Thou shalt not steal forbids every kind of dishonesty, injustice and fraud in public and private life, and requires strict honesty in debts, wages, weights and measures, with no taking or withholding of what is due to another. It is the eighth commandment, belonging to the last six that define duty to fellow human beings and are summed up as loving one's neighbor as oneself. It remains perpetually binding and unchangeable for all people in every age, and Christ kept it in letter and spirit, magnified it, and by His death confirmed it cannot be abolished. Keeping it requires positive love, justice, mercy and benevolence that guards the interests and property of others and does to others as one would be done by, flowing from supreme love to God. It is kept through Christ, who lived perfect obedience to vindicate it, atones for its transgression, and enables believers by faith to obey it from the heart in spirit and letter, bringing safety, peace and prosperity to those who obey.
Wording and Position
Thou shalt not steal is the eighth commandment, one of the last six commandments that show duty to one another. Those six define duty to other people and are summed up as loving the neighbor as oneself, so faithfulness to God is inseparable from love and honesty toward one's neighbor. The first four outline duty to the Maker, while this commandment belongs with those that outline duty to neighbor. One who is false to God cannot be true to neighbor, and one who loves God supremely will love his neighbor as himself and will not steal. Stealing comes from pride and self-love that makes a god of self, and the gospel sanctifies by expelling that self-love.
It is part of the Ten Commandments spoken by God and written by His own finger on tables of stone. That law was first given in Eden, repeated when the Father and the Son were upon Sinai's holy mount, and proclaimed at Sinai so all mankind could understand God's requirements. It clearly reveals His will and the principles of His government for all peoples and expresses the character of the Sovereign of the universe. It covers the whole duty of humanity, sets a standard of justice, mercy, and necessity, preserves human integrity, and brings humanity into harmony with God. Obedience to this perfect law brings blessing with God's care and protection and is the condition of salvation and life, while at the judgment it will be presented as the standard of righteousness by which every person is judged unto life or death, leaving no excuse for sin.
Its principles are guarded and explained by the judgments, statutes, and minute directions given to Moses and written in Exodus 21-22. Those were spoken from the mouth of God in the mount and written by Moses, giving definite directions about duty to one another and to the stranger. They simplify the principles of the ten commandments and state them definitely so men need not err, leading erring man prone to transgress into strict obedience. Additional precepts were thus given to explain and apply its principles and make its obligations more fully understood and enforced, expanding its principles in specific instructions to guide duties among the people and toward strangers and to guard its sacredness. Everyone professing to keep God's commandments should study the commands proclaimed from Sinai in Exodus 20, for their principles with the rest of that law will stand to witness against the world in the day of judgment and decide the destiny of every soul, and keeping God's law in truth and righteousness means obeying every command including this one.
Sinai Proclamation History
Thou shalt not steal is part of the Ten Commandments proclaimed to the children of Israel with God's own voice, spoken by Christ the Redeemer from Sinai as the faith once delivered to the saints. God delivered His people from Egypt by mighty power in spite of Pharaoh's opposition so they might keep this law, and brought them to Sinai to hear its proclamation. He declared it publicly amid thunder, lightning, fire, tempest, cloud, thick darkness, smoke ascending as a furnace, earthquake with the whole mount quaking greatly, trumpet tones waxing louder and louder, and glory as a devouring fire. The Lord came down upon Sinai enshrouded in glory and surrounded by angels in a sublime and awful manner, with the Father and the Son upon Sinai's holy mount, after the deliverance from Egypt and the dividing of the Red Sea. He gave it in awful grandeur and sublimity in accordance with its exalted character to make known His majesty and authority as Ruler of the world, to impress the people with the sacredness of His law and the importance of obeying it, so the scene would never be forgotten.
The power and glory with which it was given reveal its importance, showing its sacred and exalted character, and as part of God's great mirror and great rule of right it reveals man's true condition and personal guilt before a pure and holy God, overwhelming sinners with terror so they feared to have God speak with them directly. It was later recapitulated by Moses in the hearing of all the people when Israel was taken into covenant as a peculiar treasure and a holy nation united with a holy God. God accompanied the declaration with sublime exhibitions of His power so Israel would be impressed with profound veneration for the Author of the ten commandments, being taught that everything connected with God must be regarded with greatest reverence and that the mountain was made sacred by His presence, so that even the best of Israel shook with fear and fell on their faces and the earth trembled.
The command was not new at Sinai and not given there as a new law, but is the same moral law and decalogue first given in Eden that already existed. Its principles existed before man was created and governed the angels, whose principles Satan transgressed in his fall, and existed before the fall in a character suited to holy beings. The ban on stealing was made known to Adam and Eve by God without being written after the fall, with nothing taken from it and its principles unchanged though additional precepts were given to meet man in his fallen state including the system of sacrificing beasts. Adam taught it to his descendants and it was handed down to the faithful through successive generations, preserved in the ark by Noah and taught by Noah to his descendants, kept in the hearts of a preserved people from Adam down, preserved by Noah, and observed by Abraham who obeyed God's voice, charge, commandments, statutes, and laws.
Men transgressed it and lost sight of it in Egyptian bondage, so it was proclaimed from Sinai because men transgressed it, repeated by the Lord when He came down on Mount Sinai. God did not trust its teaching to angels or to short human memory, but spoke it Himself with an audible voice in the hearing of all the people and wrote it with His own holy finger upon tables of stone to remove all possibility of mingling tradition with holy precepts or confusing His requirements with practices of men. Its transgression brings death, called for the flood of waters, and made necessary the death of Christ to preserve the honor of the law while making escape from its penalty possible, with the sacrifices teaching humility, repentance, and trust in God alone through the promised Redeemer for pardon of past transgression. Had it been kept, circumcision, the proclamation from Sinai, the tables of stone, and the definite directions would have been unnecessary.
It was then guarded by judgments and laws with minute directions which Moses was required to write as bidden from the mouth of God in the mount, giving minute, definite directions about duty to one another and to the stranger. Those directions are the principles of the ten commandments simplified and stated definitely so men need not err, to draw erring man prone to transgress and forget to obedience of the moral law and into strict obedience. The instruction God gave to Moses on the mount in Exodus 19-24 must be obeyed and studied and presented before the people, given by Christ Jesus Himself who gave the directions on Mount Sinai, guarding against doing injustice and guiding dealings with one another, requiring contention to cease and love as brethren with softened and subdued hearts, and needed now just as truly as by the children of Israel in the days of Moses. It is part of God's law of His kingdom which people are called to read and obey, and part of God's holy, unchangeable commandments which reveal His character and were given to the Israelites after their deliverance from bondage to be obeyed as part of God's law.
God spoke it with an audible voice in the hearing of all Israel after He made a solemn covenant with them to be His peculiar treasure and brought them out to meet with Him. The nation had opportunity to know God's will through these precepts of the Decalogue spoken by God at Sinai, whose teachings Jeremiah urged the people to honor as part of maintaining their covenant relationship with God. Israel was greatly exalted in being made depositaries of the law, but the law of ten precepts was by no means given exclusively to Israel or confined to them, but was entrusted to the Hebrews to preserve and pass on and to be handed down, not a law limited to Israel alone. Their entire history was written for admonition upon whom the ends of the world are come, and its sacredness and exalted character are most fully estimated by those who accept Christ as Redeemer, who is the foundation of the entire Jewish system.
Enduring Divine Authority
The prohibition of stealing remains perpetually binding and unchangeable for all people in every age, and it did not end when Christ died but stays in force after His crucifixion and resurrection. It belongs to the Ten Commandments proclaimed at Sinai and written by God, whose claims endure to the end of time, and it is one of the moral precepts to be taught to children as part of instruction in holy law. Christ Himself spoke this law at Mount Sinai, understood it in all its bearing and far-reaching claims, kept it in letter and spirit, and in His teaching revealed its true light and dignity beyond a cold code or human traditions. His sacrifice magnifies and upholds the law rather than cancelling it, and His death for the world's transgressions confirms that it cannot be abolished and remains the holy and just standard of righteousness as long as heaven and earth endure. To refuse obedience after knowing His life and death is grave sin, and the law is not to be set aside or taught as having no force, nor is obedience optional or subject to personal judgment.
The command means just what it reads and must be presented plainly and exactly as Scripture gives it, without substituting human arguments, for its authority rests on the Lord's command. It forbids stealing and restrains people from taking a neighbor's goods, and to the thief it feels like a grievous restriction, yet the claim that it has not been binding for more than eighteen hundred years falsely removes scruples and leaves a feeling of freedom to steal without condemnation. No man or company of men can change it, and its words as the words of the living God have greater value and force than the precepts and teachings of men. Setting aside this or any commandment and presenting something else in its place usurps authority, infringes upon divine prerogatives as Ruler of the world who proclaimed it in awful grandeur to be observed, and will be dealt with by Jehovah. A human law or enactment that conflicts with God's laws bears no stamp of divine approval, and to obey such a human law compels transgression of the laws of Jehovah. In Christ's time the customs and maxims of the scribes and Pharisees and the customs and traditions handed down through the rabbis were made all-essential and regarded as of even more force, and by dwelling on human teachings above God's words people were kept back from advancing in knowledge and becoming efficient workers, while breaking this one precept makes a person a breaker of the whole law. Through obedience to the law of God, including this precept, comes knowledge that the Lord sanctifies and redeems.
The command is part of the law written by God on stone, which clearly reveals His will, expresses His character, and makes plain the principles of His government and kingdom for all peoples and every nation. At the judgment the law will be presented as the standard of righteousness by which character is judged and defects are revealed, and people will be judged by its righteous principles and by what is written in the books, receiving life or death. Its principles will stand to witness against the world in the day of judgment and will decide the destiny of every soul, so everyone who professes to keep God's commandments should study the commands proclaimed from Sinai in Exodus 20, with keeping further enjoined in Exodus 21 and 22. Keeping God's law in truth and righteousness means obeying every command including this one, and doing His commandments gives right to the tree of life and entrance through the gates into the city. No one can be saved while refusing to keep them, including the Sabbath, and obedience to this perfect law is the prerequisite and condition of salvation while persistent disobedience brings death. Deceiving and misleading others, including through false claims and excuses for wrongdoing, violates the commandments which forbid stealing and require honesty in conduct, and dishonest conduct cannot be sheltered by excuses, for no one can excuse sin. Obedience to all of God's commandments including this one, pronounced in awful grandeur from Sinai by the voice of God from the highest, grandest court, is the highest education that can be given, learned not from human, unsanctified teachers who refuse it but from God Himself. Every truly sanctified soul living the Word will be educated and taught of God in it, fitted for transfer from this world to the highest grade of education above. Within that Decalogue to be respected, the fourth commandment stands at its center declaring who the living God is as the Creator who made the world in six days and rested on the seventh, blessed and hallowed it, and gave it as a memorial of His creative work.
The commands in Exodus 20:1-17 contain far-reaching principles whose full meaning is not appreciated when people focus their minds on earthly matters and let worldly customs and thoughts cloud their view of eternal realities. They require obedience and complete conformity of heart, mind, and soul to God's expressed will.
Breadth of Prohibition
Thou shalt not steal forbids every kind of dishonesty, injustice and fraud in public and private life, including man-stealing, slave-dealing, wars of conquest, robbery, defrauding, extortion, unfair dealing and false representations. It forbids taking or withholding what is due to another for personal gain, and requires strict honesty in every detail of life, just payment of debts and wages, honest weights and measures, and refusal to profit from another's ignorance, weakness or misfortune. Taking advantage of another for selfish gain is robbery, as when a blind man's study and inventions are exploited for one's own benefit, and unjust transactions in business violate the commandment and misrepresent God's character. The prohibition stands even when such conduct is common or excused by plausible claims, and giving money gained by theft or injustice to God's cause does not make the wrong right or erase its record.
The commandment protects property and the rights of the neighbor, acting as a divine restraint that keeps property safe, upholds respect for human law, and helps preserve peace and safety in society. When it is treated as no longer binding, property becomes unsafe, men feel free to seize what belongs to neighbors by violence, the strongest become richest, and lawlessness and insecurity spread. Trampled as a hindrance to worldly prosperity, its rejection would leave no reason to fear transgression and would turn the civilized world into a horde of robbers and assassins with peace, rest and happiness banished from the earth.
Keeping the commandment requires positive love, justice, mercy, kindness and benevolence toward others rather than living for self-enjoyment while disregarding their present and future happiness. It belongs to the commandments defining duty to fellow man and summing up love to neighbor as oneself, setting a standard of justice, mercy and integrity that brings humanity into harmony with God, brings blessing, care and protection, and means guarding others' interests, helping the needy, doing to others as one would be done by, and making restitution for wrongs such as those done to the colored race through slavery. Faithfulness to God is its foundation, for one false to God cannot be true to neighbor, while one who loves God supremely will love his neighbor as himself and will not steal, since stealing springs from pride and self-love that makes a god of self and is expelled only as the soul is sanctified. The desire to accumulate property is not itself sinful, but getting rich becomes transgression when God is forgotten in the effort and the laws of being are violated by overtaxing energy, putting men and women where they cannot glorify God in body and spirit or render Him perfect service.
Specific Forms Violated
Thou shalt not steal forbids robbery and unprincipled, designing plundering of the cause of God, and such sin must be called by its right name without glossing over or excusing it by claims of authority, power, dignity, or doing the will of heaven. It requires dealing with one another on the principles of the Ten Commandments in every part of responsible work and in all business transactions, including the handling of financial interests of religious institutions and by men connected with God's work. Dealing unjustly, taking advantage of those under jurisdiction, forcing others to terms to rule or ruin, oppression, injustice, wickedness, dishonest practices, and robbing members of God's family of individuality or rights are forbidden, and God will never be in league with such practices nor vindicate a single touch of injustice. To plead the cause of God or working for His cause to justify robbery offered as burnt offering is an offense to Him, for His cause is free from every taint of injustice and can gain no advantage by such robbery; He accepts no such unjust transactions, no prosperity attends them, and they are as strange and common fire put in place of sacred fire which He does not accept. The command carries the weight of the truth of the law proclaimed from Sinai's mount, under which every soul must bow in humility and contrition and acknowledge its power and authority, and those who continue in disobedience while claiming to do the will of heaven depart from plain principles and stand on the very brink of ruin. They must come to Jesus Christ who gave His life for those guilty of this sin, that His blood may cleanse them from this and every glossed-over iniquity and open blinded eyes, for working by false propositions assumed to be truth and righteousness violates God's will and misrepresents His character.
The prohibition reaches unjust business, oppression, and covetous robbing of God's means, including temple traders' extortion of the poor at Passover, labor unions and monopolies robbing the poor of advantages and freedom, physicians defrauding patients by dishonest charges, and leaving institutional debts for others to bear. It rules out using God's cause as an excuse for oppression or for letting business interests crowd out love to God and neighbor, and violating it through oppression dishonors God and places stumbling blocks before people, requiring those handling sacred work to act with fairness and clean hands.
Stealing includes more than taking possessions. Secretly working upon nurses, helpers, and other trained workers whom another institution has engaged and had the burden of educating and training, bringing influence to bear upon them by flattery and promises of higher wages and better positions to secure them for oneself, is downright stealing by underhanded scheme. It wrongfully appropriates the labor and investment others put into preparing them, and keeping the commandment in this matter tests the true material of character. The commandments are the standard for all dealing with one another, forbidding any secret, underhanded stealing of another's helpers and associate workers by conniving to draw them away under false reasons as a blind, allowing no circumstance or condition as excuse for the least injustice to brother or neighbor. It requires dealing fairly and openly as the daylight, frankly laying matters open and doing the right thing rather than working in a secretive manner to transfer help to another place, with justice and righteousness in dealing with fellow workers and institutions.
The commandment forbids stealing in deceptive courtship: secretly and deceptively winning another person's affections away from parents through concealed courtship is a form of underhand stealing and dishonesty. It was written by the finger of God upon tables of stone, and means a young man cleanses his way by taking heed according to God's word and making the Bible his guide, so he need not mistake the path of duty and safety, preserving integrity of character, being truthful, and practicing no deception. It requires integrity and right doing in every matter and in every circumstance even when obedience brings sacrifice, and it cannot be set aside to achieve one's desires; though much such stealing of affections is practiced and excused and wrongdoing may seem to prosper for a time, it brings its consequences. It also condemns stealing another person's affections and property through unlawful intimacy joined with coveting, as transgression of God's commandments governing duties between people. A husband who disregards his wife's personal rights and treats her as having no will of her own violates those obligations, so marriage should be considered carefully by both parties and not entered blindly or impulsively.
Using God's entrusted time and money for needless display of dress violates duty to fellow human beings, for those resources are entrusted for service and blessing, not self-indulgence, and such misuse breaks the last six commandments and fails to love neighbor as self. Hasting to be rich through overtaxing energy and violating the laws of being, and needlessly breaking the laws governing the body, are treated as violation of God's law as serious as breaking one of the commandments, whose authority rests on the Creator's claim over what He has made. Violating natural law through depraved appetites and lustful passions is also violating God's law, and the light of health reform makes people aware of the sinfulness of breaking the laws God established in their bodies; if the principles of the Ten Commandments were obeyed, people would not contribute to the disease now spreading through the world. Parents who have more children than they can care for and educate rob children of care and injure society, and children who handle household things destructively and disorderly instead of learning neatness and order break the sacred law given at Sinai, for obedience to that law belongs with reverence, cleanliness, and order in worship. The Ten Commandments cannot be lived out in the heart while a person remains disorderly and unclean in person, clothing, or home, as shown by the preparation required of ancient Israel before hearing the law and by the call to cleanliness in receiving and honoring God's law.
Judgment and Blessing
Thou shalt not steal exposes guilt when set beside the claim to have kept it from youth, for it was among the commandments named as the way to enter into life together with the prohibitions of murder, adultery and false witness, the command to honor father and mother, and the command to love the neighbor as self. The young ruler professed to have kept these from his youth, yet when called to be perfect by selling what he had, giving to the poor, gaining treasure in heaven and following, his supreme attachment to possessions showed failure in the duty to love the neighbor as self that underlies the last six commandments, even where no literal theft occurred. The same law answers the question of inheriting eternal life as loving the Lord God with all heart and soul and strength and mind and loving the neighbor as self, sacred oracles entrusted to be kept as principles of righteousness and the rule of action, now well-nigh lost sight of while the world is gathered to act against them, with the lawyer breaking the last six yet excusing himself and theft excused as common. Keeping this commandment with all ten after conversion, as Paul did, marks God's people and distinguishes them from those who worship the beast, and such faithfulness provokes hostility.
Obedience brings blessing and contempt brings warning, for like every prohibition in physical or moral law this command contains and implies a promise that obedience brings blessing while disobedience brings danger and unhappiness. Respecting these ten sacred precepts given for the government of mankind protects homes from the horrors of vice, and jealousy for their sanctity purifies those who decide to obey God at any cost, leading to understanding the mystery of godliness, loving the law and meditating on it all the day, and having eyes opened to behold wondrous things out of it. Its principles are to be obeyed in daily life, yet lightly regarded, whereas obedience would have prevented the disease flooding the world and would prevent crime, bringing safety, true greatness, health, peace and prosperity. The living Creator, whose law given at Sinai was kept in the sacred chest, sent prosperity or adversity according to obedience or transgression, and making that law void is a grave national offense adding to a nation's guilt before God.
The commandment is kept through Christ, who defended it against tradition, unfolded its spirituality in the Sermon on the Mount, lived perfect obedience to vindicate it, atones for transgression, cleanses the plunderer by His blood, sanctifies through the gospel by expelling self-love, and enables believers by faith to obey from the heart in spirit and letter. It belongs to the holy law spoken at Sinai whose keeping is important and is linked to loving the neighbor as oneself, and obedience to it with the other commandments would bring a great change in cities and throughout the world. It forbids stealing in the form of diverting money given for one field of God's work to benefit another field and leaving the intended recipients without it, calling instead to act justly and not grasp advantages for self or one's own portion of the work at the expense of others. Its claims are binding and to be advocated, so that immoral conduct by an advocate gives enemies of truth occasion to reproach faith and brings perplexity and discouragement upon those just beginning to see light upon the fourth precept; it stands as an unchangeable standard of right-doing that will be the standard in the judgment, whose principles are to be held firmly without letting differences of opinion become a barrier between believers.
Thou shalt not steal forbids every kind of dishonesty, injustice and fraud in public and private life, and requires strict honesty in debts, wages, weights and measures, with no taking or withholding of what is due to another. It is the eighth commandment, belonging to the last six that define duty to fellow human beings and are summed up as loving one's neighbor as oneself. It remains perpetually binding and unchangeable for all people in every age, and Christ kept it in letter and spirit, magnified it, and by His death confirmed it cannot be abolished. Keeping it requires positive love, justice, mercy and benevolence that guards the interests and property of others and does to others as one would be done by, flowing from supreme love to God. It is kept through Christ, who lived perfect obedience to vindicate it, atones for its transgression, and enables believers by faith to obey it from the heart in spirit and letter, bringing safety, peace and prosperity to those who obey.
Wording and Position
Thou shalt not steal is the eighth commandment, one of the last six commandments that show duty to one another. Those six define duty to other people and are summed up as loving the neighbor as oneself, so faithfulness to God is inseparable from love and honesty toward one's neighbor. The first four outline duty to the Maker, while this commandment belongs with those that outline duty to neighbor. One who is false to God cannot be true to neighbor, and one who loves God supremely will love his neighbor as himself and will not steal. Stealing comes from pride and self-love that makes a god of self, and the gospel sanctifies by expelling that self-love.
It is part of the Ten Commandments spoken by God and written by His own finger on tables of stone. That law was first given in Eden, repeated when the Father and the Son were upon Sinai's holy mount, and proclaimed at Sinai so all mankind could understand God's requirements. It clearly reveals His will and the principles of His government for all peoples and expresses the character of the Sovereign of the universe. It covers the whole duty of humanity, sets a standard of justice, mercy, and necessity, preserves human integrity, and brings humanity into harmony with God. Obedience to this perfect law brings blessing with God's care and protection and is the condition of salvation and life, while at the judgment it will be presented as the standard of righteousness by which every person is judged unto life or death, leaving no excuse for sin.
Its principles are guarded and explained by the judgments, statutes, and minute directions given to Moses and written in Exodus 21-22. Those were spoken from the mouth of God in the mount and written by Moses, giving definite directions about duty to one another and to the stranger. They simplify the principles of the ten commandments and state them definitely so men need not err, leading erring man prone to transgress into strict obedience. Additional precepts were thus given to explain and apply its principles and make its obligations more fully understood and enforced, expanding its principles in specific instructions to guide duties among the people and toward strangers and to guard its sacredness. Everyone professing to keep God's commandments should study the commands proclaimed from Sinai in Exodus 20, for their principles with the rest of that law will stand to witness against the world in the day of judgment and decide the destiny of every soul, and keeping God's law in truth and righteousness means obeying every command including this one.
Sinai Proclamation History
Thou shalt not steal is part of the Ten Commandments proclaimed to the children of Israel with God's own voice, spoken by Christ the Redeemer from Sinai as the faith once delivered to the saints. God delivered His people from Egypt by mighty power in spite of Pharaoh's opposition so they might keep this law, and brought them to Sinai to hear its proclamation. He declared it publicly amid thunder, lightning, fire, tempest, cloud, thick darkness, smoke ascending as a furnace, earthquake with the whole mount quaking greatly, trumpet tones waxing louder and louder, and glory as a devouring fire. The Lord came down upon Sinai enshrouded in glory and surrounded by angels in a sublime and awful manner, with the Father and the Son upon Sinai's holy mount, after the deliverance from Egypt and the dividing of the Red Sea. He gave it in awful grandeur and sublimity in accordance with its exalted character to make known His majesty and authority as Ruler of the world, to impress the people with the sacredness of His law and the importance of obeying it, so the scene would never be forgotten.
The power and glory with which it was given reveal its importance, showing its sacred and exalted character, and as part of God's great mirror and great rule of right it reveals man's true condition and personal guilt before a pure and holy God, overwhelming sinners with terror so they feared to have God speak with them directly. It was later recapitulated by Moses in the hearing of all the people when Israel was taken into covenant as a peculiar treasure and a holy nation united with a holy God. God accompanied the declaration with sublime exhibitions of His power so Israel would be impressed with profound veneration for the Author of the ten commandments, being taught that everything connected with God must be regarded with greatest reverence and that the mountain was made sacred by His presence, so that even the best of Israel shook with fear and fell on their faces and the earth trembled.
The command was not new at Sinai and not given there as a new law, but is the same moral law and decalogue first given in Eden that already existed. Its principles existed before man was created and governed the angels, whose principles Satan transgressed in his fall, and existed before the fall in a character suited to holy beings. The ban on stealing was made known to Adam and Eve by God without being written after the fall, with nothing taken from it and its principles unchanged though additional precepts were given to meet man in his fallen state including the system of sacrificing beasts. Adam taught it to his descendants and it was handed down to the faithful through successive generations, preserved in the ark by Noah and taught by Noah to his descendants, kept in the hearts of a preserved people from Adam down, preserved by Noah, and observed by Abraham who obeyed God's voice, charge, commandments, statutes, and laws.
Men transgressed it and lost sight of it in Egyptian bondage, so it was proclaimed from Sinai because men transgressed it, repeated by the Lord when He came down on Mount Sinai. God did not trust its teaching to angels or to short human memory, but spoke it Himself with an audible voice in the hearing of all the people and wrote it with His own holy finger upon tables of stone to remove all possibility of mingling tradition with holy precepts or confusing His requirements with practices of men. Its transgression brings death, called for the flood of waters, and made necessary the death of Christ to preserve the honor of the law while making escape from its penalty possible, with the sacrifices teaching humility, repentance, and trust in God alone through the promised Redeemer for pardon of past transgression. Had it been kept, circumcision, the proclamation from Sinai, the tables of stone, and the definite directions would have been unnecessary.
It was then guarded by judgments and laws with minute directions which Moses was required to write as bidden from the mouth of God in the mount, giving minute, definite directions about duty to one another and to the stranger. Those directions are the principles of the ten commandments simplified and stated definitely so men need not err, to draw erring man prone to transgress and forget to obedience of the moral law and into strict obedience. The instruction God gave to Moses on the mount in Exodus 19-24 must be obeyed and studied and presented before the people, given by Christ Jesus Himself who gave the directions on Mount Sinai, guarding against doing injustice and guiding dealings with one another, requiring contention to cease and love as brethren with softened and subdued hearts, and needed now just as truly as by the children of Israel in the days of Moses. It is part of God's law of His kingdom which people are called to read and obey, and part of God's holy, unchangeable commandments which reveal His character and were given to the Israelites after their deliverance from bondage to be obeyed as part of God's law.
God spoke it with an audible voice in the hearing of all Israel after He made a solemn covenant with them to be His peculiar treasure and brought them out to meet with Him. The nation had opportunity to know God's will through these precepts of the Decalogue spoken by God at Sinai, whose teachings Jeremiah urged the people to honor as part of maintaining their covenant relationship with God. Israel was greatly exalted in being made depositaries of the law, but the law of ten precepts was by no means given exclusively to Israel or confined to them, but was entrusted to the Hebrews to preserve and pass on and to be handed down, not a law limited to Israel alone. Their entire history was written for admonition upon whom the ends of the world are come, and its sacredness and exalted character are most fully estimated by those who accept Christ as Redeemer, who is the foundation of the entire Jewish system.
Enduring Divine Authority
The prohibition of stealing remains perpetually binding and unchangeable for all people in every age, and it did not end when Christ died but stays in force after His crucifixion and resurrection. It belongs to the Ten Commandments proclaimed at Sinai and written by God, whose claims endure to the end of time, and it is one of the moral precepts to be taught to children as part of instruction in holy law. Christ Himself spoke this law at Mount Sinai, understood it in all its bearing and far-reaching claims, kept it in letter and spirit, and in His teaching revealed its true light and dignity beyond a cold code or human traditions. His sacrifice magnifies and upholds the law rather than cancelling it, and His death for the world's transgressions confirms that it cannot be abolished and remains the holy and just standard of righteousness as long as heaven and earth endure. To refuse obedience after knowing His life and death is grave sin, and the law is not to be set aside or taught as having no force, nor is obedience optional or subject to personal judgment.
The command means just what it reads and must be presented plainly and exactly as Scripture gives it, without substituting human arguments, for its authority rests on the Lord's command. It forbids stealing and restrains people from taking a neighbor's goods, and to the thief it feels like a grievous restriction, yet the claim that it has not been binding for more than eighteen hundred years falsely removes scruples and leaves a feeling of freedom to steal without condemnation. No man or company of men can change it, and its words as the words of the living God have greater value and force than the precepts and teachings of men. Setting aside this or any commandment and presenting something else in its place usurps authority, infringes upon divine prerogatives as Ruler of the world who proclaimed it in awful grandeur to be observed, and will be dealt with by Jehovah. A human law or enactment that conflicts with God's laws bears no stamp of divine approval, and to obey such a human law compels transgression of the laws of Jehovah. In Christ's time the customs and maxims of the scribes and Pharisees and the customs and traditions handed down through the rabbis were made all-essential and regarded as of even more force, and by dwelling on human teachings above God's words people were kept back from advancing in knowledge and becoming efficient workers, while breaking this one precept makes a person a breaker of the whole law. Through obedience to the law of God, including this precept, comes knowledge that the Lord sanctifies and redeems.
The command is part of the law written by God on stone, which clearly reveals His will, expresses His character, and makes plain the principles of His government and kingdom for all peoples and every nation. At the judgment the law will be presented as the standard of righteousness by which character is judged and defects are revealed, and people will be judged by its righteous principles and by what is written in the books, receiving life or death. Its principles will stand to witness against the world in the day of judgment and will decide the destiny of every soul, so everyone who professes to keep God's commandments should study the commands proclaimed from Sinai in Exodus 20, with keeping further enjoined in Exodus 21 and 22. Keeping God's law in truth and righteousness means obeying every command including this one, and doing His commandments gives right to the tree of life and entrance through the gates into the city. No one can be saved while refusing to keep them, including the Sabbath, and obedience to this perfect law is the prerequisite and condition of salvation while persistent disobedience brings death. Deceiving and misleading others, including through false claims and excuses for wrongdoing, violates the commandments which forbid stealing and require honesty in conduct, and dishonest conduct cannot be sheltered by excuses, for no one can excuse sin. Obedience to all of God's commandments including this one, pronounced in awful grandeur from Sinai by the voice of God from the highest, grandest court, is the highest education that can be given, learned not from human, unsanctified teachers who refuse it but from God Himself. Every truly sanctified soul living the Word will be educated and taught of God in it, fitted for transfer from this world to the highest grade of education above. Within that Decalogue to be respected, the fourth commandment stands at its center declaring who the living God is as the Creator who made the world in six days and rested on the seventh, blessed and hallowed it, and gave it as a memorial of His creative work.
The commands in Exodus 20:1-17 contain far-reaching principles whose full meaning is not appreciated when people focus their minds on earthly matters and let worldly customs and thoughts cloud their view of eternal realities. They require obedience and complete conformity of heart, mind, and soul to God's expressed will.
Breadth of Prohibition
Thou shalt not steal forbids every kind of dishonesty, injustice and fraud in public and private life, including man-stealing, slave-dealing, wars of conquest, robbery, defrauding, extortion, unfair dealing and false representations. It forbids taking or withholding what is due to another for personal gain, and requires strict honesty in every detail of life, just payment of debts and wages, honest weights and measures, and refusal to profit from another's ignorance, weakness or misfortune. Taking advantage of another for selfish gain is robbery, as when a blind man's study and inventions are exploited for one's own benefit, and unjust transactions in business violate the commandment and misrepresent God's character. The prohibition stands even when such conduct is common or excused by plausible claims, and giving money gained by theft or injustice to God's cause does not make the wrong right or erase its record.
The commandment protects property and the rights of the neighbor, acting as a divine restraint that keeps property safe, upholds respect for human law, and helps preserve peace and safety in society. When it is treated as no longer binding, property becomes unsafe, men feel free to seize what belongs to neighbors by violence, the strongest become richest, and lawlessness and insecurity spread. Trampled as a hindrance to worldly prosperity, its rejection would leave no reason to fear transgression and would turn the civilized world into a horde of robbers and assassins with peace, rest and happiness banished from the earth.
Keeping the commandment requires positive love, justice, mercy, kindness and benevolence toward others rather than living for self-enjoyment while disregarding their present and future happiness. It belongs to the commandments defining duty to fellow man and summing up love to neighbor as oneself, setting a standard of justice, mercy and integrity that brings humanity into harmony with God, brings blessing, care and protection, and means guarding others' interests, helping the needy, doing to others as one would be done by, and making restitution for wrongs such as those done to the colored race through slavery. Faithfulness to God is its foundation, for one false to God cannot be true to neighbor, while one who loves God supremely will love his neighbor as himself and will not steal, since stealing springs from pride and self-love that makes a god of self and is expelled only as the soul is sanctified. The desire to accumulate property is not itself sinful, but getting rich becomes transgression when God is forgotten in the effort and the laws of being are violated by overtaxing energy, putting men and women where they cannot glorify God in body and spirit or render Him perfect service.
Specific Forms Violated
Thou shalt not steal forbids robbery and unprincipled, designing plundering of the cause of God, and such sin must be called by its right name without glossing over or excusing it by claims of authority, power, dignity, or doing the will of heaven. It requires dealing with one another on the principles of the Ten Commandments in every part of responsible work and in all business transactions, including the handling of financial interests of religious institutions and by men connected with God's work. Dealing unjustly, taking advantage of those under jurisdiction, forcing others to terms to rule or ruin, oppression, injustice, wickedness, dishonest practices, and robbing members of God's family of individuality or rights are forbidden, and God will never be in league with such practices nor vindicate a single touch of injustice. To plead the cause of God or working for His cause to justify robbery offered as burnt offering is an offense to Him, for His cause is free from every taint of injustice and can gain no advantage by such robbery; He accepts no such unjust transactions, no prosperity attends them, and they are as strange and common fire put in place of sacred fire which He does not accept. The command carries the weight of the truth of the law proclaimed from Sinai's mount, under which every soul must bow in humility and contrition and acknowledge its power and authority, and those who continue in disobedience while claiming to do the will of heaven depart from plain principles and stand on the very brink of ruin. They must come to Jesus Christ who gave His life for those guilty of this sin, that His blood may cleanse them from this and every glossed-over iniquity and open blinded eyes, for working by false propositions assumed to be truth and righteousness violates God's will and misrepresents His character.
The prohibition reaches unjust business, oppression, and covetous robbing of God's means, including temple traders' extortion of the poor at Passover, labor unions and monopolies robbing the poor of advantages and freedom, physicians defrauding patients by dishonest charges, and leaving institutional debts for others to bear. It rules out using God's cause as an excuse for oppression or for letting business interests crowd out love to God and neighbor, and violating it through oppression dishonors God and places stumbling blocks before people, requiring those handling sacred work to act with fairness and clean hands.
Stealing includes more than taking possessions. Secretly working upon nurses, helpers, and other trained workers whom another institution has engaged and had the burden of educating and training, bringing influence to bear upon them by flattery and promises of higher wages and better positions to secure them for oneself, is downright stealing by underhanded scheme. It wrongfully appropriates the labor and investment others put into preparing them, and keeping the commandment in this matter tests the true material of character. The commandments are the standard for all dealing with one another, forbidding any secret, underhanded stealing of another's helpers and associate workers by conniving to draw them away under false reasons as a blind, allowing no circumstance or condition as excuse for the least injustice to brother or neighbor. It requires dealing fairly and openly as the daylight, frankly laying matters open and doing the right thing rather than working in a secretive manner to transfer help to another place, with justice and righteousness in dealing with fellow workers and institutions.
The commandment forbids stealing in deceptive courtship: secretly and deceptively winning another person's affections away from parents through concealed courtship is a form of underhand stealing and dishonesty. It was written by the finger of God upon tables of stone, and means a young man cleanses his way by taking heed according to God's word and making the Bible his guide, so he need not mistake the path of duty and safety, preserving integrity of character, being truthful, and practicing no deception. It requires integrity and right doing in every matter and in every circumstance even when obedience brings sacrifice, and it cannot be set aside to achieve one's desires; though much such stealing of affections is practiced and excused and wrongdoing may seem to prosper for a time, it brings its consequences. It also condemns stealing another person's affections and property through unlawful intimacy joined with coveting, as transgression of God's commandments governing duties between people. A husband who disregards his wife's personal rights and treats her as having no will of her own violates those obligations, so marriage should be considered carefully by both parties and not entered blindly or impulsively.
Using God's entrusted time and money for needless display of dress violates duty to fellow human beings, for those resources are entrusted for service and blessing, not self-indulgence, and such misuse breaks the last six commandments and fails to love neighbor as self. Hasting to be rich through overtaxing energy and violating the laws of being, and needlessly breaking the laws governing the body, are treated as violation of God's law as serious as breaking one of the commandments, whose authority rests on the Creator's claim over what He has made. Violating natural law through depraved appetites and lustful passions is also violating God's law, and the light of health reform makes people aware of the sinfulness of breaking the laws God established in their bodies; if the principles of the Ten Commandments were obeyed, people would not contribute to the disease now spreading through the world. Parents who have more children than they can care for and educate rob children of care and injure society, and children who handle household things destructively and disorderly instead of learning neatness and order break the sacred law given at Sinai, for obedience to that law belongs with reverence, cleanliness, and order in worship. The Ten Commandments cannot be lived out in the heart while a person remains disorderly and unclean in person, clothing, or home, as shown by the preparation required of ancient Israel before hearing the law and by the call to cleanliness in receiving and honoring God's law.
Judgment and Blessing
Thou shalt not steal exposes guilt when set beside the claim to have kept it from youth, for it was among the commandments named as the way to enter into life together with the prohibitions of murder, adultery and false witness, the command to honor father and mother, and the command to love the neighbor as self. The young ruler professed to have kept these from his youth, yet when called to be perfect by selling what he had, giving to the poor, gaining treasure in heaven and following, his supreme attachment to possessions showed failure in the duty to love the neighbor as self that underlies the last six commandments, even where no literal theft occurred. The same law answers the question of inheriting eternal life as loving the Lord God with all heart and soul and strength and mind and loving the neighbor as self, sacred oracles entrusted to be kept as principles of righteousness and the rule of action, now well-nigh lost sight of while the world is gathered to act against them, with the lawyer breaking the last six yet excusing himself and theft excused as common. Keeping this commandment with all ten after conversion, as Paul did, marks God's people and distinguishes them from those who worship the beast, and such faithfulness provokes hostility.
Obedience brings blessing and contempt brings warning, for like every prohibition in physical or moral law this command contains and implies a promise that obedience brings blessing while disobedience brings danger and unhappiness. Respecting these ten sacred precepts given for the government of mankind protects homes from the horrors of vice, and jealousy for their sanctity purifies those who decide to obey God at any cost, leading to understanding the mystery of godliness, loving the law and meditating on it all the day, and having eyes opened to behold wondrous things out of it. Its principles are to be obeyed in daily life, yet lightly regarded, whereas obedience would have prevented the disease flooding the world and would prevent crime, bringing safety, true greatness, health, peace and prosperity. The living Creator, whose law given at Sinai was kept in the sacred chest, sent prosperity or adversity according to obedience or transgression, and making that law void is a grave national offense adding to a nation's guilt before God.
The commandment is kept through Christ, who defended it against tradition, unfolded its spirituality in the Sermon on the Mount, lived perfect obedience to vindicate it, atones for transgression, cleanses the plunderer by His blood, sanctifies through the gospel by expelling self-love, and enables believers by faith to obey from the heart in spirit and letter. It belongs to the holy law spoken at Sinai whose keeping is important and is linked to loving the neighbor as oneself, and obedience to it with the other commandments would bring a great change in cities and throughout the world. It forbids stealing in the form of diverting money given for one field of God's work to benefit another field and leaving the intended recipients without it, calling instead to act justly and not grasp advantages for self or one's own portion of the work at the expense of others. Its claims are binding and to be advocated, so that immoral conduct by an advocate gives enemies of truth occasion to reproach faith and brings perplexity and discouragement upon those just beginning to see light upon the fourth precept; it stands as an unchangeable standard of right-doing that will be the standard in the judgment, whose principles are to be held firmly without letting differences of opinion become a barrier between believers.