The Seventh Commandment

You shall not steal.

Here we have a perfectly clear and simple obligation. No infringement on private property.

Or do we?

The word we render in English here as “steal” apparently refers in Hebrew to people, not things. Jewish authorities read this as “you shall not kidnap.”

Did you see that one coming?

Locke suggested three human rights inalienable by government: life, liberty, and property. Apparently, this commandment addresses not the third, property, but the second, liberty. One has no right to take from another their natural freedom of action.

It is, then, a prohibition against slavery—against the ownership of human beings.

This must come as a surprise to all those who say that the Bible sanctions slavery.

This was based in part on the claim that the Bible never expressly prohibited slavery—as it does here—and in part on translating the Biblical term usually rendered “servant,” as more correctly “slave.”

“Bondservant,” “bondsman,” “bondsmaid” might be better: it was indentured servitude, the system that populated early America. One was bartering one’s labour over a period in return for some financial consideration. All such contracts lapsed after seven years as a maximum.

This is now classed as “slavery,” and prohibited, by the UN; leading to recent charges, for example, that America and the Caribbean was full of enslaved Irish before Africans arrived.

The essential point in terms of Bible ethics is that this was a contract, entered into voluntarily by both parties. So it was not “kidnapping.” Other than the length of the servitude, what is the fundamental difference between such an arrangement and, say, being employed at an hourly wage or monthly salary? For that hour or that month, the employer has the right to tell you what to do, to limit your freedom of action.

But now we are left with a second problem: so stealing, according to the Bible, is not wrong? No private property? That sounds revolutionary.

No, that is still covered by a separate commandment, “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s goods.”

But there is also a critical distinction here. The sin, then is in the coveting, in the motive, not in the action of taking itself.

This is an important distinction, recognized both in traditional Catholic ethics, and by John Locke, but seemingly lost on most currently.

In principle, all property belongs to God, who created it, and so is to be shared equally, or rather, as needed. One acquires a personal right to any property through investing labour: then one has earned a special claim to it. If you pick the apple, then it becomes your apple. You have labour invested in it. More so if you planted and pruned the tree. If you plough the field, it becomes your field—you have buried your labour in it. If you build a business, by honest means, it is your business.

But this right to property is obviously only relative: the thing itself remains largely God’s. You only have a stronger claim than the next person.

The current idea that aboriginal people have some residual ownership of the land in many parts of Canada is based on a misunderstanding of this principle. Neither they nor even their ancestors have, by and large, invested much if any labour in this land. They have only survived on what it naturally produced. Accordingly, they have no ownership of it.

Now suppose someone else comes along who is in dire need. You do not need it; you only like having it. This then can trump your claim. If they just take what they need, it might be stealing under the law, but it is not immoral—because it was done of practical necessity, not covetousness.

This is the foundation for the Catholic doctrine of a “preferential option for the poor.”

This is also the essence of the story of Dives and Lazarus: Dives goes to hell for not sharing his wealth; which, without understanding this commandment, seems unfair. Wasn’t it his to do with as he pleased? In moral terms, since Lazarus needed food, and Dives had far more than he needed, he was sinning by not sharing it—he was stealing it from Lazarus.