If the stolen beast is found alive in his possession, whether it is an ox or a donkey or a sheep, he shall pay double.
Fraud and injustice do not enrich a man but impoverish him; if you unjustly keep another's goods, they will not only waste themselves but consume what is your own. The thief who killed or sold what he stole showed his crime complete and hardened, so he pays fivefold or fourfold as his desert.
AI summary
Commenting on Exodus 22:1-6
If the theft be certainly found in his hand alive,.... Or, "in finding be found" (i), be plainly and evidently found upon him, before witnesses, as the Targum of Jonathan; so that there is no doubt of the theft; and it is a clear case that he had neither as yet killed nor sold the creature he had stolen, and to could be had again...
He shall restore double - In no case of theft was the life of the offender taken away; the utmost that the law says on this point is, that, if when found breaking into a house, he should be smitten so as to die, no blood should be shed for him; Exo 22:2.