The Eighth Commandment: Thou Shalt Not Steal
by xAI Grok
Thou shalt not steal.
(Exodus 20:15)
Neither shalt thou steal.
(Deuteronomy 5:19)
Ye shall not steal, neither deal falsely, neither lie one to another.
(Leviticus 19:11)
When Jesus listed the commandments He said the same word:
Thou shalt not steal.
(Matthew 19:18)
Do not steal.
(Mark 10:19; Luke 18:20)
In Mark He set another word beside it: Defraud not.
The command is short. It stands only if a thing can belong to a man. If nothing is his, nothing can be stolen. The eighth word is a wall around house, goods, land, and labour.
Stealing and the right to hold what is yours
The next commandment names the neighbour’s house, wife, servant, ox, and ass (Exodus 20:17). Those things are his. Thou shalt not remove thy neighbour’s landmark (Deuteronomy 19:14). If a man shall steal an ox or a sheep, he shall restore (Exodus 22:1). Restore, because the beast was another man’s.
Naboth said to Ahab, The LORD forbid it me, that I should give the inheritance of my fathers unto thee (1 Kings 21:3). The vineyard was Naboth’s. The king’s taking of it was theft with a seal on it.
A man’s house is named as his. Jesus spoke of thieves who break through and steal treasures laid up on earth (Matthew 6:19). Breaking in only works if the house and the goods are not the thief’s.
Whoso robbeth his father or his mother, and saith, It is no transgression; the same is the companion of a destroyer (Proverbs 28:24). Even inside the family the goods are not free for the taking.
Labour has a claim. Thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn. The labourer is worthy of his hire. To keep back wages is to steal a man’s time and strength (Leviticus 19:13; Deuteronomy 24:14-15). 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 (Ephesians 4:28). He must own what he makes before he can give it. Giving is not possible if he never had it.
This is not a license to grind the poor. The same Law forbids false weights, delayed pay, and moving the landmark. Ananias owned land; after it was sold the money was in his power until he lied about it (Acts 5:4). The sin was the lie, not that the field had been his. God can require tithe, alms, and justice. That is His claim. A neighbour’s house is not cancelled because a crowd wants it.
What Jesus taught
For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies.
(Matthew 15:19; Mark 7:21-22)
Theft starts inside, as murder and adultery do.
Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal.
(Matthew 6:19-20)
It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves.
(Matthew 21:13; Mark 11:17; Luke 19:46)
Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber.
(John 10:1)
The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.
(John 10:10)
Zacchaeus said, If I have taken any thing from any man by false accusation, I restore him fourfold. Jesus said, This day is salvation come to this house.
(Luke 19:8-9)
He did not treat stealing as a small matter. He listed it with the commandments. He traced it to the heart. He drove buyers and sellers out of the house of prayer. He set His own coming against the thief who comes only to steal.
In Closing
Thou shalt not steal. A home can be a man’s home. Goods can be his goods. A field, a tool, a wage, a beast can bear his name. To take them by force, fraud, a hidden hand, or a law that simply seizes what God allowed him to hold, is to break the eighth word. Steal no more. Labour. Hold what is yours in the fear of God. Do not take what is your neighbour’s. The glory of every good gift is God’s. Do not steal the gift. Do not steal the credit.
Do unto others as you want them to do unto you.
Hallowed be thy name.
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