What Is Owed, What Is Protected, and Whose Cry Is Heard

Hebrew Bibles number this verse 21:37, so their chapter 22 runs one verse behind the King James. The fourfold rate for a sheep is the one David pronounces on the rich man of Nathan’s parable: “he shall restore the lamb fourfold” (2 Samuel 12:6).

“Breaking up” is bamachteret, digging through. Houses were built of mud brick, and a thief dug through the wall, which is the picture behind “thieves break through” in Matthew 6:19. “No blood” means no bloodguilt attaches to the householder.

Once the sun is up the householder can see who it is and call for help, so killing him becomes bloodshed. A thief who cannot pay is sold, which is one of the ways a Hebrew came to be the purchased servant of 21:2.

“Certainly found” doubles the Hebrew verb, found, he is found. Zacchaeus offered to restore fourfold (Luke 19:8), the rate for a slaughtered or sold sheep in verse 1, not the double that applied when the animal was still alive.

The Hebrew verb for letting a beast “eat” a field is ba’ar, and the next verse uses the same root for fire that burns. Grazing and burning are one word here, two ways a neighbour’s crop can be consumed.

Farmers burned off stubble and weeds, and fire ran along thorn hedges into the next field. The vocabulary returns in Judges 15:5, where Samson sends burning foxes into the Philistines’ “shocks” and “standing corn”.

Without banks, silver and household goods, kelim, were left with a neighbour for safekeeping. If a thief is caught, he pays the double, and the keeper in whose house the theft happened is free of the claim.

The verse frames the hearing as an inquiry, “to see whether”, not a presumption of guilt. Leviticus 6:2–5 adds the case of the keeper who lies about a deposit and later owns up: he restores it with a fifth added and brings a ram.

“Which another challengeth to be his” is literally “of which one says, This is it”, the claimant pointing to the object. The verb “condemn” is plural in Hebrew, one reason the King James reads the elohim of this law as human judges.

“Driven away” is literally taken captive, raided, as Job’s oxen were carried off by the Sabeans (Job 1:15). “No man seeing it” describes the herdsman’s ordinary risk: loss out on the hills with no witness.

This is the chapter’s only oath in the LORD’s name, and it ends the dispute. Hebrews 6:16 states the same principle in general terms: “an oath for confirmation is to them an end of all strife.”

Theft is treated differently from raiding: a keeper is expected to guard against a thief but not against an armed band. The Talmud read verses 7–9 as the unpaid keeper and verses 10–13 as the paid one, who is held to a stricter standard.

The remains prove the loss. Amos 3:12 pictures a shepherd pulling “two legs, or a piece of an ear” from a lion’s mouth. Jacob went beyond this law with Laban: “that which was torn of beasts I brought not unto thee; I bare the loss” (Genesis 31:39).

“Borrow” is sha’al, the same verb used when Israel asked the Egyptians for jewels of silver and gold (12:35). A borrower had all the use and paid nothing for it, so the risk sits with him when the owner is absent.

“It came for his hire” means the rental fee already covered the risk: the owner priced the danger into what he charged. If the owner is present, he was in a position to protect his own animal.

“Entice” is pathah, to persuade or seduce, the verb used when the Philistines press Samson’s wife and Delilah to entice him (Judges 14:15; 16:5). “Endow” is the verb of the mohar, the bride price Shechem offered for Dinah in Genesis 34:12.

Deuteronomy 22:29 later fixes the sum at fifty shekels of silver for a related case. The payment was the family’s due whether or not the marriage went ahead; Saul asked David for a hundred Philistine foreskins as mohar instead of money (1 Samuel 18:25).

The word is feminine, mekhashephah, and the masculine form described Pharaoh’s sorcerers in 7:11. The phrasing also changes: not “shall be put to death” but “thou shalt not let live”. Deuteronomy 18:10 lists the practitioner among other forbidden diviners.

Leviticus 18:23 and 20:15–16 extend the law to women and require the animal to die as well. Hittite law is a telling comparison: it punished the act with some animals and allowed it with horses and mules, a distinction the Hebrew law will not make.

“Utterly destroyed” is the verb of cherem, the ban, by which something is devoted to God by destruction. It is the word Joshua uses of Jericho in Joshua 6:17. The sacrificer becomes like a city under the ban.

“Oppress” is lachats, to squeeze, the verb the LORD used of Egypt at the bush: “the oppression wherewith the Egyptians oppress them” (3:9). The stranger, the ger, is a resident foreigner, which is exactly what Israel was in Goshen.

Widow and fatherless, joined to the stranger of verse 21, form the triad Deuteronomy repeats again and again (10:18; 24:17–21). The verb “afflict” is anah, the word of Egypt’s treatment of Israel in 1:11–12.

The Hebrew doubles every verb: afflicting you afflict, crying he cries, hearing I will hear. The emphasis is spread across all three parties, the one who afflicts, the one who cries, and the LORD who listens.

The penalty is exactly fitted: those who wrong widows and orphans leave widows and orphans behind. Lamentations 5:3 uses the same pair after Jerusalem falls: “We are orphans and fatherless, our mothers are as widows.”

The Hebrew for usury, neshekh, comes from the verb to bite. The prohibition is to “my people that is poor by thee”, and Deuteronomy 23:19–20 permits interest from a foreigner while forbidding it between Israelites.

Deuteronomy 24:12–13 repeats the sunset rule. Amos 2:8 accuses the wealthy of the northern kingdom of lying down “upon clothes laid to pledge by every altar”, keeping overnight what this verse required them to give back.

A seventh century BC ostracon found at Mesad Hashavyahu near Yavneh records a field labourer pleading with an official to return his garment, taken while he worked. The law’s question, “wherein shall he sleep?”, is put to the lender, not to a court.

Paul quotes the second half in Acts 23:5, when he realises he has spoken sharply to the high priest: “Thou shalt not speak evil of the ruler of thy people.” The word for ruler, nasi, is used of tribal chiefs in Numbers.

The Hebrew is compressed: literally “your fulness and your tear”, meaning the full grain harvest and the juice dripping from press and vat. “Delay” implies the temptation to hold the first share back until the rest is safe.

Leviticus 22:27 repeats the rule of seven days with the mother. The eighth day matches the day of circumcision for sons in Genesis 17:12, so animal and child both pass a full week before they are given or marked.

Flesh “torn of beasts” is terephah, the word that later gave Yiddish “treyf” for any food not kosher. Ezekiel 4:14 protests to God that he has never eaten anything “torn in pieces”, citing this law from his youth up.