Exodus22chapter 22

The chapter runs through theft, damage, bailment and the treatment of the weak. Rashi reads it as a working court would. The housebreaker of the first verse is liable only while he is in the act, "when he was breaking in into the house" (Rashi on Exodus 22:1:1). The sun that shines upon him is a figure for certainty about the man's intent. A father who breaks in to take his son's money plainly means no killing (Rashi on Exodus 22:2:1, citing Sanhedrin 72a). The middle of the chapter is read as four kinds of keeper, separated by what each one answers for. The keeper who holds goods for nothing is freed from liability for theft and swears to it. The borrower answers for loss from any cause at all, "even from accident" (Rashi on Exodus 22:6:1 and 22:13:1). The oath of the ninth verse covers two things at once. It covers the accident happening as the keeper says, and his making no use of the animal for himself (Rashi on Exodus 22:10:1, citing Bava Metzia 94b). On the law of the widow and the fatherless, Rashi reads the wording as a threat that breaks off before it names the punishment. He compares the wording about Cain at Genesis 4:15 (Rashi on Exodus 22:22:1). He holds that the law covers every person. It names these two because they are "feeble in defensive power" and are commonly afflicted (Rashi on Exodus 22:21:1). On the loan of the twenty fourth verse he reports Rabbi Yishmael, who taught that the word if carries a duty here rather than a choice (Rashi on Exodus 22:24:1). Rashi is quoted from the Rosenbaum and Silbermann edition of 1929 to 1934, public domain. Malbim comments at Exodus 22:11:1 with no English version in the corpus, and stands as a citation.