Exodus 20:15

Summary

Exodus 20:15 consists of a short prohibition: lo' ("not", H3808) combined with tignov ("you must steal", H1589). The verse forbids the act of stealing, addressed to a singular male subject.

Key words

• lo' ("not", H3808) — the standard Hebrew negative particle used with imperfect verbs to express a durative or general prohibition, rather than a one-time command.
• tignov ("you must steal", H1589) — qal imperfect, second person masculine singular, from the root g-n-b. The imperfect aspect in this legal context conveys an ongoing prohibition ("you shall not steal") rather than a single forbidden instance.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is minimal: a negation followed directly by a finite verb, with no explicit object stated. The verb tignov is qal imperfect, second-person masculine singular, meaning the grammatical subject ("you") is embedded in the verb form itself and not written as a separate pronoun. This construction — lo' plus imperfect — is the standard grammatical pattern in Biblical Hebrew for absolute, general prohibitions, as opposed to constructions using the imperative or infinitive absolute, which would carry a different nuance of immediacy or emphasis.

Because no direct object is specified in the Hebrew (no noun for "goods," "property," or "person" follows the verb), the root g-n-b ("to steal") stands alone, leaving the scope of the prohibited action to be inferred from the verb's semantic range in its root form, without addition of any further evidence within this line.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew tignov ("you must steal", H1589) refers to the act of theft. The Septuagint text provided here reads Οὐ φονεύσεις ("you shall not kill/murder"), which renders a different verb (φονεύω, "to kill") rather than a term for stealing. The Vulgate Non furtum facies ("you shall not commit theft") aligns with the Hebrew's semantic field of theft, using the noun furtum ("theft") with the verb facies ("you shall do/commit"). The Spanish RV1909 and SBLIBRE (No hurtarás, "you shall not steal") and the English BSB ("You shall not steal") likewise follow the Hebrew's sense of theft rather than the LXX's wording as given in the provided text.