What Does Exodus 20:15 Mean?
You shall not steal.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
Thou shalt not steal.THE KEY
The Hebrew root behind “steal” also describes a hidden departure and the stealing of a heart, so the command reaches beyond objects to concealed taking.
THE MEANING
This boundary protects what belongs to another from being quietly made your own. The root also appears when a departure is concealed or a heart is taken, showing how secrecy can be part of the taking. The command speaks wherever something is appropriated without the other person’s knowledge.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a taking becomes harmless if no one sees it: concealment does not make what belongs to another yours.
THE ROOT
תִּגְנֹב
tignov
GROWS FROM
גנב
g-n-b
to steal or take secretly
The root’s reach includes more than removing an object: it can describe a hidden departure or taking someone’s heart. English “steal” can sound limited to property, while the Hebrew root also brings concealment and withheld knowledge into view.
ALSO GROWS
gannab: thief
גַּנָּב
The person who steals bears the same root, tying the concealed act to the one who carries it out.
genevah: theft
גְּנֵבָה
This noun names the act itself, showing the command’s verb belongs to a wider family centered on taking secretly.
THE PATTERN
Hidden taking fractures shared trust, and scripture answers it with restoration and openhanded provision.
If a man shall steal an ox, or a sheep, and slaughter it, or sell it; he shall make whole five oxen for an ox, and four sheep for a sheep.Whoever robs his father or his mother, and says, It is no rebellion, he is bound to a destroyer.Let the one who steals steal no longer, but rather let him toil, working the good thing with his own hands, that he may have something to share with the one who has need.THE THREAD
And Jacob deceived Laban the Aramean, without telling him that he was fleeing.The verb behind “stole away” comes from the same גנב (ganav, “steal”) root as Exodus 20:15. In this verse, the root describes a departure concealed from someone; it can also appear in the phrase “steal the heart,” opening the command’s reach beyond objects to hidden taking.
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