ganav

Every standard lexicon makes secrecy definitional for גָּנַב. BDB glosses the Qal "steal," with a secondary "take by stealth (for good purpose)" and a figurative "deceive" via the idiom גָּנַב לֵב; HALOT renders "to steal, kidnap"; DCH supplies "steal, take secretly" plus a derived "carry off" for the storm-wind passages (Job 21:18; 27:20); Gesenius18 defines it as "take away secretly" and pointedly contrasts גָּזַל "take away with violence." The theological dictionaries (Hausmann, TDOT; Klopfenstein, TLOT, building on his 1964 monograph Die Luge nach dem Alten Testament; Wakely, NIDOTTE) organize the verb around concentric zones of literal property theft, abduction of persons, and metaphorical theft of mind, heart, or words, and stress that the stealth-versus-force contrast with גָּזַל is lexicalized already in biblical Hebrew. The verb is attested in five stems whose figurative reach extends the core: the intensive stem for methodical winning-over (Absalom, 2 Sam 15:6) and plagiarized oracles (Jer 23:30); the passive intensive for forensic kidnapping (Gen 40:15) and revelation furtively arriving (Job 4:12); the reflexive stem for shamed soldiers slipping into the city (2 Sam 19:4 [Eng. 19:3]). The most consequential modern debate, launched by Albrecht Alt (1949/1953) and pressed by von Rad, Noth, Phillips, and Crusemann, held that the Decalogue's לֹא תִּגְנֹב originally prohibited kidnapping rather than property theft, on the form-critical argument that the bare apodictic prohibitions are capital crimes and only manstealing (Exod 21:16; Deut 24:7) is capital. The critical reaction (Klein, VT 1976; Childs, OTL; Propp, AB; Houtman, HCOT; Tigay, Sarna, Weinfeld) decisively shifted the consensus: the received form is deliberately unrestricted, encompassing all theft with kidnapping as its gravest sub-case. The Septuagint's retention of κλέπτω across both the Decalogue and the kidnapping laws confirms that early Greek-speaking Jews read it this way.