Stealing a Person as a Capital Prohibition From Context

Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 298:6

"You shall not steal" — why is it stated? Because it says "One who steals a man and sells him" (Exodus 21:16): we have heard the punishment, but we have not heard the prohibition. Scripture teaches, saying "You shall not steal"; this then is the prohibition against one who steals a person. Go out and learn from the thirteen principles and so forth. And further, Rabbi said: Three commandments are stated in this matter, two explicit and one undefined. We learn the undefined from the explicit: just as the explicit ones are commandments for which one is liable to death by the court, so too the undefined one is a commandment for which one is liable to death by the court.

Themes