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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadPaul Kretzmann Commentary - Exodus 22:1 - 22:15
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Regarding Property
v. 1. If a man shall steal an ox or a sheep, and kill it or sell it, he shall restore five oxen, five head of cattle, for an ox and four sheep for a sheep. The Lord wanted complete restoration to be made, the indemnity being in proportion to the transgression.
v. 2. If a thief be found breaking up, breaking through a wall, breaking into a house, Mat_6:20, and be smitten that he die, there shall no blood be shed for him, his death cannot demand the vengeance which a murder would; for the owner of the house would have to guard against every contingency, including murder.
v. 3. If the sun be risen upon him, there shall be blood shed for him, to kill a thief in broad daylight was to be considered murder. For he, the thief apprehended in the day, should make full restitution, most certainly pay back all that he stole. If he have nothing, then he shall be sold for his theft, for the value of the goods stolen by him.
v. 4. If the theft be certainly found in his hand alive, whether it be ox or ass or sheep, he shall restore double, the four and fivefold restitution being required only in case the stolen animals had already been slaughtered or sold. Theft being a severe offense against one's neighbor, severe measures were taken at once to keep men from this transgression.
v. 5. If a man shall cause a field or vineyard to be eaten, and shall put in his beast, if a person injures his neighbor's property by letting his cattle run loose, and shall feed in another man's field, of the best of his own field and of the best of his own vineyard shall he make restitution; for carelessness of this kind is inexcusable, being almost equivalent to willful damage.
v. 6. If fire break out, said of any small fire which gets beyond the control of him that started it, and catch in thorns, in the thornhedge at the edge of the field, which it was intended to destroy, so that the stacks of corn, sheaves of grain stacked after harvest, or the standing corn or the field, no matter what it contains, be consumed therewith, he that kindled the fire shall surely make restitution for his act of foolish carelessness.
v. 7. If a man shall deliver unto his neighbor money or stuff to keep, entrusts any valuables to him for safe-keeping, and It be stolen out of the man's house; If the thief be found, let him pay double.
v. 8. If the thief be not found, then the master of the house shall be brought unto the judges, to the proper officials of the government, to see whether he have put his hand unto his neighbor's goods. The object of the investigation was to give the lord of the house an opportunity to clear himself of suspicion, as though he had been guilty of appropriating his neighbor's property, which he was to guard as he did his own.
v. 9. For all manner of trespass, in the case of any accusation alleging a crime, whether It be for ox, for ass, for sheep, for raiment, or for any manner of lost thing, which another challengeth to be his, the cause of both parties shall come before the judges, before the officials having the jurisdiction of the case; and whom the judges shall condemn, declare to be in the wrong, he shall pay double unto his neighbor. This is the general rule for all cases of contested property.
v. 10. If a man deliver unto his neighbor an ass or an ox or a sheep or any beast to keep, and it die or be hurt or driven away, no man seeing it, the fact that no witnesses were near making the matter very complicated,
v. 11. then shall an oath of the Lord be between them both, the one suspected being given an opportunity to declare his innocence under oath, that he hath not put his hand unto his neighbor's goods; and the owner of it shall accept thereof, and he, the man to whom the animals had been entrusted, shall not make it good.
v. 12. And If It be stolen from him, he shall make restitution unto the owner thereof. In the case of animals, unlike that of money and valuables, the guardian of the property was also expected to act as watchman, his failure in this respect costing him dearly.
v. 13. If It be torn In pieces, then let him bring it for witness, and he shall not make good that which was torn, for the fact that he produced the torn animal proved that he had watched and even driven off the attacking predatory beast.
v. 14. And if a man borrow aught of his neighbor, some work animal, which he then uses, and it be hurt or die, the owner thereof being not with it, he shall surely make it good; for in this case neglect might be assumed.
v. 15. But if the owner thereof be with it, be present when some accident befalls his animal, he, the borrower, shall not make it good; if it be an hired thing, it came for his hire, he paid for the use of the animal and cannot be held responsible for the accident. Fairness and justice was to govern all the relations of the children of Israel toward one another.