“The Wider Implications of Commandment Eight”

Exodus 20:15

Walter J. Harrelson (re: stealing): It is any activity that damages or destroys a person’s or a community’s opportunity for tolerable life in community – consisting at least of adequate food, clothing, shelter, work, and hope for the future.

[prayer]

In the 12^th chapter of II Samuel the prophet Nathan comes to King David with a disturbing story. There were two men, one who was rich and the other who was poor. The rich man had more sheep than he could count. The poor man had one little lamb, so beloved that it was almost a member of the family. One day the rich man had company. He wanted to treat him to a lamb dinner. Did he go out and select a lamb from one of his many flocks? No he took the poor man’s lamb, slaughtered it, and fed it to his guest. David was livid. How dare such a crime be committed in his kingdom! He demanded justice.

Then Nathan hits him with the truth. David was the rich man. Uriah was the poor man. David had many wives. Uriah had one, Bathsheba. David lusted after Bathsheba and committed adultery with her. Worse than that, he arranged to have Uriah killed in battle – he had him murdered. David took Bathsheba for his own. He stole her.

David wasn’t the only member of royalty in Israel’s history who used his power and position to take what didn’t belong to him. King Ahab wanted a particular vineyard. Its owner refused to sell it to him. Ahab went into a major pout. His wife, Jezebel, not wanting her poor little hubby to be unhappy, arranged for the vineyard’s owner to be falsely accused, unjustly tried, and illegally put to death. All that just so Ahab could have that other man’s vineyard.

David’s lust so led him to covet Uriah’s wife that he ended up committing adultery, murder, and a theft of sorts. Ahab’s poor, pitiful response to not getting that which he childishly coveted, led Jezebel to arrange for someone to bear false witness – to pervert the legal system - as a means of stealing what Ahab wanted. There was also an unsanctioned execution – a murder - involved. In the end there was theft.

Why, throughout history, have powerful people like David and Jezebel been able to get away with such atrocities? Because they could. They could because no one among their friends and advisors was willing to call them into accountability for their actions. They could because nobody wanted to upset the cultural status quo. They could because they were willing to use bribery and other behaviors to seduce people into doing what they wanted done, and when that didn’t work they enforced their will by way of threats and intimidation. They could, and so they did; they stole the precious property of others.

Switching gears: Eugene Peterson, dealing with how Commandments 6-10 are so ethically entwined and interrelated, wrote, “Grammatically, the [last five Commandments]could be a single sentence, each [Commandment] linked to the next by ‘and’… This [sentence] is an unbroken chain of linked commands. None can function by itself. It’s all or nothing.” Coveting leads to lust, adultery, and theft. The prophetic literature of the Old Testament is shot through with examples of false witness being employed in the cause of theft and even murder.

The Commandment not to steal covers a lot of territory. We are not to take what doesn’t belong to us: neither openly nor in secret, neither by force nor by deceit. We don’t steal property. We don’t steal people. We don’t steal life itself.

In ancient Israel theft often led to death. When one has little even the loss of one possession can push him or her over the edge into financial disaster. In the deserts of the ancient Middle East stealing someone’s coat almost always condemned him or her to death once the cold, dark night fell. And each theft that led to death had wider social implications. Loss of father and husband could bring destitution and fragmentation upon a family. Fragmented families brought instability into the wider community and culture. There was no such thing in such a society as petty theft. All theft was major.

Most reliable Biblical scholars understand the original prohibition espoused by the 8th Commandment to be against kidnapping. People were not to be stolen. They were not to be robbed of their freedom. Kidnapping was a capital crime. The enslavement of one Israelite by another was strictly forbidden.

Over time the Commandment came to be understood as a prohibition against the theft of property. As has already been said, taking someone’s property was often tantamount to taking his or her life. And as Israel moved from being a loose federation of tribes to being a kingdom, the theft of property, especially houses and land, became an indirect means of enslavement. When you owe your soul to the company store, so to speak, you’re pretty much owned by whoever owns the store. This is especially despicable when such theft is accomplished by way of manipulating the legal system or by using fraudulent business practices.

Or in some cases acquiring something that belongs to someone else by means that are technically legal but still unethical. Jesus had some harsh words for those in his day, who under the cloak of superior piety, used loopholes in the law to steal from the less fortunate who had no means by which to defend themselves. Reading from The Message: “Watch out for the religious scholars. They love to walk around in academic gowns, preening in the radiance of public flattery, basking in prominent positions, sitting at the head table at every church function. And all the time they’re exploiting the weak and the helpless. The longer their prayers, the worse they get. But they’ll pay for it in the end.”

It was such behavior in the twin kingdoms of Judah and Israel that stirred the wrath of the Lord. Through prophets like Isaiah, Micah, and Amos the Lord heaped words of condemnation on those who stole from those who could not defend themselves - and it didn’t matter how they went about their thievery. Through those same prophets the Lord spoke harsh words of judgment on those whose unethical business practices pushed some people into a form of economic slavery. Through those same prophets the Lord let it be known that he would not tolerate bribery and false testimony in court being used as tools by which those who had the money, the power, and the connections to steal from those who lacked the means by which to defend themselves.

Nobody spoke God’s Word against such thievery with more brutal honesty than did Amos. Hear an amplified version of some of his comments from the fifth chapter of Amos: “They hate the one who reproves in the gate, and they abhor the one who speaks the truth.” Those who wanted to take what wasn’t theirs by corrupting the judicial system hated fair and ethical judges and despised witnesses who wouldn’t give false testimony. They hated and despised those whom they could not bribe to lie for them.

“For I [the Lord] know how many are your transgressions, and how great are your sins – you who afflict the righteous, who take a bribe, and push aside the needy in the gate.” The Lord was well aware of the sinful behaviors by which they brought pain and misery upon those who played by the rules. He was aware of their bribery. He did not turn a blind eye to those who did whatever it took to deny the poor their fair day in court.

“I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.” God was not fooled by the false piety of those whose religious facades hid their sinful hearts. He wanted nothing to do with their hypocritical religiosity.

And what did God want? “Seek good and not evil, that you may live… Hate evil and love good, and establish justice in the gate.” Turn your lives around 180 degrees. Be honest in your business dealings. Don’t use rigged scales. Don’t charge first rate prices for second- or even third-rate merchandise. Demand and then work for a judicial system that evenly metes out equitable justice for all, a system in which judges and witnesses do not take bribes.

“You shall not steal.” So says the commandment. Don’t take so much as an apple out a store without paying for it. Don’t lift money from your employer’s cash register. Don’t cheat on your taxes or file inflated insurance claims. Don’t work thirty hours when you’re being paid for forty. The reverse is also true. Don’t pay an employee for thirty hours when he or she has worked forty. Don’t use threats or intimidation to illegally force people to work off the clock.

Don’t ever take what isn’t yours by throwing your weight around or by unethically using your business and social connections. Don’t stoop to bribery in order to win a contract. Don’t cut corners in order to come in under budget. Don’t cheat people even if you can do so legally. Make sure that the weak and powerless are not taken advantage of by either con artists or so-called legitimate businessmen. Don’t steal. Period. The end. Amen.