3. Sun be risen. If this entry be attempted after daybreak, it is charitably assumed that the thief did not intend murder. Therefore the slayer of the thief is held guilty of “blood” and may be slain by the next of kin. All the requirements of justice were thought to be served by the thief’s being compelled to make restitution. Blood was not to be shed needlessly; so the law punished the theft but protected the thief’s life.
Full restitution. The thief who enters a house by day shall be punished like other thieves, by being compelled to “restore double.” If he has “nothing,” or rather “not enough” to make the restitution demanded, he is then to be “sold” for his theft, that is, pay for it by labor. This double restitution served as a sort of retaliation, for it caused the thief to lose the very amount he had expected to gain.