What Makes a Robber and Why Theft Is Worse Than Robbery

"And the lords of Shechem set men in ambush against him on the tops of the mountains, and they robbed all who passed by them" (Judges 9:25). What is the very picture of a robber? Rabbi Abbahu said: like Benaiah son of Jehoiada, as it is said, "and he wrested the spear out of the Egyptian's hand and slew him with his own spear" (II Samuel 23:21). Rabbi Yohanan said: like the lords of Shechem. And Rabbi Abbahu, why did he not bring his proof from this case? Because, since they lay hidden, they are not [the model of open] robbers. And Rabbi Yohanan holds that they lay hidden only so that people would not see them and flee from them. His disciples asked Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai: Why did the Torah deal more strictly with a thief than with a robber? He said to them: This one [the robber] treated the servant and the Master as equals, and that one [the thief] did not treat the servant and the Master as equals. As it were, he made the eye below as though it does not see and the ear as though it does not hear. As it is said, "Woe to those who go deep to hide their counsel from the LORD, and their deeds are in the dark, and they say, Who sees us, and who knows us?" (Isaiah 29:15); and it is written, "And they say, The LORD does not see, neither does the God of Jacob understand" (Psalms 94:7); and it says, "For they say, The LORD has forsaken the land, and the LORD does not see" (Ezekiel 9:9). Rabbi Meir said in the name of Rabban Gamliel: A parable of two men in a city who made a feast. One invited the townsfolk and did not invite the king's household, and one invited neither the townsfolk nor the king's household. Rabbi Shimon brings it from here: "And you bring the stolen, and the lame" (Malachi 1:13) [as an offering]: just as the lame is a blemish in the open, so too the robber acts in the open. Rabbi Yose in the name of Rabbi Abbahu: Before nine [witnesses one is] a thief, before ten a robber.