly wasting with consumption, on which account he had been moved to the hospital. By reason of his pitiable condition, the Governor was importuned to pardon him, and at last, on the 7th day of one July, the pardon was granted. In anticipation of receiving the pardon, the hospital attaches dressed the man and carried him down-stairs on a stretcher. The pardon was put into his hands and a smile came over his face; but, alas, it was too late, for a moment more and the poor fellow was breathing his last, and never able to pass beyond the prison gate.
Behold! today is the day of salvation. Today, if ye hear His voice, harden not your heart.
Fuente: The Bible of the Expositor and the Evangelist by Riley
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.Exo. 20:15
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT: VARIETIES IN THEFT
Man is not to regard himself as an individual unitas living for himself alonebut as forming part of the great aggregate of humanity. The promotion of his true welfare is the promotion of the welfare of the whole community of which he forms a part. He who wrongs the community wrongs himself; and also he who wrongs himself wrongs the community. A man by stealing thinks to enrich himself; but he is certainly impoverishing himself in the long run, as well as doing injury to his neighbour, so that the man who is a faithful keeper of the law obtains a reflex blessing. In seeking his neighbours good a man is promoting his own highest welfare.
I. We must not rob ourselves. It might be supposed that selfishness would prevent us violating this precept, but selfishness overleaps itself, and is suicidal. The selfish are those who are self-spoliators. The selfish man robs himself of happiness at least; and in most cases hinders himself from becoming truly wealthy. Matthew Henry very pithily observesThis command forbids us to rob ourselves of what we have by sinful spending, or of the use and comfort of it by sinful sparing. The prodigal robbed himself by sinful spending and was reduced to starvation. We must not rob ourselves either by wasting our money or our time, or by misusing our privileges, or by abusing Divine gifts, or by letting pride and prejudice prevent us receiving gospel blessings. There are duties which a man owes to himself. There is a sense in which a man must live to himself.
II. We must not rob our neighbours. Human laws very generally enforce this Divine law, Thou shalt not steal, as a precept to be observed with regard to material property. Human governments have instinctively recognised the Divinity, and the necessity to social welfare, of a great part of the Mosaic Decalogue; and on what principle some are regarded as Divine and as perpetually binding, and others as not so, we fail to perceive! Material stealing is a crime universally abhorred. How comes it to pass that intellectual stealing is not more generally reprobated? Great changes would take place in the literary world if over every desk of the writer, and if over every pulpit of the preacher were written, and were duly observed the words, Thou shalt not steal. We may repeat the question, Thou that preachest a man should not steal, dost thou steal? Dost thou attempt to shine in borrowed plumage? Dost thou unblushingly appropriate the intellectual wealth of others? There is also moral theft. Every man who lowers the moral tone is stealing. Every man who undermines public virtue is stealing. There are many thieves who are regarded as honest men. There are thieves everywhere, but we shrink from calling things and men by their right names. A periphrastic mode of utterance may mean national decline, as well as the advance of civilisation.
III. We must not rob God. Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed Me. But ye say, Wherein have we robbed Thee? In tithes and offerings. Ye are cursed with a curse; for ye have robbed Me, even this whole nation. We rob God more frequently than we rob men. There are those who are regarded as honest by their fellows who have robbed God. A man has no right to steal himself from God. The creature is the Creators property, and the creature who does not use himself for the Creators glory is guilty of stealing. And in thus robbing God we rob ourselves much more. We must be honest to ourselves, honest to our neighbours; and perfect honesty is only secured when we are honest to our God. Godward honesty will make manward dishonesty an impossibility. Then masters will not steal from servants, nor servants from masters. Then justice will be rightly administered. Then kings will rule in the fear of God. Then nations will not steal from nations. Oh, for the bright day when all shall seek to understand and to obey the comprehensive and farreaching command, Thou shalt not steal!W. Burrows, B.A.
ILLUSTRATIONS
BY
THE REV. WILLIAM ADAMSON
Theft-Tests! Exo. 20:15. Years ago, in Edinburgh, lived a gang of body-snatchers. It was common for gipsies to steal children from their homes. The Arabs of East Africa are designated men-stealers; while some white traders under the Southern Cross are termed kidnappers. All these are regarded as heinous breakers of the Eighth Commandment. But this eighth of Gods moral offspring may be slain and set at defiance by others. Very recently a man of eminence stole a rare volume from the Metropolitan Library, though he would have cut off his hands rather than steal the money it was worth. He steals, who robs God of the honour due unto His Name; and so does she who plunders her own soul of those precious moments given for solemn preparations for eternity. The self-plunderer thus seriously breaks Gods law; how much more, then, the robber of God? To withhold part of the price of our obligations to God is the most aggravated form of theft.
Higher yet this sin extends;
For it steals the spirits love
From the very best of Friends
Robbing een the God above.
Theft-Trouble! Exo. 20:15. Phbe was tempted along with other girls to gather plums in a neighbouring orchard. On bringing home some of the fruit, her mother mildly reproved her, and said that she ought not to have gathered the plums without leave, because it was sin: God had commanded her not to steal. The child, not being sensible of the evil before, seemed greatly surprised, and bursting into tears cried, I cannot touch these plums. The other children did not seem much concerned, but there was no pacifying Phbe. She returned the plums to the owner; yet still she was full of grief. To every inquiry, her reply was, Oh, it was sinsin against God. Phbe never forgot to old age the solemn lesson, It was sin.
I must not nurse within my soul
One spark of sins unhallowed fire;
Or yield my heart to the control
Of aught that speaks a wrong desire.
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
(15) Thou shalt not steal.Our third duty towards our neighbour is to respect his right to his property. The framers of Utopias, both ancient and modern, have imagined communities in which private property should not exist. But such a condition of things has never yet been realised in practice. In the laws of all known States private property has been recognised, and social order has been, in a great measure, based upon it. Here, again, law has but embodied natural instinct. The savage who hammers out a flint knife by repeated blows with a pebble, labouring long, and undergoing pain in the process, feels that the implement which he has made is his own, and that his right to it is indisputable. If he is deprived of it by force or fraud, he is wronged. The eighth commandment forbids this wrong, and requires us to respect the property of others no less than their person and their domestic peace and honour.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT, Exo 20:15.
15. Thou shalt not steal Next to the rights of life and person stands the right of property . The crime of theft may include, besides the secret removal of another’s property, all acts which in any way impinge upon the property interests of one’s neighbour . Clarke specifies rapine, theft, petty larceny, highway robbery, and private stealing, and national and commercial wrongs, and adds that “the taking advantage of a seller’s or buyer’s ignorance, to give the one less and make the other pay more for a commodity than its worth, is a breach of this sacred law . ” Manifestly, all theories of “socialism” and “anarchy” which tend directly or indirectly to take from man the products of his own genius, enterprise, and toil, or to appropriate them to purposes other than those which he may rightfully desire, are fundamentally inconsistent with this law . In like manner are all monopolies and combinations which conflict with the liberty and rights of individuals, and so oppress the poor labourer, to be condemned under this prohibition of the decalogue . He who loves his neighbour as himself, and does unto others as he would have others do unto him, will not allow himself to be a partaker in such wrongs .
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Exo 20:15. Thou shalt not steal That is, “Thou shalt not defraud thy neighbour by any method, secret or violent, of any part of his just property.” See Lev 11:13. Mar 10:19. Eph 4:28.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
This is the eighth commandment. The apostle points out the extent of this precept, Eph 4:28 ; 1Th 4:6 .
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
XX
THE DECALOGUE THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT
Exo 20:15
This chapter is on the commandment “Thou shalt not steal.”
1. What is the positive form of this commandment?
Ans. Be honest.
2. What is the basis of the law, “Thou shalt not steal”?
Ans. Unless there is such a thing as property, it would be impossible to have a commandment, “Thou shalt not steal.” So that this commandment is based upon the right of property. We continually go back to the original declaration to man when God gave him the title to the earth, and gave him the commission to subdue the earth; the earth in usufruct, that is, in the use of its fruits is the property of man.
3. What is the derivation of the word “property”?
Ans. It comes from the Latin word, proprius, which means “peculiar to one” or “personal to one,” and therefore the idea of property is something that is yours and not another’s.
4. What are the inherent rights of property?
Ans. (1) A right to keep in harmony with God. And you can steal that right from man as well as you can any other kind of property.
(2) The right to himself, and the greatest of all stealing, so far as man is concerned, is what, in the Bible, is called “menstealing,” the stealing of men. One of the accusations against the false church, Babylon, was that she dealt in slaves and the souls of men, and one of the most inhuman, cruel kinds of theft in the world is the kidnapping of children. So that the stealing of a man is the highest order of theft that relates to man.
(3) The right to his family and domestic happiness. You can steal a man’s wife, alienate her affections; you can alienate the affections of a child. A man may feel robbed of that which makes the very sunlight and peace of his home.
(4) The right to space. Man is a finite being and he must have a place to turn around in. Hence the great woe pronounced in Isaiah: “Woe unto them that add house to house and land to land until there is no room for the people.” God gave the earth to man and it is stealing from a man to rob him of his place in the earth where he can be.
(5) The right to health. Suppose a factory is built and the operators are required to work under such conditions as will necessarily undermine their health; or if forced to live in tenements of such unsanitary conditions that health is stolen from the occupant, there is no doubt on earth but that is a violation of this commandment. You could, with much more impunity and less heinousness, steal a man’s money than steal his health.
(6) The right to time. I mean some time for himself. You must not work him so many hours of the day or so many days of the week that he never has time to think for himself and for his family and concerning his God. All those rules which require undue hours of labor or labor all the week round, including Sunday, are violations of this commandment.
(7) Then he has a right to work. Because God has made labor the common heritage of man, and if you take away from a man his chance to do any work by which he can make an honorable living, you have robbed him of more than if you had taken his money. He is not only entitled to the right of labor but to fair profits on his labor. You must not grind him down so that his labor will not bring him in enough to live on, and wherever there is a right to acquire property, there is a right to hold it and a right to transmit it to children.
(8) Then comes the right of safety. If a man lives under a government and that government does not protect his life from unnecessary peril, it has robbed him of more than money. It used to be a sort of cruel thing when a person taken prisoner by the wild Indians was compelled to run a gauntlet, run between two rows of fierce warriors armed with clubs, each one to hit him as he went by. There was very little safety in that gauntlet. But if you force a school child to go to school through a gauntlet of saloons and gambling houses, that is robbing him of safety more than the Indians robbed a man of safety when they required him to run that gauntlet of clubs.
(9) He is entitled to rest. We can’t live if we don’t have time to rest, and any condition of society that so places people that there is no opportunity for rest is robbery.
(10) Man is entitled to his good name, and it is a much bigger offense to steal a man’s reputation by slander than it is to steal his money. So the above are inherent rights and inalienable rights that God endows a man with.
5. What are the acquired rights of property?
Ans. Now his acquired rights are those that come from labor. If I go out into the forest and cut down a hickory tree and make an ax helve out of it, that is mine; that is the fruit of my labor. You may reply that that tree was in the forest. Yes, but the ax helve wasn’t there. I made that ax helve and by my labors I acquired a right of property. If you take up a piece of wild land and cut off the timber, take up the roots and break up the soil, then you acquire a right of property through labor, and hence political economists tell us that all rights of labor come from labor.
6. How is property a token of man?
Ans. Because none of these things apply to a brute. A brute doesn’t build a house; he doesn’t cultivate a field; a brute doesn’t utilize the winds and the waves and the waterfalls to minister unto his necessities. So that this is a token of a man and not of a brute. Brutes have no property.
7. From what does all obligations arise?
Ans. An obligation arises primarily from relation and that relation is an expression of rights as well as of obligations. So that the essential idea in stealing is a disregard of the rights of relation. I build a house and a man gets it by fraud. He has no labor relation to that house. He disregards it. It is another man’s work. One will steal away the affections of a wife. She bore no relation to him, but she did to her husband.
8. What, then, is the essential idea of stealing?
Ans. The essential idea of stealing, then, is the disregarding of relations.
9. What other commandment is the root of which this is the fruit?
Ans. The Tenth Commandment says, “Thou shalt not covet.” “Thou shalt not steal” is the overt act. “Thou shalt not covet my house, my money, my family, anything that is mine.” There the commandment deals with the thought, with the desire. But stealing is the overt act. So that the Tenth Commandment is the root of the Eighth Commandment.
10. What is the primal source of stealing?
Ans. The primal source of stealing is a bad heart.
11. Secondary sources?
Ans. There are some very powerful secondary sources; I call your attention to some of them: (1) Extreme poverty, or necessity. Argur prayed, “Give me not poverty, lest I steal.” (2) Another is indolence, laziness. A man steals because he is too lazy to work. (3) Another is fast living. One lives faster than he can supply, and so he must get his resources in some other way than by hard work. He steals. (4) Then comes a love of display. You want to show off; you want to assume to have more than you are able to have. The love of luxuries and display oftentimes causes stealing. (5) But more than all is the love of money. That may be a root of every kind of evil love of money but it is this greed of money that causes more kinds of stealing than every other cause in the world out together.
12. What names express open violation of this law?
Ans. On the high seas, piracy; on the land, highway robbery, burglary, theft.
13. Cite some of the methods of covert violation.
Ans. (1) Deu 25:13 : “Thou shalt not have divers weights and measures.” If you do, that is covert stealing. Sometimes in going into a little grocery store, you pick up a tray that holds the articles that they are to weigh and look under the bottom of it and you find lead or pewter put under there. That makes it already draw, before anything is put in it, several ounces. That is what is called a false weight, and it is stealing. Suppose a man steals by a quart measure that doesn’t hold a quart, or a bushel measure that doesn’t hold a bushel, or in measuring off a piece of cloth, his yardstick may be all right but he may use his two thumbs so that he steals the width of his two thumbs every time he measures off a yard. I want to read you what an old prophet of God said on that. Amo 8:4-6 : “Hear this, O ye that would swallow up the needy, and cause the poor of the land to fail) saying, When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell grain? and the sabbath, that we may set forth wheat, making the ephah small, and the shekel great, and dealing falsely with balances of deceit; that we may buy the poor for silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes, and sell the refuse of the wheat?” All those tricks of trade under the Mosaic law come under the head of stealing.
(2) Another method is expressed in Pro 3:28 . As I want to particularly impress this thought on you I will quote this passage: “Say not unto thy neighbour, Go, and come again, and to-morrow I will give; when thou hast it by thee,” that is, if you delay a payment when it is due, when you put the man to the trouble to come back again or say, “I will see you tomorrow,” or “Come next week,” that is stealing. You are keeping him that long out of the use of his money, and Moses had a statute of this kind. “Let not the sun go down without paying the day-labourer his wages.” That man is already convicted in the eyes of the world as a thief, who never pays his washerwoman. These people who toil hard for their daily living and are dependent upon what they earn for the next day’s food, if they go without their money twenty-four hours, they are really injured; the very bread has been taken out of their mouths.
(3) Here is another, Pro 20:14 : “It is bad, it is bad, saith the buyer; But when he is gone his way, then he boasteth.” You come up to sell a man a horse and he looks at him and says, “He is a little fellow, his hoofs are stove up. Looks to me as if he has the spavin, he is wind-broken, or has ringbone. He is bad, bad.” Well, you feel like he ought to be paid something to take that horse, and as soon as the fellow gets the horse and gets off, he throws back his head and laughs at what a bargain he has made. That is stealing.
14. Cite several kinds of covert stealing.
Ans. (1) Official stealing, using the office that you are in in order to fill your pockets; (2) Corporate stealing; (3) Wall Street stealing. On that I have a special question.
15. Cite and explain certain classifications of Wall Street stealing.
Ans. (1) “Bearing” the market, the object of which is to lower the price of an article that they want to buy. They are called “the bears.” Their object is to reduce stocks, to make prices sink clear out of sight, and then surreptitiously they buy.
(2) The second is “bulling” the market. The object of that is to push stocks up so high that they can sell and make fortunes. That is, the pressure that they bring to bear to make stock, say worth fifty cents, $2.50. Then they sell. Then they clear $2.00, paying fifty cents and bull the market till the stock goes away up yonder and then they sell.
(3) Freezing out, that is, a number of men, say twenty, go into a company and one or two of them manage to get a majority of stock, say they get just $1.00 over half of the stock. Now that enables them to entirely control the whole stock, and they want to make the others sell out to them for a song, and therefore by controlling the stock they see to it that these men never get any dividends or any interest on their money. And they let them know that there are no profits made; they vote on big salaries among themselves so that there are never any dividends. Finally the poor fellows see the best thing for them to do is to sell out for what they can get. That is freezing out.
(4) The next is pooling. Say one man hasn’t got enough money to make stocks go up as high as he wants them or to go down as low as he wants them; if they are up, he will want to sell, and if they are down he will want to buy; now he is not able himself to lower or raise the price of the stock. Then pooling comes in: say forty or fifty of the richest men put in each so much to be used in the stock market for bulling or bearing. That is pooling.
(5) The next is cornering the market, that is, getting control, say, of all the tobacco, or all the wheat, or all the barley, or of all the sugar, getting a corner on it. Now by getting this corner on a certain product, they can hold back from sale any part of it and hold it back until they can make the price. The world must have its sugar, or its wheat, and they will hold it back until it booms; wheat goes to $1.50, then they sell. While they are doing that, thousands of people are starving.
(6) The next is watering stock. They unite and buy a piece of property, that costs them $50,000. They instantly vote that their property is worth $100,000 and they divide that stock up into a hundred shares of $1,000 each, and go out and sell it. That is watering stock.
(7) Then there is monopoly, working so as to have complete control of a supply so that there is no competition, and just as a highwayman stands before you with a loaded pistol and says, “Stand and deliver,” they can make you stand and deliver. You can’t help yourself.
16. Who wrote this passage? In vain we call old notions fudge And bend our conscience to our dealing, The Ten Commandments will not budge, And stealing will continue stealing.
Ans. That is a fine example. These old Ten Commandments will not budge, and man may, through what he calls business methods, violate them and bend his conscience to his dealings, but all the same God’s standard remains and stealing will continue stealing. This was written by James Russell Lowell.
17. How does human law classify thefts?
Ans. Petit larceny and grand larceny, that is, little stealing and big stealing.
18. How does divine law classify thefts?
Ans. Puts all stealing that man does from man as petit larceny and all robbery of God as grand larceny.
19. Under the divine classification cite a scriptural instance of “grand larceny.”
Ans. Mal 3:8-9 : “Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me.”
20. Grade according to heinousness the different kinds of stealing.
Ans. I would commence that grading this way: (1) robbing God; that is grand larceny; (2) next, the biggest larceny is stealing a man; (3) the next would be stealing the honor of a family; (4) the next would be official corruption; (5) next would be corporate corruption; then (6) down to stealing things, like stealing $1,000 in money, or a thousand yards of cloth, or anything of that kind.
21. Cite passage from Paul expressing this Eighth Commandment both positively and negatively.
Ans. Rom 12:17 : “Recompense to no man evil for evil. Provide things honest in the sight of all men.” Rom 13:8 : Owe no man anything, but to love one another; for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law.” 2Co 8:21 : “Providing for honest things, not only in the sight of the Lord, but also in the sight of men.” Eph 4:28 : “Let him that stole steal no more; but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth.” The above passages express Paul’s idea of this commandments.
22. Cite some of the reasons for the present alarming high cost of living and the bearing of this cost on temptations to violate this commandment.
Ans. (1) The cost of living always goes up in proportion to the number of middlemen. For instance, if I plant potatoes and bring that crop in and store it, there is no middleman to draw a profit. I have my own potatoes, raise my beeves, hogs, etc. But when, through middlemen, potatoes are bought up for wholesale and then through a number of middlemen are sold to the consumer, each middleman takes out his profit and the consumer has to pay for all the profits.
(2) But if I had to state the main reason for the present high cost of living, I would say “Cold storage inventions.” There never has been anything in the history of the world that has affected the price of living like cold storages. Here is an invention by which you can take the most perishable things, a fruit that wouldn’t keep good two days, an egg that won’t keep good in your house over five days, or a piece of beef that won’t keep good without tainting twenty-four hours, and put it in that cold storage and you can keep it indefinitely. Wealth combines and builds these cold storages, therefore they can go out over the country and buy up everything on the face of the earth that is for sale, your chickens, hogs, beeves, turkeys, and everything, and they put them in these cold storages, and they tickle the people over the prices they pay for their turkeys and chickens and eggs, but wait till you want to buy a turkey for a Christmas dinner. You go down to get a turkey and the word comes back, “The only chance is to get a cold storage turkey.” And the price is $4.00 apiece. You see they control the market through the cold storage. Post Toasties and Corn Flakes and nearly everything that goes on a modern table do not come to you direct, but they come to you as having passed through some process of a middleman and every man gets a price on it. You think you are getting Post Toasties cheap, but when you ask yourself how many grains of corn, how many bushels of corn went to a certain quantity of Post Toasties, you find they get about $25 a bushel for corn, selling it as Post Toasties.
23. Cite a passage from George Washington pertinent to this commandment.
Ans. “I hope I shall always possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain what I consider the most enviable of all titles the character of an honest man.” The most enviable of all titles, an honest man. And he was that.
24. What does the great British essayist, Pope, say on this?
Ans. He says, “An honest man is the noblest work of God.”
25. Who wrote it and where do you find this passage? Good name in man and woman, dear my lord, Is the immediate jewel of their souls; Who steals my purse steals trash; ’tis something, nothing; But he that filches from me my good name Robs me of that which not enriches him And makes me poor indeed.
Ans. Shakespeare, in Othello, Act III, Scene III.
26. What remarkable New Testament instances of official stealing?
Ans. Judas and the Publicans.
27. What Old Testament and New Testament laws require honesty as a qualification for office?
Ans. Judges appointed by Moses, Exo 18:21 ; bishops and deacons.
28. Cite several notable Bible cases of official honesty.
Ans. Moses in his farewell address; Samuel in his farewell address; Paul in his farewell address to the elders of Ephesus at Miletus.
29. Who wrote of “the itching palm” in office? adding: What, shall one of us, That struck the foremost man of all this world, But for supporting robbers; shall we now Contaminate our fingers with base bribes? And sell the mighty space of our large honours, For so much trash, as may be grasped thus? I had rather be a dog and bay the moon, Than such a Roman Where do you find the above?
Ans. Shakespeare, in Julius Caesar, Act IV, Scene III.
30. What Old Testament statutes safeguard the necessitous from the temptation to steal?
Ans. The people had no fences. Roads passed right through the fields. Every man was at liberty when passing through a field or an orchard to eat what was necessary food to him. He could pluck the ears of corn and rub them in his hands and eat them, he could pull a bunch of grapes and eat them (he couldn’t take any away in a basket). The law was “When thou reapest thy fields, thou shalt not glean them.” Nor glean them in the corners, but leave the gleanings for the poor; leave what the sickle passes over for the poor and let them come in and get some of it.
31. What caustic proverb exposes man’s false grading of thefts?
Ans. “Steal a loaf and go to the penitentiary; Steal a horse and be hanged Steal a million and be a Captain of Finance.”
32. What modern classic and masterpiece of fiction shows the inhumanity and severity in punishing petit larceny committed in despair of want and makes a hero of the big thief?
Ans. hey say that it is the greatest book of fiction that has ever been written. It is Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables written in 1862.
Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible
Exo 20:15 Thou shalt not steal.
Ver. 15. Thou shalt not steal, ] i.e., Not rob or wrong another, either by force or fraud a 1Th 4:6 See Trapp on “ 1Th 4:6 “ Basil chargeth the devil as a thief of the truth, in that he had decked his crows with her feathers. And it was of the devil surely that she had learned her answer, who, being charged by her mistress for stealing her linens, and other things which she found in her trunk, said, that she stole them not: and when she was asked, How came they to be laid and locked up there? did not you do this? No, said she, it was not I, but sin that dwelleth in me. b See Trapp (for summary of Law) on “ Exo 20:17 “
a . – Naz.
b Light for Smoke, p. 85.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Exo 21:16, Lev 6:1-7, Lev 19:11, Lev 19:13, Lev 19:35-37, Deu 24:7, Deu 25:13-16, Job 20:19-22, Pro 1:13-15, Pro 11:1, Amo 3:10, Amo 8:4-6, Mic 6:10, Mic 6:11, Mic 7:3, Zec 5:3, Zec 5:4, Mat 15:19, Mat 19:18, Mat 21:13, Luk 3:13, Luk 3:14, Joh 12:6, 1Co 6:10, Eph 4:28, 1Th 4:6
Reciprocal: Gen 44:8 – how then Deu 5:19 – General
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Exo 20:15. Thou shalt not steal This command forbids us to rob ourselves of what we have, by sinful spending, or of the use and comfort of it, by sinful sparing; and to rob others by invading our neighbours rights, taking his goods, or house, or field, forcibly or clandestinely, overreaching in bargains, not restoring what is borrowed or found, withholding just debts, rents, or wages; and, which is worst of all, to rob the public in the coin or revenue, or that which is dedicated to the service of religion.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
20:15 Thou shalt not {l} steal.
(l) But study to save his goods.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
The eighth commandment 20:15
Since stealing of any kind and under any circumstances was wrong, clearly God approved of private ownership of goods in Israel. Israel was somewhat socialistic economically, but it was not communistic (cf. Eph 4:28).
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT.
“Thou shalt not steal.”– Exo 20:15.
There is no commandment against which human ingenuity has brought more evasions to bear than this. Property itself is theft, says the communist. “It is no grave sin,” says the Roman text-book, “to steal in moderation”; and this is defined to be, “from a pauper less than a franc, from a daily labourer less than two or three, from a person in comfortable circumstances anything under four or five francs, or from a very rich man ten or twelve francs. And a servant whom force or necessity compels to accept an unjust payment, may secretly compensate himself, because the workman is worthy of his hire.”[37] A moment’s reflection discovers this to be the most naked rationalism, choosing some of the commandments of God for honour, and some for contempt as “not very grave” and wholly ignoring the principle that whoever attacks the code at any one point “is guilty of all,” because he has despised it as a code, as an organic system.
Nothing is easier than to confuse one’s conscience about the ethics of property. For the arrangements of various nations differ: it is a geographical line which defines the right of the elder son against his brothers, of sons against daughters, and of children against a wife; and the demand is still more capricious which the state asserts against them all, under the name of succession duty, and which it makes upon other property in the form of a multitude of imposts and taxes. Can all these different arrangements be alike binding? Add to this variability the immense national revenues, which are apparently so little affected by individual contributions, and it is no wonder if men fail to see that honesty to the public is a duty as immutable and stern as any other duty to their neighbour. Unfortunately the evil spreads. The same considerations which make it seem pardonable to rob the nation apply also to the millionaire; and they tempt many a poor man to ask whether he need respect the wealth of a usurer, or may not adjust the scales of Mine and Thine, which law causes to hang unfairly.
It is forgotten that a nation has at least the same authority as a club to regulate its own affairs, to fix the relative position and the subscription of its members. Common honesty teaches me that I must conform to these rules or leave the club; and this duty is not at all affected by the fact that other associations have different rules. In three such societies God Himself has placed us all–the family, the Church, and the nation; and therefore I am directly responsible to God for due respect to their laws. It is not true that the statute-book is inspired, any more than that the regulations of a household are divinely given. Yet a Divine sanction, such as rests upon the parental rule of fallible human creatures, hallows also national law. I may advocate a change in laws of which I disapprove, but I am bound in the meantime to obey the conditions upon which I receive protection from foreign foes and domestic fraud, and which cannot be subjected to the judgment of every individual, except at the cost of a dissolution of society, and a state of anarchy compared with which the worst of laws would be desirable.
This revolt of the individual is especially tempting when selfishness deems itself wronged, as by the laws of property. And the eighth commandment is necessary to protect society not merely against the violence of the burglar and the craft of the impostor, but also against the deceitfulness of our own hearts, asking What harm is in the evasion of an impost? What right has a successful speculator to his millions? Why should I not do justice to myself when law refuses it?
There is always the simple answer, Who made me a judge in my own case?
But when we regard the matter thus, it becomes clear that honesty is not mere abstinence from pillage. The community has larger claims than this upon us, and is wronged if we fail to discharge them.
The rich man robs the poor if he does not play his part in the great organisation by which he is served so well: every one robs the community who takes its benefits and returns none; and in this sense the bold saying is true, that every man lives by one of two methods–by labour or by theft.
St. Paul does not exhort men to refrain from theft merely in order to be harmless, but to do good. That is the alternative contemplated when he says, “Let the thief steal no more, but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing that is good, that he may have whereof to give to him that hath need” (Eph 4:28).
FOOTNOTES:
[37] Gury, Compend., i., secs. 607, 623.