וַ֭יֹּ֣אמְרוּ לֹ֣א יִרְאֶה־יָּ֑הּ וְלֹא־יָ֝בִ֗ין אֱלֹהֵ֥י יַעֲקֹֽב׃
Mereka berkata, “Yang Mahakekal tidak melihat, dan Allah Yakub tidak memperhatikan.”
Sforno
אשכלות מרורות למו, a bitter growth in their clusters; developing of erroneous philosophies, primarily justifying one’s conduct, rationalising it, is a natural corollary of such attitudes as self-centredness. First and foremost, they convince themselves that G’d does not ”see,” i.e. does not care, [that there is no personal G’d. They totally misinterpret G’d’s patience with the sinner. Ed.]
Rabbeinu Bahya
According to Mechilta (Nezikin section 12) the reduced penalty for stealing sheep is due to the Torah’s regard for human dignity. Whereas carrying a sheep under one’s arm is demeaning, leading an ox by a rope is not. Allowing for the thief’s having had to demean himself in order to bring the stolen sheep home, the Torah was content with the thief paying four times its value in order for him to exonerate himself. As a corollary of this piece of legislation we learn that the Torah considers manual labour as very important as it reduced the penalty for people whose crime involved manual labour.
The reason a thief has to pay twice the value of what he has stolen whereas a robber only needs to make restitution without the Torah adding punitive damages, our sages are already on record (Baba Kama 79) that the robber placed the owner on a par with G’d, displaying no fear of either when he robbed in broad daylight. The thief, however, displayed more fear of the owner of the animal he stole than of the Lord in heaven who watches his crime. Seeing he insulted the Lord by the attitude he displayed when he indicated that he did not believe G’d saw his deed, he has to pay twice the value of what he stole. Isaiah 29,15 illustrated this bitingly when he said: “Ha! Those who would hide their plans deep from the Lord! Who do their work in dark places and say: ‘who sees us, who takes note of us?’” We find a similar verse in Psalms 94,7: “they think that the Lord does not see it, the G’d of Yaakov pays no heed.”
The reason a thief has to pay twice the value of what he has stolen whereas a robber only needs to make restitution without the Torah adding punitive damages, our sages are already on record (Baba Kama 79) that the robber placed the owner on a par with G’d, displaying no fear of either when he robbed in broad daylight. The thief, however, displayed more fear of the owner of the animal he stole than of the Lord in heaven who watches his crime. Seeing he insulted the Lord by the attitude he displayed when he indicated that he did not believe G’d saw his deed, he has to pay twice the value of what he stole. Isaiah 29,15 illustrated this bitingly when he said: “Ha! Those who would hide their plans deep from the Lord! Who do their work in dark places and say: ‘who sees us, who takes note of us?’” We find a similar verse in Psalms 94,7: “they think that the Lord does not see it, the G’d of Yaakov pays no heed.”