Charles Ellicott Commentary Exodus 20:15

"Thou shalt not steal." — Exodus 20:15 (ASV)

Thou shalt not steal. —Our third duty towards our neighbor is to respect his right to his property. The framers of Utopias, both ancient and modern, have imagined communities in which private property should not exist. But such a condition of things has never yet been realized in practice. In the laws of all known States, private property has been recognized, and social order has been, to a great extent, based upon it. Here, again, law has only embodied natural instinct.

The primitive person who hammers out a flint knife by repeated blows with a pebble, laboring long, and undergoing pain in the process, feels that the implement which he has made is his own, and that his right to it is indisputable. If he is deprived of it by force or fraud, he is wronged. The eighth commandment forbids this wrong, and requires us to respect the property of others no less than their person and their domestic peace and honor.