“ ‘You shall not steal. “ ‘You shall not lie. “ ‘You shall not deceive one another.
Not to steal money or property
The cited verse
The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)
לֹא תִּגְנֹבוּ
In Maimonides’ words
How Maimonides defines this commandment in his Sefer HaMitzvot — his own words, shown as a primary source.
שהזהירנו שלא לגנוב ממון. והוא אמרו יתעלה לא תגנובו. ובמכילתא לא תגנובו הרי האזהרה לגונב ממון, והעובר על לאו זה הוא חייב לשלם מה שזכר הכתוב אם תשלומי כפל או תשלומי ארבעה וחמשה או להשיב קרן לבד. ובספרא לפי שנאמר בגניבה שנים ישלם שמענו עונש אזהרה מנין תלמוד לומר לא תגנוב על מנת למקט פירוש לצער הבעלים ולהכאיבן ואחר כן תשיבהו לו לא תגנובו על מנת לשלם ארבעה וחמשה. וכבר התבארו משפטי מצוה זו בשביעי מקמא. (קדושים, הלכות גניבה פ"א):
He prohibited us - that we not steal money. And that is His, may He be exalted, saying, "You shall not steal" (Leviticus 19:11). And in the Mekhilta (Mekhilta d'Rabbi Yishmael 20:13:3): "'You shall not steal,' is the prohibition against stealing money." And one who transgresses this negative commandment is liable to pay that which is mentioned by Scripture - whether it is double-payment, four times or five times or just to return the principal. And in the Sifra (Sifra, Kedoshim, Section 2:1-2): "Because it is stated about stealing, 'He shall pay double' (Exodus 22:6), we know the punishment. From where [do we know] the prohibition? [Hence] we learn to say, 'You shall not steal.' [Even if only] to taunt [the owner]" - its explanation being, to annoy the owners and to hurt them; and to return it afterwards. "'You shall not steal' - even in order to pay four times or five times." And the regulations of this commandment have already been explained in the seventh [chapter] of [Bava] Kamma. (See Parashat Kedoshim; Mishneh Torah, Theft 1.)
Hebrew: Sefer HaMitzvot, Warsaw 1883 (public domain). English: Sefaria Edition, trans. Rabbi Francis Nataf, 2021 (CC0). Via Sefaria; translator’s footnotes omitted.
Literary form: a prohibition
Applicability
How the catalog describes where and when this commandment applies. These are independent descriptions, not a verdict on which laws still count.
- Recorded as practiced today
Classical halakhic consequences
The consequences the classical halakhah attaches to this commandment, grouped by who imposes them. Where a category has none recorded, that absence is itself meaningful.
Imposed by a court
- A monetary penalty
At the hands of Heaven
No divinely-imposed consequence is recorded.
Ritual remedy
- Restitution (tashlumin)
How the streams of Judaism treat this commandment
The streams of Judaism read the same commandment differently — an ongoing plurality, not a ranking. Each position below is reported as the catalog records it; none is presented as the correct one.
- Orthodox Binding
- Conservative Binding
- Reform Binding
- Reconstructionist Binding
- Karaite Binding
24 of 613 commandments have been examined in depth so far — this one is queued.
How later traditions received this commandment
How later traditions read or reworked this commandment, each attributed to its own voice. The catalog’s own classification of each reception is shown as it records it, never adopted as GEBible’s.
Rabbinic aggadah
- Tosefta Bava Qamma ch. 7 expanded it homiletically
Philo of Alexandria
- De Specialibus Legibus 4.2-12 rationalized it
Josephus
- Ant. 4.271-272 affirmed it
The New Testament
- Romans 13:9 affirmed it Paul cites the Decalogue form 'ou klepseis' among commandments summed in love of neighbor, paralleling rather than directly quoting Lev 19:11
- Ephesians 4:28 reinterpreted it the thief enjoined to labor and give to the needy rather than steal
The Qur'an and hadith
- Q 5:38 carried a parallel, with divergence
Beside the older legal codes of its world
The commandment set beside the ancient Near-Eastern legal collections scholars compare it to — a descriptive comparison, not a claim of dependence.
- code of hammurabi theft with status-calibrated restitution and capital penalties Relationship to the parallel: parallel with divergence §§6-13 (esp. §8) Roth, Law Collections 2nd ed. (1997)
- hittite laws theft of animals and property with graduated restitution Relationship to the parallel: parallel with divergence §§57-71 Hoffner, Laws of the Hittites (1997)
- laws of eshnunna theft of slaves and livestock with restitution Relationship to the parallel: parallel with divergence §§49-50 Roth, Law Collections 2nd ed. (1997)
Where this commandment meets modern human-rights frameworks
One modern normative lens, attributed to it — not GEBible’s assessment. Each row names the framework it measures against and the catalog’s own classification of the relation.
This framework catalogues tensions; it records agreement in only one of its entries. The near-total tension rate is the shape of the instrument, not a finding.
No tension with the catalogued modern frameworks is recorded here.