Candles were certainly more labor intensive and valuable when he stole them than today. Consider the example of the $3500 shirt: http://www.sleuthsayers.org/2013/06/the-3500-shirt-history-l...

As in one of the other comments, you'll see that it is worth about $6000 if you look at GDP per capita; which would be more than a month of someone's effort at the current US median income.