Keluaran 22:1

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 

Keluaran 22:3-4

22:3 If the sun has risen on him, then there is blood guilt for him. A thief ⁵  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 ⁶  alive in his possession, ⁷  whether it be an ox or a donkey or a sheep, he must pay back double. ⁸ 

Keluaran 22:2

22:2 “If a thief is caught ⁹  breaking in ¹⁰  and is struck so that he dies, there will be no blood guilt for him. ¹¹ 

1 Samuel 12:6

12:6 Samuel said to the people, “The Lord is the one who chose Moses and Aaron and who brought your ancestors ¹²  up from the land of Egypt.

Ayub 20:18

20:18 He gives back the ill-gotten gain ¹³ 

without assimilating it; ¹⁴ 

he will not enjoy the wealth from his commerce. ¹⁵ 

Lukas 19:8

19:8 But Zacchaeus stopped and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord, half of my possessions I now give ¹⁶  to the poor, and if ¹⁷  I have cheated anyone of anything, I am paying back four times as much!”

[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.

[22:3]  ⁵ 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]  ⁶ 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]  ⁷ tn Heb “in his hand.”

[22:4]  ⁸ 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.

[22:2]  ⁹ tn Heb “found” (so KJV, ASV, NRSV).

[22:2]  ¹⁰ 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]  ¹¹ 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.

[22:2]  sn This law focuses on what is reasonable defense against burglary. If someone killed a thief who was breaking in during the night, he was not charged because he would not have known it was just a thief, but if it happened during the day, he was guilty of a crime, on the assumption that in daylight the thief posed no threat to the homeowner’s life and could be stopped and made to pay restitution.

[12:6]  ¹² tn Heb “fathers” (also in vv. 7, 8).

[20:18]  ¹³ tn The idea is the fruit of his evil work. The word יָגָע (yaga’) occurs only here; it must mean ill-gotten gains. The verb is in 10:3.

[20:18]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “and he does not swallow.” In the context this means “consume” for his own pleasure and prosperity. The verbal clause is here taken adverbially.

[20:18]  ¹⁵ sn The expression is “according to the wealth of his exchange.” This means he cannot enjoy whatever he gained in his business deals. Some mss have בּ (bet) preposition, making the translation easier; but this is evidence of a scribal correction.

[19:8]  ¹⁶ sn Zacchaeus was a penitent man who resolved on the spot to act differently in the face of Jesus’ acceptance of him. In resolving to give half his possessions to the poor, Zacchaeus was not defending himself against the crowd’s charges and claiming to be righteous. Rather as a result of this meeting with Jesus, he was a changed individual. So Jesus could speak of salvation coming that day (v. 9) and of the lost being saved (v. 10).

[19:8]  ¹⁷ tn This is a first class condition in the Greek text. It virtually confesses fraud.