Compare Mark 2:23. Legitimate hunger should be satisfied; to take more would be theft. This provision was in harmony with the second “great commandment” of love to one’s neighbor, and was an acknowledgment that the harvest was from God.

The owner would not miss the small quantity of grain or fruit thus taken from his field or orchard, yet it would suffice the immediate hunger of the one passing by. The owner could not properly feel that he had been wronged, nor could the stranger, if poor, come to feel that society was not interested in his needs.