The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan transforms a cryptic self-defense law into a piece of moral clarity. "If the thing be as clear as the sun that he was not entering to destroy life, and one hath killed him, the guilt of the shedding of innocent blood is upon him; and if spared from his hand, restoring he shall restore. If he have not wherewith to restore, the beth din shall sell him for his theft until the year of release" (Exodus 22:2).
The Hebrew is obscure — it mentions the sun rising on the burglar. The Targum turns the image into a principle: clear as the sun. The phrase becomes a legal standard. If it is as obvious as the midday sun that the thief intended only to steal, not to kill, then the homeowner who kills him is guilty of murder.
This is a startling inversion of the usual burglar-killing logic. The rabbis would later formalize the distinction: a burglar who breaks in at night might be killed, because in the darkness the homeowner cannot know whether the intruder intends robbery or murder. But a burglar caught in daylight — visible, identifiable, clearly unarmed — cannot be slain. The homeowner must instead let him escape or apprehend him for the court.
And if the thief is captured alive? The Targum walks through the sequence. First, full restitution. Second, if he cannot pay — and this is the Targum's critical addition — the beth din shall sell him for his theft until the year of release. The court, not the victim, conducts the sale. The servitude is capped at the shemittah, the seventh year. Restitution is bounded by time, not by the victim's anger.
Notice what the Targum refuses. It will not allow private vengeance. It will not allow unlimited servitude. It will not allow a homeowner to kill in daylight. Every instinct of retribution is cooled by a court, a clock, and a concept — as clear as the sun.
The takeaway: the measure of a just society is not how fiercely it punishes thieves but how carefully it protects them from over-punishment.