Exodus 22:0 - Exposition

Laws connected with rights of property, continued ( Exodus 22:1-15 ). The fret section— Exodus 22:1-6 —is upon theft. The general principle laid down is, that theft shall be punished if possible, by a fine. There is a moral fitness in this, since a man's desire to get what was his neighbour's would lead to the loss of what was his own. In ordinary cases the thief was to restore to the man robbed double of what he had stolen ( Exodus 22:4 ) but, if he had shewn persistence in wrong doing by selling the property, or (if it were an animal) killing it, he was to pay more—fourfold in the ease of a sheep, fivefold in that of an ox. If the criminal could not pay the fine, then he was to be sold as a slave ( Exodus 22:3 ). Burglary, or breaking into a house at night, might be resisted by force, and if the burglar were killed, the man who killed him incurred no legal guilt ( Exodus 22:2 ); but, if the house were entered by day, the proviso did not hold ( Exodus 22:3 ).