For most of my life, I never thought about having a home security system. I grew up in Texas, so the natural assumption was that home invasions were generally discouraged, since it was a given most homeowners were armed (and usually, very well-armed).
It wasn’t until we had our first son that I started thinking seriously about installing a system of my own. Although I own guns, my thinking was that I wanted to be as aware as possible of any threat to my new and growing family.
Especially at night. The overnight hours are when everyone is the most vulnerable, so having something that could alert me and/or the cops about a problem would be extremely useful.
Apparently, God felt the same way. While a lot of Exodus handles property rights, Exodus 22 talks about the balance of defending your property. And it does so by making an interesting distinction. If the invasion happens at night, and the thief is killed, the homeowner has no guilt. If it happens during the day and the thief is killed, the homeowner is put to death (Exodus 22:2-3).
This is shocking to most people who are used to the idea of defending your territory at all costs. While I’m not here to start a public discourse around that topic, I do think the difference is interesting.
Think about it from a logical point of view. If someone breaks into your home at night, they’re more given to the idea of violence, since they’re desperately hoping not to be seen. And, since most of the community is asleep, any assistance to the homeowner would be slower in arriving. As stated before, the homeowner is more vulnerable in this situation.
During the day, however, a thief most likely doesn’t have violence on the mind. It’s much more likely he’s simply stealing to feed himself or his family. His activities don’t have a particularly nefarious connotation to them. You may disagree with that principle, but that’s the general idea behind the difference in Exodus 22.
Rather than argue the case from the homeowner though, I think that this passage challenges us to see the situation from the part of the thief. Are all thieves the same? Are all occasions to steal the same?
The answer is no, and even if the crime is still punishable by repaying what was stolen, God grants mercy to the part of the thief that most people probably wouldn’t think of. That’s why God’s grace is so great—that He even thinks of criminals.
