Commentary - Exodus 22:1

Bird's-eye view

We come now to the book of the covenant, that section of Exodus where the Lord applies the principles of the Ten Commandments to the nitty-gritty of Israel's life. This is not abstract jurisprudence; it is divine wisdom for a redeemed people, showing them how to live together in holiness and justice. The Ten Words given on Sinai were the bedrock principles, and what follows here in chapter 22 are the case laws, the practical applications. God is not interested in mere sentiment. He is interested in righteousness that works itself out in the town square, the pasture, and the home. This chapter deals extensively with property rights and the principle of restitution. This is crucial because a society that does not protect property cannot protect anything else. When God says, "Thou shalt not steal," He presupposes the legitimacy of private property. Here, He lays out the consequences for violating that command, and those consequences are not imprisonment at the state's expense, but rather restoration to the one who was wronged.

The central theme is that sin creates a debt, and that debt must be paid. A thief doesn't just break a rule; he damages his neighbor. He disrupts the peace and fabric of the covenant community. Therefore, justice is not primarily punitive, but restorative. The goal is to make the victim whole again, and then some. This principle of restitution is a forgotten duty in the modern evangelical church, which too often wants to claim the forgiveness of the gospel without embracing the righteousness that the gospel produces. But as Zaccheus understood, true repentance bears fruit, and that fruit often involves writing a check (Luke 19:8). These laws show us a foundational aspect of God's character: He is a God of justice who requires His people to live justly with one another. This is the groundwork for a stable and prosperous society, built not on humanistic ideals, but on the revealed law of God.

Outline

Context In Exodus

Exodus 22:1 is situated within the "Book of the Covenant" (Exodus 20:22–23:33), which immediately follows the giving of the Ten Commandments. This section is what we would call a case law collection. God has just declared the fundamental principles of His kingdom, and now Moses records the specific applications of those principles. The eighth commandment, "You shall not steal" (Exod. 20:15), is the direct foundation for this passage. But God doesn't just leave it as a bare prohibition. He provides the sanctions, the teeth of the law. He is showing Israel how to build a society where that commandment is honored and where its violation is justly rectified.

This is not a comprehensive legal code in the modern sense, covering every conceivable eventuality. Rather, it is a series of representative judgments from which wise judges could derive the principles needed to adjudicate other cases. This is how biblical law works; it provides the paradigm. The specific case here, concerning livestock, was central to their agrarian economy. An ox was a tractor and a sheep was a walking savings account. Stealing one was a direct assault on a man's livelihood. By starting with these high-stakes items, God establishes the seriousness of theft and the foundational importance of restitution.

Exodus 22:1

1 “If a man steals an ox or a sheep and slaughters it or sells it, he shall pay five oxen for the ox and four sheep for the sheep."

If a man steals an ox or a sheep

The law begins with a simple, concrete scenario. It doesn't say "if a person appropriates property not belonging to them." It says, "if a man steals an ox or a sheep." This is divine case law. God condescends to speak to us in the midst of our ordinary lives. An ox and a sheep were prime capital goods in that economy. An ox was essential for plowing, for threshing, for heavy labor. It was a means of production. A sheep provided wool, milk, and meat. To steal one was to cripple a family's economic engine. Notice that the law presupposes private ownership. God does not establish a commune at Sinai. He establishes a nation of free families, each with their own stewardship, their own property. The eighth commandment is meaningless without this assumption. Stealing is wrong because the property rightfully belongs to your neighbor, who is a steward of what God has given him.

and slaughters it or sells it

This clause is the key to understanding the penalty that follows. The thief has done more than simply take the animal. He has liquidated the asset. He has treated the stolen property as his own in the most definitive way possible, either by consuming it (slaughtering it) or by converting it into cash (selling it). This demonstrates a high-handed contempt for his neighbor's property rights. The animal cannot be returned. The crime is aggravated because the thief has compounded his sin. He has not just deprived his neighbor of the animal, but of any possibility of recovering that specific animal. This is a brazen act, and the law treats it as such. It reveals a hardened heart, one that has moved past the initial temptation and into the business of trafficking in stolen goods. This is not a crime of opportunity, but a calculated offense.

he shall pay five oxen for the ox and four sheep for the sheep

Here we have the principle of penal restitution. Justice requires more than simply giving back what was stolen. That would make theft a no-risk proposition. If you get caught, you just give it back. If you don't, you keep it. God's law is wiser than that. The thief must restore the victim, and the penalty is part of that restoration. It compensates the victim not just for the thing stolen, but for the time it was gone, the disruption, the insecurity, and the lost productivity.

But why the difference? Five for one for the ox, and four for one for the sheep. The discrepancy is not arbitrary. An ox was significantly more valuable as a capital asset. Stealing an ox did more damage to a man's ability to provide for his family than stealing a sheep. The ox plowed the fields that grew the grain for the entire family and community. Its theft was a greater blow to the victim's economic life. The law, in its wisdom, calibrates the restitution to the crime and its consequences. This is not vengeance; this is calibrated, restorative justice. The payment goes to the victim, not to a centralized state bureaucracy. The purpose is to make things right between the offender and the offended, and in so doing, to teach the entire community that crime does not pay, but righteousness does.

Application

The modern world, and sadly the modern church, has largely forgotten this principle of restitution. We have substituted God's justice for a therapeutic humanism that is soft on crime and hard on victims. When we sin against our neighbor, particularly by theft, our first thought is often about getting forgiveness from God, while neglecting our duty to the person we have wronged. But the Bible binds these two things together. True repentance is not just a vertical confession; it is a horizontal restoration. If you steal a hundred dollars from your brother, you cannot simply pray, "God, forgive me," and then go out for a steak dinner with the stolen money. You must go to your brother, confess, and make restitution. And according to the principle here, biblical restitution would require paying back more than what was taken.

This law establishes that property rights are sacred because they are a stewardship from God. When the state inflates its currency, it is stealing from every citizen. When a company engages in deceptive practices, it is stealing from its customers. When an employee wastes time on the clock, he is stealing from his employer. The eighth commandment applies to all of it. And the principle of restitution applies as well. We must be a people who are zealous to make things right. Grace does not abolish this duty; it empowers us to fulfill it joyfully. Christ is our guilt offering, who paid the ultimate price for our sin against God. Because we have been forgiven such an immense debt, we should be the first to be scrupulous in paying the small debts we owe to our neighbors.