What caution applies to the brothers’ statement “If he stole…”?

Bayān al-Ibdāl: Verbs, Nouns, Particles and Sentence-Level Meaning

• Treat the alleged earlier theft as divinely certified fact
• Treat it as reported speech, not endorsement of the allegation
• Treat it as a Qur’anic legal verdict
• Treat all uses of saraqa as purely figurative