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The deceitful and perverting influence of sin requires careful consideration. While as yet it is only a principle in the mind, and not ripened into an external action, it draws into its service the various powers of imagination, invention, and even reason itself. By these powers the forbidden object is represented as a source of peculiar enjoyment, or it is invested with features of external attraction, or it is exhibited as fitted to gratify curiosity at least, and to extend the sphere of natural knowledge. Even after the principle is matured into action, and its fatal consequences begin to be felt, it employs the same powers to find excuses and apologies for the act. The sources from which apologies are drawn are exceedingly numerous. But this is the striking peculiarity of sin, that it seeks with greatest eagerness to draw them from the character, the providence, or the Word of God. The passage now before us seems to hold out an excuse for stealing, or at least to take off the odiousness and criminality of it.

I. THE ASPECT OF THIS ACT IN THE SIGHT OF MEN. The text implies that by men it is considered as venial or excusable. But it is the act under special limitations.

1. Limited exclusively to food. The thing stolen is not classed as property. It is that which is seldom coveted, and never for its own sake except under the influence of hunger. But this can never be drawn into an excuse for stealing in general. The food is supposed to be taken by the thief only when he is hungry. It is not inspired by covetousness, but by hunger. This is a very important limitation. Food may be stolen with as much criminality as any other thing, for it may be turned into money.

2. But the feeling of hunger itself is restricted by the text. The purpose for which it supposes food to be stolen is to satisfy. The thief must take no more even of it than is necessary to extinguish present hunger. He is not permitted to carry any away either to provide against future necessity, or to procure anything which he may be anxious to possess.

3. Food is supposed to be stolen merely to "satisfy the soul"— that is, to preserve the life. The thief must be at the point of extreme necessity, at which, if he did not commit the act under consideration, he would actually surrender his life.

II. THE ASPECT OF THIS ACT IN THE SIGHT OF GOD. The text does not state that God regards this thief with indulgence. The context implies that this individual has incurred the penalty of the law, and must be punished if he be found. Mercy, which sets aside the demands of the law, is only sin, and, if generally acted on, would be attended with the most ruinous consequences. The mercy of man is a very inadequate medium for contemplating the mercy of God. Though the act under consideration may seem perfectly innocent to man, it may appear highly criminal and dangerous in the sight of God. The justice of this estimate may be clearly perceived by attending to this case of necessity in two aspects.

1. If the thief has been involved in this necessitous condition by his own misconduct — by idleness, intemperance, or any other immoral habit — he is plainly guilty. The very necessity to which he has been reduced is s sinful necessity, since it has been occasioned by his own misconduct.

2. When he has been involved in it by the providence of God. Even in this view the act under consideration is decidedly sinful. It is a serious misimprovement and abuse of God's providence. We may see that even the most extreme case of necessity will not warrant unbelief and the commission of sin. It is better to surrender even life itself than give way to an immoral and criminal act. A case can never occur in which one precept of the law may be set aside in order to avoid the violation of another. The case in which life is in danger is evidently the most extreme; it plainly comprehends every other. If the law is not to be broken in the superior, it is not to be broken in the inferior case; if it is not to be violated when life is at stake, it is much less to be violated when any inferior benefit is at stake.

(George Hislop.)

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KJV: Men do not despise a thief, if he steal to satisfy his soul when he is hungry;

WEB: Men don't despise a thief, if he steals to satisfy himself when he is hungry: