Exodus 22:1-6

Laws about Property

22:1 ¹ (21:37) ²  “If a man steals an ox or a sheep and kills it or sells it, he must pay back ³  five head of cattle for the ox, and four sheep for the one sheep. ⁴ 

22:2 “If a thief is caught ⁵  breaking in ⁶  and is struck so that he dies, there will be no blood guilt for him. ⁷  22:3 If the sun has risen on him, then there is blood guilt for him. A thief ⁸  must surely make full restitution; if he has nothing, then he will be sold for his theft. 22:4 If the stolen item should in fact be found ⁹  alive in his possession, ¹⁰  whether it be an ox or a donkey or a sheep, he must pay back double. ¹¹ 

22:5 “If a man grazes ¹²  his livestock ¹³  in a field or a vineyard, and he lets the livestock loose and they graze in the field of another man, he must make restitution from the best of his own field and the best of his own vineyard.

22:6 “If a fire breaks out and spreads ¹⁴  to thorn bushes, ¹⁵  so that stacked grain or standing grain or the whole field is consumed, the one who started ¹⁶  the fire must surely make restitution.

[22:1]  ¹ sn The next section of laws concerns property rights. These laws protected property from thieves and oppressors, but also set limits to retribution. The message could be: God’s laws demand that the guilty make restitution for their crimes against property and that the innocent be exonerated.

[22:1]  ² sn Beginning with 22:1, the verse numbers through 22:31 in the English Bible differ from the verse numbers in the Hebrew text (BHS), with 22:1 ET = 21:37 HT, 22:2 ET = 22:1 HT, etc., through 22:31 ET = 22:30 HT. Thus in the English Bible ch. 22 has 31 verses, while in the Hebrew Bible it has 30 verses, with the one extra verse attached to ch. 21 in the Hebrew Bible.

[22:1]  ³ tn The imperfect tense here has the nuance of obligatory imperfect – he must pay back.

[22:1]  ⁴ tn בָּקַר (baqar) and צֹאן (tso’n) are the categories to which the ox and the sheep belonged, so that the criminal had some latitude in paying back animals.

[22:2]  ⁵ tn Heb “found” (so KJV, ASV, NRSV).

[22:2]  ⁶ tn The word בַּמַּחְתֶּרֶת (bammakhteret) means “digging through” the walls of a house (usually made of mud bricks). The verb is used only a few times and has the meaning of dig in (as into houses) or row hard (as in Jonah 1:13).

[22:2]  ⁷ tn The text has “there is not to him bloods.” When the word “blood” is put in the plural, it refers to bloodshed, or the price of blood that is shed, i.e., blood guiltiness.

[22:3]  ⁸ tn The words “a thief” have been added for clarification. S. R. Driver (Exodus, 224) thinks that these lines are out of order, since some of them deal with killing the thief and then others with the thief making restitution, but rearranging the clauses is not a necessary way to bring clarity to the paragraph. The idea here would be that any thief caught alive would pay restitution.

[22:4]  ⁹ tn The construction uses a Niphal infinitive absolute and a Niphal imperfect: if it should indeed be found. Gesenius says that in such conditional clauses the infinitive absolute has less emphasis, but instead emphasizes the condition on which some consequence depends (see GKC 342-43 §113.o).

[22:4]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “in his hand.”

[22:4]  ¹¹ sn He must pay back one for what he took, and then one for the penalty – his loss as he was inflicting a loss on someone else.

[22:5]  ¹² tn The verb בָּעַר (ba’ar, “graze”) as a denominative from the word “livestock” is not well attested. So some have suggested that with slight changes this verse could be read: “If a man cause a field or a vineyard to be burnt, and let the burning spread, and it burnt in another man’s field” (see S. R. Driver, Exodus, 225).

[22:5]  ¹³ tn The phrase “his livestock” is supplied from the next clause.

[22:6]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “if a fire goes out and finds”; NLT “if a fire gets out of control.”

[22:6]  ¹⁵ sn Thorn bushes were used for hedges between fields, but thorn bushes also burned easily, making the fire spread rapidly.

[22:6]  ¹⁶ tn This is a Hiphil participle of the verb “to burn, kindle” used substantivally. This is the one who caused the fire, whether by accident or not.