If the thief isn’t found, then the master of the house shall come near to God, to find out whether or not he has put his hand on his neighbor’s goods.
To adjudicate disputes between a plaintiff and defendant
The cited verse
The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)
עַד הָאֱלֹהִים יָבֹא דְּבַר־שְׁנֵיהֶם אֲשֶׁר יַרְשִׁיעֻן אֱלֹהִים יְשַׁלֵּם שְׁנַיִם לְרֵעֵהוּ
Literary form: a case law — "if X, then Y"
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
No court-imposed penalty is recorded.
At the hands of Heaven
No divinely-imposed consequence is recorded.
Ritual remedy
No ritual remedy is recorded.
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, with modification
- Conservative Binding, with modification
- Reform Kept as an ethical principle
- Reconstructionist Kept as an ethical principle
- 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
- Exodus Rabbah 30 (Mishpatim) expanded it homiletically
Philo of Alexandria
- De Specialibus Legibus 4.30-40 rationalized it
Josephus
- Antiquities 4.214-218 reinterpreted it
The New Testament
- 1 Corinthians 6:1-6 reinterpreted it Paul urges internal communal adjudication of disputes among believers rather than recourse to pagan courts, reapplying the duty to submit disputes to a recognized authority to the ekklesia
The Qur'an and hadith
- Q 4:58 carried a parallel
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 adjudication of contested claims over property before judges; production of witnesses and evidence Relationship to the parallel: parallel with divergence §§9-13 Roth, Law Collections 2nd ed. (1997)
- code of hammurabi deposit-law (bailment): regulation of goods given for safekeeping and disputes arising therefrom, with witnesses/contract required Relationship to the parallel: parallel with divergence §§122-126 Roth, Law Collections 2nd ed. (1997)
- laws of eshnunna liability for entrusted goods; depositary's exculpatory oath in cases of loss/dispute Relationship to the parallel: parallel with divergence §§36-37 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.