Exodus22chapter 22

Exodus 22:1

The penalty is a multiple of the thing taken, five oxen for an ox and four sheep for a sheep, and it is paid to the man who lost it rather than to a court. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown put the higher figure on the ox's greater use in labour, since a working animal carries a man's living away with it. Zacchaeus reaches for this rule at Luke 19:8 and restores fourfold, which is the one place in the New Testament where a man applies the restitution law to himself.

Exodus 22:2-4

A burglar killed in the dark leaves the householder clear, and the same blow after sunrise makes him answerable, because daylight lets the man be recognised and taken to court instead. Adam Clarke reads the sunrise clause exactly so. A thief who cannot pay is sold for his theft, and an animal recovered alive costs double rather than four or five, so the scale is set by what the thief has already done with it.

Exodus 22:5-6

Two cases of damage done without stealing anything, a beast let into a neighbour's crop and a fire that runs from thorns into standing corn. Restitution comes out of the best of the offender's own field, so carelessness costs him better produce than the produce he ruined. Matthew Henry draws the principle plainly, that a man answers for the harm he occasions and not only for the harm he means.

Exodus 22:7-9

Goods left with a neighbour for safekeeping go missing and no thief can be found, so the keeper himself is brought before the judges. Those judges exist because of chapter 18, where Jethro told Moses the work was too heavy and able men were set over thousands and hundreds and tens. The double penalty falls on whichever party the court condemns, which puts a false claim at the same price as a theft.

Exodus 22:10-11

An animal in a herdsman's care dies or is hurt or is driven off with no man seeing it, which leaves a case that no evidence can decide. The law closes it with an oath of the LORD, and the owner is required to accept it and take no payment. Hebrews 6:16 states the same working rule, that an oath for confirmation is to men an end of all strife, and Adam Clarke notes how much weight an appeal to God carried before oaths became common.

Exodus 22:12-13

Theft the keeper pays for, since watching was the job he took, and a kill by a wild beast he does not, provided he brings the carcass as evidence. Adam Clarke says graziers were still required to produce horns and hoofs in his own day, because the owner's mark was on them. Amos 3:12 shows the rule in operation with the shepherd taking two legs or a piece of an ear out of the mouth of the lion, and Jacob at Genesis 31:39 held himself above it, bearing the loss of what was torn rather than bringing proof to Laban.

Exodus 22:14-15

A borrower carries the whole loss, where a paid keeper in the verses above could clear himself by an oath. The reason is in the two exceptions, since the owner standing by can see what happened and a hired thing has already had the risk priced into its hire. The sons of the prophets at 2 Kings 6:5 cry out over an axe head precisely because it was borrowed, and Psalm 37:21 makes failure to repay a mark of the wicked.

Exodus 22:16-17

The seducer owes marriage and a dowry, and if the father refuses to give her he owes the dowry of virgins anyway, so the woman is provided for whichever way the family decides. Deuteronomy 22:28-29 sets the sum at fifty shekels and bars him from ever putting her away. Adam Clarke reckoned the law worked chiefly by warning the man in advance what the night would cost him.

Exodus 22:18-20

Three death sentences interrupt a long run of property law, against sorcery, against lying with a beast, and against sacrificing to any god but the LORD. Deuteronomy 18:9-12 names the practices behind the first and says the nations of Canaan did them, and Israel had watched Egypt's own sorcerers fail in chapters 7 to 9. The word behind utterly destroyed in verse 20 is cherem, which Adam Clarke takes as a thing devoted to destruction with no possibility of redemption. The chapter has been pricing oxen and here the price is a life.

Exodus 22:21

The reason attached to the command is the reader's own memory, for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt, which ties the law back to the story the book has just finished telling. The same ground is given again at Exodus 23:9, at Leviticus 19:34 where the stranger is to be loved as thyself, and at Deuteronomy 10:19. Israel is asked to legislate out of what it felt under Pharaoh rather than out of a principle stated in the abstract.

Exodus 22:22-24

No judge is named here and no restitution is set, because God says he will hear the cry himself. The words are the words of Exodus 2:23-25 and 3:7, where the cry of Israel came up unto God and he said I have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters, so the nation delivered by a heard cry is told the same ear is now turned toward the weakest people among it. Adam Clarke observed that God reserves the punishment to himself, and the sentence is measured back exactly, that your wives shall be widows and your children fatherless.

Exodus 22:25

The Hebrew word for usury here is neshech, from a root meaning to bite, which Adam Clarke traces to the way a small charge spreads until it consumes a man's substance. The rule as written covers lending to one of my people that is poor, and Deuteronomy 23:20 allows interest from a stranger, so the two verses have to be read together. How far the prohibition reaches has been argued for centuries, with Clement of Alexandria in the Stromata reading it as free giving with open hands and John Calvin reading it as aimed at the oppression of the poor rather than at every commercial loan. Nehemiah 5 is the one place in the Old Testament where the law is enforced in public.

Exodus 22:26-27

A cloak taken as security has to go back before nightfall, which leaves the lender holding a pledge only in daylight and makes the loan nearly a gift. The reason given is God's own character, set out in three clauses, wherein shall he sleep, and I will hear, for I am gracious. Amos 2:8 reports the law broken, with men laying themselves down upon clothes laid to pledge beside every altar, and Deuteronomy 24:12-13 repeats the rule and calls its keeping righteousness.

Exodus 22:28

The word rendered gods is elohim, the same word used of the judges at verses 8 and 9, and readers have long divided over which is meant here. Most commentators take it as the magistrates, which the second half of the verse about the ruler of thy people supports, while Adam Clarke argues it should be understood of the true God only. Paul settles nothing about the word and simply obeys the verse at Acts 23:5, withdrawing his words against the high priest by quoting it.

Exodus 22:29-30

The firstborn thread returns, and it runs back to Exodus 13:2, where the word sanctify occurs for the first time in Scripture and lands on the firstborn spared in Egypt, and to 13:13, where a son is redeemed by another life. The claim is stated bare here, the firstborn of thy sons shalt thou give unto me, with the buying back assumed from the earlier chapter. The eighth day set for the ox and the sheep is the day of circumcision at Genesis 17:12 and the day Leviticus 22:27 fixes for the same animals, and Adam Clarke notes that Roman practice reckoned a lamb clean on the eighth day too.

Exodus 22:31

A chapter of oxen, fires, pledges and dowries ends on holiness, and the mark given for it is what a man will and will not eat. Flesh torn by beasts is refused for the same reason verse 13 accepted it as evidence, since the blood was never drawn off and the carcass had lain with an unclean animal, and Leviticus 17:15 and 22:8 repeat the rule. The summons itself returns at Leviticus 19:2 and Peter quotes it to scattered believers at 1 Peter 1:16.