פרשת משפטים תש"כ - גנב במחתרת

If a thief be found breaking in, and be smitten so that he dieth, there shall be no bloodguiltiness for him.

חבורה is a wound in which the blood is congealed but does not come out, only that the flesh on that spot becomes red. The word חבורה means tache in old French Similar is, (Jeremiah 13:23) “[Can an Ethiopian change his skin] or the leopard his spots (חברברתיו)”. The Targum renders it (חבורה) by משקופי, an expression denoting “beating”, batture in old French Similarly it translates (Genesis 41:6) שדופות קדים, “blasted with the east”, by שקיפן קדום, “beaten by the east wind”. So, too, the lintel it termed “משקוף” (from the root שקף “to beat upon”), as, e. g., in the expression על המשקוף, because the door beats against it.

If a thief be found breaking in, and be smitten so that he dieth, there shall be no bloodguiltiness for him.

אם במחתרת, as well as at night, prepared to either kill or be killed in the pursuit of his quest. This is why there is no demand to account for his blood which has been shed. אין לו דמים, the killer does not even have to make financial restitution to the slain thief’s next of kin.

If the sun be risen upon him, there shall be bloodguiltiness for him—he shall make restitution; if he have nothing, then he shall be sold for his theft.

אם זרחה השמש עליו IF THE SUN SHONE UPON HIM — This is only a metaphorical expression signifying: if the fact is clear to you that he is peaceably disposed towards you. The simile is: just as the sun brings peace (happiness) to the world so if it is evident to you that he did not come with the intention of killing, even if the owner of the property would resist him (Sanhedrin 72a), as, for instance, when a father breaks in to steal the money of his son, for it is certain that the father cherishes feelings of pity for his child and the matter of taking human life is not in his thoughts at all, — then

Also in thy skirts is found the blood of the souls of the innocent poor; thou didst not find them breaking in; yet for all these things

Also in thy skirts is found the blood of the souls of the innocent poor; thou didst not find them breaking in; yet for all these things