God's Penal Code for Theft

Exodus 20:15 – God's Penal Code for Theft

I’d like to begin with a quick review of the difference between case laws and apodictic laws. Knowing the difference between these two forms of biblical law is helpful because it gives us a framework for understanding and applying God’s law.

Apodictic laws are commandments that express universal edicts. They're always broad and general in their scope because they’re foundational expressions of God’s law. The verbs are typically in the imperative mood, and the pronouns are usually in the second person. So a typical apodictic law will take the form of “You shall…” or “You shall not…” do such-and-such.

Each of the Ten Commandments is an apodictic law; each one is a broad and universal edict from God.

“You shall have no other gods before Me.”

“You shall not make for yourself a carved image.”

“You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.”

“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.”

“Honor your father and your mother.”

“You shall not murder.”

“You shall not commit adultery.”

And then we get to our sermon text for today, which is the eighth commandment. This is an apodictic law. Notice the broad and general scope of the commandment.

“You shall not steal.”

Because apodictic laws are broad and general, they rarely define the details for how the law should be applied to different circumstances and different situations. For example, our sermon text doesn’t tell us anything about how this law should be enforced.

What’s the penalty for stealing?

Is stealing a capital crime? Should convicted thieves be put to death?

Or is there a different penalty?

Should thieves have their hand cut off?

Should they be put in prison?

Should they pay a financial penalty? And if so, how much should they pay and who should the payment go to?

These are the type of details case laws provide. Case laws are the application of apodictic law to specific circumstances. Or we might say, case laws are the application of apodictic law to specific "cases."

It’s important that we understand that case laws are not new laws. Rather, they're the application of the apodictic law, which means case laws are God’s directions for how to apply the apodictic law to specific circumstances. Case laws, therefore, typically take the form of, “If this, then that.” Or, “When this happens, then that should happen.” The verbs in case law are often in the declarative mood and the pronouns are often in the third person.

Let me show you what I mean. We’ve already acknowledged that our sermon text from Exodus 20 is an apodictic law. It’s a universal prohibition…

“You shall not steal.”

Two chapters later, in Exodus 22, God gives some case laws that describe how apply the eighth commandment. Exodus 22:1 reads…

If a man steals an ox or a sheep, and slaughters it or sells it, he shall restore five oxen for an ox and four sheep for a sheep.

This case law tells us how to apply the eighth commandment to a situation where a man steals an animal and then slaughters it or sells it. In other words, it tells us what when a man gets caught for stealing an animal, but he no longer has the animal in his possession.

A few verses later we read of a similar law, only this case, the thief still has the animal in his possession. Look at verse 4…

A few verses later we read of a similar law, only this case, the thief still has the animal in his possession. Look at verse 4…

If the theft is certainly found alive in his hand, whether it is an ox or donkey or sheep, he shall restore double.

So between these two case laws, we learn at least five things about how to apply the eighth commandment to situations where property is stolen.

First, we learn that God sanctions and upholds the ownership of private property, and He requires us to respect and preserve the property that other people have acquired.

Second, we learn that the person who steals the private property of another person is required to make restitution. The penalty for thievery, therefore, is not imprisonment. It’s not cutting off the thief’s hand. And it’s not putting the thief to death. It’s restitution.

Third, we learn that the restitution needs to be paid to the victim of the theft. It’s not paid to the civil government. It’s not put into a community fund. It’s not given to the person who lands on Free Parking. It’s paid to the victim; to the person who suffered loss because of the theft.

Fourth, we learn that the amount of restitution is calculated according to a consideration of the loss suffered by the victim. For example, the case law in Exodus 22:4 tells us that if the thief still has the stolen animal in his possession, then he needs make double restitution to the victim. He needs to restore the animal that was stolen plus it’s exact equivalent. In other words, the thief needs to enrich the victim the same amount that he tried to deprive the victim. That’s the penalty. So if the thief stole an animal worth $1,000, not only does he need to give the animal back to its owner, but he also needs to give the victim an additional $1,000.

Double restitution is the baseline penalty for property theft throughout the word of God. We see this a few verses later in Exodus 22:7…

“If a man delivers to his neighbor money or articles to keep, and it is stolen out of the man's house, if the thief is found, he shall pay double.”

But double restitution is only the penalty when the thief is able to return the property that was stolen. If the thief is no longer in possession of the stolen property, then the amount of restitution is higher. In Exodus 22:1, we see that the restitution is either 4 times the value of the animal if it was a sheep, or 5 times the value of the animal if it was an ox.

Why is the restitution so much higher than if the thief still had possession of the animal? And why is there a different multiplier between a sheep and an ox?

Because God’s penal sanctions are righteous and just. God doesn’t just calculate the market value of the stolen animal, but He also considers the victim’s loss of production incurred by the theft. And God also considers the time, effort, and specialize skill it’ll take the victim to train a replacement animal to do the work his stolen animal was already trained to do.

That’s why there’s a different multiple of restitution for sheep and oxen. The victimized farmer is going to suffer a greater loss of production when his ox is stolen than when his sheep is stolen. Why? Because the two animals have different functions. Sheep provide meat and wool. The ox pulls the plow.

The reason a farmer would own an ox is so that the ox can performs much of the heavy labor on the farm. Steal a man’s ox and his whole farming operation is compromised.

Moreover, training an ox to work on the farm is difficult. Sheep don’t need much training. They basically graze in the field until it’s time to shear them or butcher them. Oxen, however, need to learn to carry the yoke. Ox needs to learn to work in a team with other oxen. Ox need to learn to respond to voice commands. Ox need to be disciplined.

So the investment of time and the specialize skills required to train a new ox is greater than that of a new sheep. God’s righteous jurisprudence takes this into consideration when calculating the restitution the thief must pay, so a sheep is fourfold restitution while an ox is fivefold.

This brings us to the fifth thing we learn from these case laws, which is, God’s system of justice is not excessively punitive. The thief is always held responsible for the impact of his crime, but the penalty is never more severe than what justice demands. In other words, the penalty fits the crime. It’s not too light and it’s not too severe.

Contrast this with other forms of jurisprudence; with man’s forms of jurisprudence. Look at countries like Pakistan, Somalia, Nigeria, Morocco, and other Islamic countries that use a penal system based upon the Quran. Do you know what the Quran says to do with thieves? It says, and I quote…

As to the thief, male or female, cut off his or her hands: a punishment by way of example, from Allah, for their crime: and Allah is Exalted in power.

This what the 8th Amendment to the Bill of Rights calls “cruel and unusual punishment.” Not that the 8th Amendment is what defines righteous jurisprudence, but rather, the 8th Amendment is a candid recognition that human authorities are capable of inflicting cruel and unusual punishment upon criminals. What I just read from the Quran is an example of how fallen man has sinful tendencies towards cruel and unusual punishment of crime. But that’s not just. That’s not righteous. You don’t amputate a person’s hand because he stole a candy bar. Nor do cut off a slave’s foot because he tried to run away. God requires the punishment to fit the crime, and so His penal sanctions always achieve the right balance. They’re not too lenient, and they’re not too harsh. They’re always righteous and just.

This is not to say that God never enforces severe penalties, such as the death penalty, for He does. But the penalty always matches the severity of the crime. The only form of theft that God says to punish with death is man-theft, or what we call kidnapping or human trafficking. But property theft is always penalized by requiring the thief to make restitution.

The American jurisprudence system is one of the best man-made law codes in operation today, but it’s not perfect. There’s a lot room for improvement. This is noticeably true in the ways we deal with theft. We should apply the principles of the case laws in Exodus 22 to our modern penal code. If a thief steals a car, he should make restitution for that theft. How much restitution?

Well that depends. If he still has the car in his possession and it’s in the same condition as it was when he stole it, then he needs to make twofold restitution. He does this by return the car in its rightful owner, and then he giving an additional $30,000 to the owner. But if he sold the car, or crashed the car, or dismantled the car, then the thief needs to make fourfold or fivefold restitution.

In this case, we apply the principle of the sheep and ox. If the stolen vehicle was a work truck, outfitted with special gear and ladder racks and toolboxes, then we’d treat it like the theft of an ox. The victim will have suffered a loss of income when his work truck had been stolen, so he needs to be compensated for that. And it’s going to take some time and effort to outfit a new truck the way his stolen truck was outfitted, so the thief will need to make fivefold restitution. But if the stolen vehicle was a typical family car used for going to the grocery store and bringing the kids to their soccer games, then that’s a little easier to replace. In that case, we’d treat it like the theft of a sheep. The thief will need to make fourfold restitution.

When it comes to dealing with property theft, one of the glaring discrepancies between God’s law and the law of our land is that we don’t require restitution. A man steals a car, dismantles it in a chop shop, gets caught, and what happens to him?

He’s goes to prison. He serves time. And when he gets out, we’re told that he has paid his debt to society.

What does it even mean to say that the criminal has “paid his debt to society”?

How did he incur a debt to society? His debt is to the person he stole the car from!

And how does spending a couple years in prison pay anything to society? The truth is that his incarceration is a burden to society. Society is now forced to house the criminal, feed the criminal, clothe the criminal, and provided medical care for the criminal. That’s not paying a debt to society; that’s racking up a debt to society.

Meanwhile, the victim of the theft is without a car! Or his company is without a work truck. The only way he’s going to get his car or work truck replaced is if he forks out the money to purchase another one. But why does this financial burden need to fall on the victim? Why doesn’t the thief bear that burden? Wouldn’t that be more just?

Somebody will say, “Well, that’s what insurance is for. The insurance company should replace the vehicle.”

That’s not a just resolution to the situation, either. Just pause to think about it for a moment. Because our penal system does not require thieves to make restitution for their thievery, millions and millions of people are put in the position where they need to risk experiencing a total loss of their vehicle, or they need to purchase an insurance policy that will cover the replacement cost of their vehicle, should it get stolen. But this is not a just solution because it puts the burden on the victim. Or better put, it puts the burden on people who are not even victims of theft. If you don’t want to risk the total loss of your vehicle, then you need to proactively purchase an insurance policy before your car gets stolen. And then you need to bear the financial burden of sustaining that policy year after year, hoping that you’ll never have to use it.

How is that just? That’s victimizing people who are not even victims of theft! Because insurance companies are for-profit businesses that make pay-outs to people who are victims of theft by collecting premiums from people who are not victims of theft, the reality is that everybody who purchases an insurance policy is being made the victim of theft. Think about that the next time to pay your car insurance premium. You’re paying that premium because our penal system won’t require the thief to make restitution. Consequently, the burden has shifted to you. You, along with millions of other policy holders, are paying the restitution that the thief was supposed to pay.

If our nation had a penal system that adopted and enforced the principles of restitution spelled out in Exodus 22, then we would have a more just way of dealing with theft.

Do you see the deficiency of man’s laws?

Do you see the wisdom and righteousness of God’s laws?

Now, you might be wondering, “How’s the thief going to make restitution if he doesn’t have the money to pay it?”

Good question. If the thief owns assets, like a house, or a car, or a retirement account, then those assets can be liquified to make restitution. And if the thief doesn’t have enough assets to cover the full restitution, or if he has zero assets and cannot make any payments for restitution, then God’s law has a provision for that, as well. In Exodus 22:3, which is conveniently sandwiched between two of the case laws we’ve already been looking at, God tells us…

He (referring to the thief) should make full restitution; if he has nothing, then he shall be sold for his theft.

So if the thief can’t come up with the resources to make full restitution, then he gets sold as an indentured slave and the money for his purchase goes to the victim.

And even here, we see God’s righteousness and mercy, even mercy upon the criminal. God gave laws requiring fair and humane treatment of indentured slaves so they’re protected from abuse. Moreover, Exodus 21:2 says that they’re to be set free after 6 years of indentured service.

Many American would revolt at the idea that a thief should be sold into slavery to satisfy the penalty for his crime, but let’s think this through. How is six years of indentured servitude any worse than being sent to prison for six years? Americans generally agree that criminals need to go to prison, but that’s only because we’ve been conditioned to accept this.

If you contrast the American prison system with God’s system of indentured servitude, you’ll see some very stark differences. We’ve already identified the first difference. With the prison system, the victim is not compensated for his losses. With indentured servitude, restitution is made, so the victim receives compensation.

But even beyond that, in the prison system, the thief has no ability to be a productive member of society. Rather, he becomes a burden to society. With indentured servitude, however, the thief works and enriches his master. In turn, the master is able to provide food and housing and medical care for the indentured servant, so it’s not a burden to society.

And here’s another thing to consider. In the prison system, the thief is removed from his family. If he has a wife and children, then they’re on their own while their husband and father is in prison. With indentured servitude, however, the family can stay together. The man can still be a husband to his wife and a father to his children.

This is huge! I don’t think I need to convince you that broken families lead to all sort of social problems. If our nation was able to righteously deal with crime in ways that kept a lot of families intact, I think we’d see noticeable improvements to many of the social problems we’re experiencing today.

We could go on to contrast the environment of these two different penal systems. In prison, criminals are surrounded by other criminals. It’s been said that prison is like a trade school for those who want to become better criminals. But with indentured servitude, the master is able to have a more positive influence on his servants. For example, we see several instances in the New Testament where indentured servants are attending church with their masters.

Then there’s recidivism rates. Many criminals who are released from our American prisons end up back in prison within a short period of time. This is directly related to the environment and influence of peers. Because our prisons are essentially trade schools for criminals, many released inmates go right back to a life of crime. Not so with indentured servitude, especially when the master is a Christian who’s exerting a righteous influence over his servants.

If you look at this list, it provides pretty compelling reasons to choose indentured servitude over the American prison system. But the most compelling reason for rejecting the prison system is because it’s an unbiblical institution.

Realize, God never prescribes imprisonment for crime. His method of dealing with criminals is really quite simple. If it’s a capital crime, then the criminal is executed. And if it’s not a capital crime, then the criminal needs to make restitution. If he doesn’t have the resources to make restitution, then he’s sold as an indentured slave.

Prisons are the invention of pagans. The first mention of prisons in the Bible is in Genesis 39 and 40, where we read about Joseph being thrown into an Egyptian prison with Pharaoh’s butler and baker. We also read of the prophet Jeremiah being put into a prison, but that was more of a makeshift detention facility where the unbelieving Jews converted the house of Jonathon the scribe into a place to sequester Jeremiah. And of course, we know that the Romans had prisons because several of the apostles ended up in those prisons. But nowhere in the Bible does God ever prescribe incarceration as a penalty for crime. The only forms of confinement we see in Israel are two incidents that happened when Moses was alive. One is recorded in Leviticus 24:12. The son of an Israelite woman and Egyptian father had blasphemed the name of the Lord. He was placed in temporary custody until the leaders of Israel could inquire of the Lord how they should deal with that situation.

And the second is in Numbers 15:34. A man was picking up sticks on the Sabbath, so they placed him in temporary custody until they could inquire of the Lord how they should deal with him.

Neither of these events support the use of prisons as a penalty for crime, however. All they demonstrate is that it’s proper for civil authorities to temporarily hold a person until that person can stand trial for his crime.

In Leviticus 18:24-30, there’s a strong and explicit warning from God, explaining that when a society doesn’t properly deal with sin, then the entire land becomes defiled. God says that if the people, as a society, do not uphold His statutes and judgments, then the land will “vomit out its inhabitants.”

The point here is that righteousness and just penal sanctions build up a land, whereas sin and iniquity destroy a land. Which means, a biblical criminal justice system is not primarily focused on restoring the individual who commits the crime, but on restoring godly order to society.

This is why, when it comes to punishing capital crimes, you’ll often read of God saying something like, “you shall put away the evil from among you,” or, “so you shall put away the evil from your midst.” In God’s penal system, capital crimes are capital crimes because they defile the entire social order.

The American criminal justice system has this exactly backwards. Our primary focus is on the criminal. We’ve embraced a humanist philosophy that believes the primary role of our criminal justice system is to rehabilitate the criminal. This is why our prisons are called “correctional facilities,” and our prison guards are called “correctional officers.” The assumption is that (1) time and (2) secular humanist counseling programs have the ability to transform a man’s heart so that he becomes a productive and responsible citizen.

But as Christians, we know that’s not going to happen without the gospel of Jesus Christ. And we know what Romans 13 says. The civil authorities are to be a terror to those who do evil. Their God-ordained role is to use the power of the sword to execute wrath upon those who practice evil. One of the reasons our state and federal “correctional facilities” will never be able to accomplish heart-level transformations is because God never gave that job the civil government. He gave that job to the church. This used to be something that Christians understood. Case and point, article 3 in chapter 23 of the Westminster Confession of Faith says…

The civil magistrate may not assume to himself the administration of the Word and sacraments, or the power of the keys of the kingdom of heaven.

The point the Westminster Confession is making here is the point that God makes in Romans 13; civil rulers are to punish evil for the purpose of preserving a godly society. Their job is to be faithful to God’s instruction by executing capital offenders and enforcing the laws of restitution. It’s the church that’s been given the administration of the word and sacrament and the power of the keys of the kingdom of heaven. It’s the church that should be ministering to criminals, sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ with them, because the gospel (and only the gospel) is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes. A humanist criminal justice system will never be able to transform a person’s heart.

This is a worldview issue. Sadly, many Americans have a worldview that’s based in man’s wisdom rather than God’s wisdom. Many Americans are committed to the philosophies and ideologies logical positivism, modernism, post-modernism, objectivism, pragmatism, rationalism, utilitarianism, and the list goes on.

Yet these are the philosophies and ideologies that God says are vomited out of the land. The words that Moses spoke to the Israelites 3,500 years ago are words which are just as applicable to us today as they were back then. Leviticus 18:24–26…

24 ‘Do not defile yourselves with any of these things; for by all these the nations are defiled, which I am casting out before you. 25 For the land is defiled; therefore I visit the punishment of its iniquity upon it, and the land vomits out its inhabitants. 26 You shall therefore keep My statutes and My judgments…

We do well to observe God’s laws rather than thinking we can invent our own. The mind of man has never produced anything as righteous and just as that which comes from God.

“The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart,” David writes in Psalm 19:8. “The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes,” he goes on to write. “The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.”

As we continue reading through Exodus 22, we read more case law applying the eighth commandment. Verse 5…

If a man causes a field or vineyard to be grazed over, or lets his beast loose and it feeds in another man’s field, he shall make restitution from the best in his own field and in his own vineyard. (ESV)

We learn from this case law is that when one person suffers loss of property because of another person’s negligence, then that’s treated as theft. The man who let his animal out didn’t intend for the animal to graze on the other man’s property, but it did. So he has to make restitution from the best portion of own field or vineyard.

And here’s a similar case law. Exodus 22:6…

“If fire breaks out and catches in thorns, so that stacked grain, standing grain, or the field is consumed, he who kindled the fire shall surely make restitution.

Once again, unintentional negligence and accidental destruction of another person’s property is treated as theft. Exodus 22:9 pretty much sums up private property issues…

"For any kind of trespass, whether it concerns an ox, a donkey, a sheep, or clothing, or for any kind of lost thing which another claims to be his, the cause of both parties shall come before the judges; and whomever the judges condemn shall pay double to his neighbor.”

That’s justice. That’s biblical.

Why is this such a big deal?

Because restitution is a principle upon which our salvation has been accomplished. Listen to the words God tells Isaiah to speak to the children of Israel in Isaiah 40:1-2…

1 "Comfort, yes, comfort My people!"

Says your God.

2 "Speak comfort to Jerusalem, and cry out to her,

That her warfare is ended,

That her iniquity is pardoned;

For she has received from the Lord's hand

Double for all her sins."

This is speaking about the atonement made by Jesus Christ. Sinners rightfully deserve is to be sold into bondage until we pay the last penny of restitution that we owe to God. But Jesus, being infinite in love, took our debt upon Himself. He became our kinsman Redeemer to do for us what we could never do for ourselves: He made two-fold restitution to the Father. He didn’t only pay the penalty for our sins, but He also imputed His righteousness to us.

Here we see the difference between being innocent and being righteous. Adam and Eve, when they were first created, were innocent. They were without sin. But they were not yet righteous. Righteous is something that needs to be earned. Had Adam and Eve persisted in doing all that the Lord required of them, then they would have earned righteousness by their obedience and the Lord would have rewarded them accordingly. But Genesis 3 tells us that they failed to remain obedient to the Lord. So instead, they became sinners.

To use an imperfect illustration, think of this like the balance in a bank account. A zero balance is to be innocent. A negative balance is to be a sinner and a positive balance is to be righteous.

Because of the sin we’ve inherited from Adam, as well as the sins we’ve committed on our own, each of us begin our life with a bank account that’s overdrawn by 100 trillion dollars and is incurring daily finance fees of several trillion dollars. The double restitution that Jesus makes for His elect is to (1) pay the overdrawn balance so that our account is brought back to zero. That makes us innocent. And then He (2) takes the infinite amount of money that’s in His own account and transfers it to ours, so that we have unlimited funding in our account. This gives us the status of being righteous. His moral perfection is imputed to you and me so that we’re not just innocent before God, but righteous before God. This is the double payment Jesus makes on behalf of those whom the Father loves. And this, brothers and sisters, is the gospel in which we rejoice. That’s the gospel of salvation. Praise God from whom all blessings flow.