One of the main topics discussed among my coworkers over the past year or two, has been inflation. All of us are constantly feeling the effects of it. Everything costs more. We find that we save a little less every month than we used to. We find ourselves reexamining what we buy, and thinking about if we really need it. And we find ourselves reexamining how much we need to work, and where we should work. We find ourselves needing to spend less, or make more.
Unless we are getting government handouts, we know that to make it in this modern world, and provide for ourselves and our families, we usually have to work long, and work hard.
Hopefully, we trust God to provide for us, and we ask him for our daily bread. But at the same time, we know that trust, and prayer, aren't a substitute for hard work. We know that when God gives us our daily bread, that we have a role to play in that. And really, there's a sense in which asking God for our daily bread, means asking God for opportunities to work, and the strength to work (Deuteronomy 8:18).
Now, when we work, there's often something rewarding about it. It's satisfying, when you finish your harvest, and you have bins full of grain. Or take tree trimming: After you trim someone's tree, and climb down to look at your work, you have this moment of happiness over how good it looks. When you cut someone's hair, I imagine it feels much the same-- and it's nice, seeing people's gratitude for how good you made them look.
But at the same time, work has a tendency to turn into toil, and when you look at your house, or your apartment, and the stuff you own, you know that all of that stuff represents hours of hard work.
I think that's part of why the stuff we own has value to us. When I look at our piano, when no one is playing it, I normally picture my family sitting at its bench, maybe swaying a little (with one person in particular), creating beautiful music out of it. But I could also look at that piano differently, and see it as many, many hours of overtime.
Our property-- our possessions-- were paid for with blood, sweat, and tears. Mostly sweat, but a little blood. And on a bad day, maybe a few tears.
And so the end result, is that we attach real value to what we own.
Now, you can bring in the NT at this point, and try to short circuit all of this. But let's just acknowledge that everything we own, was paid for with a lot of hard work.
Now, what happens once we have our stuff?
We try to protect it. In town at least, we lock our doors. We have security systems, for when we leave our house.
Maybe our houses are protected by Smith and Wesson.
Our passage today covers different situations involving possessions. Mentally, we will find ourselves hopping around a little. But those situations all have to do with stuff. Specifically, with different ways that our stuff is taken from us by someone else, in one way or another. And the Mosaic law here gives God's people guidance, in what happens next. How do you respond, when someone loses your stuff, or damages it, or steals it? How should the society of God's people be ordered/set up, to handle these situations? And what do all these laws teach us about possessions, as a whole? How does God feel about "stuff"?
Let's start by reading Exodus 22:1:
(1) If a man steals an (A) ox or (B) small livestock, and he slaughters it, or he sells it, five cattle he shall make whole/compensate in place of the (A) ox,
while four sheep/goats [shall be] in place of the (B) small livestock. ["A" and "B" just to make it easier to follow the verse].
This verse should sound quite a bit different to us, than anything else we've read so far. Up to this point in Exodus, the key idea that we've seen, over and over, is that the laws are designed to make people "whole." If someone's ox kills your ox, he replaces your ox with one ox. If you get in a fight with someone, and you end up being badly hurt, the other person makes you whole financially, by compensating you for your lost time at work.
The idea is that when you are wronged in some way, the person who wrongs you makes it right. That person brings you back financially to the place, financially, where you were before. You end up on the same financial footing, in the same financial place, that you were before.
But here, if someone steals your stuff, and they get caught, you come out ahead. If someone steals a single ox of yours, and then uses it, you get five cattle. If someone steals a single small livestock-- a sheep or goat-- you get four in its place.
Why does God set up the law this way?
In part, my guess is that this law recognizes that people can often successfully steal from one another, without getting caught. When someone steals your stuff, there's usually not a fairy tale ending. If the law only demanded that the thief replace a goat, with a single goat, then a potential thief, is going to be far more tempted to steal. The math works in his favor.
But if you lose four times the amount that you stole? That changes the math.
One of the things we've seen in the last few years, in the U.S., is that stealing has gotten completely out of control in the big cities. In California, the laws were changed so that you can basically steal anything you want without punishment, up to, what, a thousand dollars? And then, on top of that, if you try to stop a shoplifter with force, you can end up being sued. California has rolled out the red carpet for thieves.
And the end result isn't surprising. Lots of people take advantage of the situation, and steal anything they want, without consequences.
But just imagine for a minute if the U.S. used ancient Israelite law here. Imagine that thieves weren't allowed to freely loot a store, and walk out the front door. Imagine that employees, or customers, could keep them from leaving without fear of being sued. And then, once you got their ID, the police could go to their house, or their bank, and give you four times the value of what they stole.
If you did this, you'd still maybe have some petty theft. Business owners would still find that their actual inventory doesn't quite match what their computers say they have. But you wouldn't have people running out of the stores with giant trash bags filled with loot.
On a bigger scale, we could look at the big banks, and the way they've manipulated markets, and front run customers, to make a financial killing. The government has fined them, repeatedly. But I'm guessing the fines weren't four times what they stole. And I'm not at all sure that the money made its way to the people who were robbed. If the big banks had to repay four or five times what they stole, the math would change, and the market rigging would stop.
Now, there's one other thing I'd like to point out here. If we stop and think, we'll see that thieves didn't go to jail in ancient Israel. Thieves compensated the people they stole from, paying them back fourfold, or fivefold, and then they went free.
Verse 2:
(2) If, in the act of breaking in, the thief is discovered/caught, and he is struck, and he dies, there is no bloodguilt for him.
There are few more scary, dangerous situations, than having someone break into your house at night. You're disoriented; you don't know exactly what's going on, and if you end up fighting someone you can only half-see.
When someone breaks into a house at night, they do so knowing that there are probably people home [h/t William Propp]. They do it, ready for violence.
And the question is, really, do they have a knife? Possibly, they're armed. Possibly, they came with the mindset, that they'd be willing to kill you.
On top of that all of this, the other thing about the darkness, is that there's a lot less people outside who can help. Even if you live in a little village, surrounded by people, those people aren't going to get there fast enough to help you. In that moment, it's just you and the thief.
In that situation, you can kill the thief without bloodguilt. Killing that thief doesn't break the ten commandments; it's not murder.
Verse 3:
(3) If the sun has risen upon him, bloodguilt to him. ["bloodguilt" is probably focused here]
The rules change when the sun has risen. If you kill a thief breaking into your house in the middle of the day, you are considered guilty of bloodguilt. The assumption here is that there is a less violent way to deal with the thief. There's maybe two reasons for this (William Propp's Exodus commentary was helpful here):
First, a day time thief is probably less violent. Someone stealing during the day assumes the home is empty.
Second, during the day, you can see the thief, and identify him/her. If you know the thief is Mary Ann, who lives five houses down, you don't need to use quite as much force to keep her from getting away.
Now, I think it would help us here, to hit the pause button, and think about how the Mosaic law works. The law isn't designed to cover every situation. It's not hard to think of wrinkles to this situation, that the law doesn't address.
What happens if the thief pulls out a knife? I assume you can kill him.
What happens if the thief is stealing out in the country, and not at a house in town? You're all alone. It's just you and the thief. And what comes next, depends on the thief. Will he run, or will he fight? Out in the country, not in town, perhaps killing the thief is more along the lines of self-defense.
But what the law is saying, is that when you see a thief digging through your silver, or jewelry, or grabbing a sheep from your sheep pen, you can't just pull out your gun and shoot them if it's daytime. Normally, as a rule, day time stealing shouldn't result in death. [And a number of commentators note that this is a law unique to Israel. Only the Mosaic law is concerned to protect the thief's life. And Wright concludes from this that human life is more valuable than stuff.]
Still verse 3, line 2:
He shall surely/in fact make whole/restitution.
If he (=the thief) isn't able to repay, he shall be sold for the value of his stolen possession.
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Scholars disagree over the line "He shall surely make whole." Who is the "he"-- the thief, or the owner? [William Propp has a good discussion.] Originally, I read this verse as a continuation of the preceding line, so that "he" must refer directly back to the last line, to the owner. If you kill a thief during the day, you have to make restitution. But that's awkward, and the law does nothing to explain what exactly that restitution looks like. The LXX, sensing this awkwardness, and thinking that "he" is the owner, translates it like this (Lexham English Septuagint translation):
3 *But if the sun has risen upon him, he is guilty. He will be killed in return.
So in the LXX, what the "compensation" is, is the owner's death. The KJV makes a mess of it, but sort of lends itself to this interpretation:
3 If the sun be risen upon him, there shall be blood shed for him; for he should make full restitution; if he have nothing, then he shall be sold for his theft.
The vast majority of English Bibles take "he" to be the thief. And that makes much better sense overall. So basically the law hits the reset button, and starts off with the key principle: the thief has to repay what he/she stole. Then, it adds a wrinkle: if you can't repay, you get sold to be someone's servant to pay off your debt.
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What God does here, basically, is hit the reset button on this whole discussion, and state the main principle at play here. When thieves are caught, they have to make people whole for what they took.
Now, what happens if you can't repay the owner for what you took? What if you stole millions of dollars through some crypto scheme, and then partied hard with it, and bought yourself a house in the Bahamas, and squandered it? The money is gone.
In ancient Israel, if a thief can't repay what he sold or used, he doesn't go to jail. He isn't fined by the government. He is sold. He becomes a servant, working for the person he's stolen from, until he has paid off his debt. So if someone steals $500 from you, maybe you get their labor for two or three days. They can shovel your driveway, paint your house, clean your bathroom. They are your employee, until they've paid off their debt.
And hopefully, in a perfect world, the thief will learn a thing or two about the value of hard work, and about a better way to make a living.
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And if they stole because they are starving, they will at least get fed for a few days. You have to feed your servants.
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With this, we come to verse 4. Here, God adds a wrinkle, that makes us stop and reread everything:
(4) If the stolen possession is actually/in fact found in his hand-- whether an ox, or donkey, or small livestock-- alive, double he shall make whole/restitution. ["double" is focused]
Double compensation?
Let's reread verse 1:
(1) If a man steals an (A) ox or (B) small livestock, and he slaughters it, or he sells it, five cattle he shall make whole/compensate in place of the (A) ox,
while four sheep/goats [shall be] in place of the (B) small livestock. ["A" and "B" just to make it easier to follow the verse].
When we compare verse 1 and 4, what explains the difference?
If someone steals from you, and they still have the loot in their possession, and then they're caught, they have to repay double.
But if they steal from you, and then use it-- either by slaughtering it, or selling it, in the case of animals-- they repay four or five times.
Why?
[William Propp draws attention to Ibn Ezra, a Jewish rabbi who suggests that the reason has to do with the inability at that point to repent. There is still the hope that the person will do the right thing, and repay, as long as they have it. That's really close, and helpful, I think. It steers us in the right direction.]
I think what these two laws together show is that stealing is a two step process. First, you swipe something.
Perhaps you carefully planned out the act. Or maybe, you simply seized the moment, when a golden opportunity fell at your feet.
Either way, it's now yours. That's sin #1. At this point, you can admire it. You can care for it.
But at this point, there's another step you can take. You can knowingly, deliberately, use it in a way, that uses it up. You can sell it to someone else. Or you can slaughter it, and make it your supper.
This second step is sin #2. You are deliberately doing the wrong thing, a second time. When you take the knife to the cow's throat, you understand you are sinning, again. And you are sinning, in a way that can't be fixed. You can't return a steak dinner.
Somewhere in here, is the reason why a sold or eaten cow needs to be repaid fivefold. Once you've used the cow, there's no chance you'll do the right thing, and return the cow. You've made the decision, that it's yours forever. But if you get caught-- someone sees the ranch's brand on the cattle hide, or saw you take the cow-- then you repay fivefold.
If you're a thief, the two laws together give you incentive to do the right thing and return the animal.
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Part of it, also, might be that if you sell or consume an animal, you've made it virtually impossible to get caught. If you sell cows, to flip them to the local restaurant, it's hard to prove it. A stolen steak looks like any other steak. Setting the compensation at four or fivefold perhaps acknowledges that you probably did this more than once, and makes sure you don't come out ahead. Steal a cow and keep it, and it's maybe 50-50 you'll get away with it. Steal a cow and eat it, and there's maybe only a 20% chance you get caught. Like stealing cars, to sell to a chop shop.
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Verse 5:
(5) When a man grazes [his livestock] in a field or a vineyard, and he lets his livestock stray, and he grazes in another field, from the best part of his field or from the best part of his vineyard he shall make whole/compensation. [everything from "from the best" to "vineyard" is focused]
If you're a rancher, God expects you to respect your neighbor's property line. You can't let your herd wander into your neighbor's soybeans. That's another form of stealing. If this happens, you have to compensate your neighbor from the very best of your produce. If you have four apple trees, your neighbor gets the produce from the best of them. If you have four wheat fields, your neighbor gets the wheat with the highest protein levels-- the stuff that turns into bread, and not cattle feed.
When you compensate your neighbor, you have to do so from the best of what you have. That's part of how you make him truly whole, financially.
Verse 6:
(6) When fire breaks out, and it finds thornbushes, and it is consumed-- the stacked grain or standing grain or field--, the one who started the fire shall surely/in fact make whole/compensate.
We know there's lots of good reasons to start fires. After a dry year, you can burn wetlands to reclaim farmland (#truth). You can burn the grass along ditches, to help keep snow drifts from piling up on rural roads. You can burn up an old windbreak, that wasn't really doing much anymore.
When you're creating fires-- especially the kind of huge fires we often see in ND-- you need to be careful to not let the fire spread where it shouldn't. If it does any damage to your neighbor's stuff, you have to make your neighbor whole. And for those of us who aren't farmers, and play with fire a little less, it's a good reminder to fully put out campfires. If you smoke, carefully stub out your cigar or cigarette. God agrees with Smoky the Bear: Fire safety starts with you.
Verses 7-9:
(7) When a man gives to his neighbor silver or vessels (of stuff) to watch over, and it is stolen from the house of the man, if the thief is found, he shall surely make whole/restitution two fold.
(8) If the thief isn't found, the owner of the house shall be brought to the God/Elohim/Deity-- if he didn't stretch out his hand to the work/possession of his neighbor.
(9) Concerning every issue/report of transgression regarding an ox, regarding a donkey, regarding small livestock, regarding clothing, regarding all lost property-- when he says, "This is mine," -- to the God/Elohim/Deity the issue/report of the two of them shall come, ["to the God" is focused], the one whom God/Elohim declares guilty shall make whole/compensation double to his neighbor.
Lots of the things we own in life, are indistinguishable from other people's possessions. My $20 bill, looks a lot like yours. One rancher's sheep, looks a lot like someone else's.
As a result, there are times when it's impossible to figure out who something belongs to. Someone finds $50 on the street-- whose is it? A newborn, unblemished lamb is found, perfectly in between two neighbor's flocks-- who does it belong to? Both ranchers see it, and they say, "That's mine!"
If this happened today, we'd maybe just throw our hands up in the air, and admit that it's hopeless. But in ancient Israel, God promises that He will help. If two people can't agree about who owns something, they can go to God-- to the tabernacle, or local sanctuary, maybe, where God is particularly present-- and God will help. God will declare who is guilty, and the guilty party will compensate the person who was wronged.
Just think about that. What do you think it looks like?
My guess is that this involves something that looks like dice, or a coin. [Probably it's something like Urim and Thummim]. The two people come to the sanctuary, and they trust that God will flip the dice to odds or evens, or the coin to heads or tails, to show who is guilty. Both parties agree to this, and they both trust that God will give the right outcome. And God promises here that this trust is well-placed. God will act. God will provide the answer.
God will make sure that his people can't steal from each other through dishonesty, and false testimony. And it's this that shows, maybe above all else, that God takes property rights seriously.
Verses 10-12:
(10) When a man gives to his neighbor a donkey or an ox or a small livestock or any cattle/beast to guard/watch over, and it died, or it is injured, or it is driven away, and no one sees, (11) an oath of Yahweh shall be made between the two of them, whether or not he stretched out his hand to the possession of his neighbor, and its owner shall accept [the oath], and he shall not make whole/restitution,
(12) while if it was actually/in fact stolen from with him, he shall make whole/restitution to its owner.
Imagine that you are going out of town for one reason or another, and you bring your herd over to your neighbor to cattle-sit. When you get back, your little herd has nine cows, instead of 10. One cow is missing.
The law here envisions three possible explanations. Maybe it died. Maybe it was injured-- and then had to be put down. Or maybe it was captured by cattle rustlers.
With any of these three possibilities, your neighbor needs to swear an oath, in Yahweh's name, that he didn't take advantage of your absence to gain possession of your cow.
If your cow just died, and you were gone for a month, your neighbor probably turned that cow into something useful. It became clothing, and food, and who knows what else. There's no freezers; there's no way to keep the meat. It might as well get used.
If he swears to you, in Yahweh's name, that your cow just died, or that it had to be put down, you have to accept the oath. You have to make the choice to believe him. And you don't get any compensation for that lost cow. The idea, I think, is that if you trust someone enough to keep your livestock with them, you need to trust their promise that they didn't take it. Your trust might be a little shaken, but you have to give them the benefit of the doubt.
Now, verse 12 adds a wrinkle to this. Let's reread it:
(12) while if it was actually/in fact stolen from with him, he shall make whole/restitution to its owner.
If you are cow-sitting for someone, God expects you to take that responsibility seriously. You guard that cow. You make sure no one steals it. And if someone does steal it from under your nose, and you didn't find the thief, you have to make restitution to the owner. You have to make him "whole."
Verse 13 adds another wrinkle:
(13) If it was actually/in fact torn apart, he shall bring the evidence/testimony of the mangled/savaged carcass.
He shall not make whole/restitution,
If a lion or wild dog kills the cow, the cow-sitter needs to bring the evidence of that attack. If there's evidence, the cow-sitter doesn't need to make restitution.
With this, we come to verses 14-15. Here, the law switches gears, to covering rentals. Say you need to plow your field, and you rent the use of your neighbor's ox. How exactly does God want that to work?
(14) and when a man asks from his neighbor, and it was injured, or it died-- [and] its owner not being there with him-- he shall surely/in fact make whole/restitution.
So if you borrow your neighbor's ox, and it was injured, or died-- and the owner isn't present-- you have to fully compensate your neighbor for his ox. You don't get the benefit of the doubt that the ox just happened to die from old age in that five hour window you rented it.
In verse 15, we get a wrinkle:
(15) If its owner [was] with him, he shall not make whole/restitution.
So let's say your neighbor rents his ox to you, but he comes along with it. Maybe he loves his ox. Maybe he doesn't completely trust you to use the ox the right way. Or maybe it's a goring ox, and he knows he needs to use it carefully.
If the ox dies, while its owner tags along, the renter doesn't have to make compensation. If the owner is there, he should've been able to keep it from dying.
Last line, verse 15:
If it was hired, it shall come with its payment/hiring fee.
When you rent your neighbor's stuff, you pay up front for the rental. It's cash on delivery. Doing it this way, uniformly, makes it impossible to rip off your neighbor. You can't rent your neighbor's ox, promise to pay him later, and then back out. You can't create a situation where it's his word against yours. Paying up front keeps everyone honest.
The law here maybe says something about people's hardness of hearts. God knows that some of his people are going to want to rip others off, and God makes it difficult for them to accomplish that.
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This is a big passage. There's a lot of different angles, and situations, and wrinkles to try to keep track of.
But the main take away from this passage, I think, is pretty straightforward. Your stuff, is your stuff. Your neighbor's stuff, belongs to your neighbor.
This maybe doesn't seem particularly profound. But we live in a time, and in a place, where that idea is increasingly lost. Every month, it seems like more and more things at Walmart are put under lock and key, to make them harder to steal. Every month, we read stories about flash mobs looting luxury stores. We read about stores across San Francisco closing because shoplifting is so bad the stores lose money. Or we see videos of people just shamelessly shoving stuff into black trash bags, and walking out of stores with loot.
Part of the bedrock of what makes societies work, is property rights. The only thing that gives people incentive to be productive-- to build up their farm, or property, or business-- is the confidence that they will improve their lot in life. Every week, when I get paid, I have to make a decision about how I will use the excess money. I can spend all the excess on cable TV, or eating out, or nice clothes, or whatever. Or, I could invest that money, and buy a little land outside of town for my wife to garden on, or plant an orchard on. But if people think they can just steal apples off my trees, or pick my beans, then there's no point. There's no point in buying the land, or planting, or weeding, or watering, if a thief gets the fruit of my (wife's) hard work.
My grandpa owned a printing company-- he built it from nothing, at great sacrifice to himself. If people stole from him all along the way-- vendors, customers, employees-- it would never have worked out.
What we see in this passage is God's recognition of this fact. God knows that Israel will fall apart, unless property rights are protected. And the most surprising part about this, I think, is that God promises He will actively intervene, to make sure that people aren't ripped off.
There are times when some of us are going to see our neighbor's stuff, and desire it. We might even find ourselves plotting some way to get it from them. But God says, "No."
If we turn to the NT, it adds a lot of other things to the topic of possessions. We are encouraged to give generously, and cheerfully. We are encouraged to hold loosely onto what we have. We are told that sometimes, non-Christians will take our stuff from us, because we are Christians (Hebrews 10:34). We are told that it's hard for wealthy people to inherit God's kingdom, because there's something about wealth that's deceptive, and tends to turn people's hearts away from God.
But all of those things build on today's passage. The starting point for all of that, is the idea that your possessions, are yours.
Let's turn to Acts 5:1-11 (NIV no reason):
5 Now a man named Ananias, together with his wife Sapphira, also sold a piece of property. 2 With his wife’s full knowledge he kept back part of the money for himself, but brought the rest and put it at the apostles’ feet.
3 Then Peter said, “Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land?
Listen to verse 4 carefully:
4 Didn’t it belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, wasn’t the money at your disposal? What made you think of doing such a thing? You have not lied just to human beings but to God.”
5 When Ananias heard this, he fell down and died. And great fear seized all who heard what had happened. 6 Then some young men came forward, wrapped up his body, and carried him out and buried him.
7 About three hours later his wife came in, not knowing what had happened. 8 Peter asked her, “Tell me, is this the price you and Ananias got for the land?”
“Yes,” she said, “that is the price.”
9 Peter said to her, “How could you conspire to test the Spirit of the Lord? Listen! The feet of the men who buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out also.”
10 At that moment she fell down at his feet and died. Then the young men came in and, finding her dead, carried her out and buried her beside her husband. 11 Great fear seized the whole church and all who heard about these events.
Your stuff belongs to you. I mean, you give tithes and offerings. God claims the first fruits. But the rest, is yours. And how you use that, is up to you. Verse 4: It "belongs to you." Your money, again verse 4, is "at your disposal."
As you go through life, you can balance your desires for what you want, with what others need. You can listen to the Spirit, when He encourages you to help others financially.
But it's truly your choice.
So that's what I want to leave you with today. Property rights are a big deal to God, and to society. They are part of the basis, of what makes everything else work. They are necessary, for people to have motivate to save, and invest, and plan for a better tomorrow.
The things you own-- your wealth-- are truly yours. The money in your bank account, or represented by your tractors, and shops, and cars-- all of that truly belongs to you. When you look in your wallet, that money is yours.
Now, all of this is true for your neighbor as well.
Your neighbor's stuff, truly belongs to him. So we don't get to riot, and burn, and loot, when we're upset. We don't get to destroy people's livelihood, to get back at people. If we want to burn our own houses, and cars, and fields-- that's up to us. Those are our things. But our neighbor's stuff, belongs to our neighbor. And God expects you to keep your hands to yourself. You don't get to reach into your neighbor's wallet, or jewelry box, or cattle herd. Your neighbor's stuff belongs to them.
Translation:
(1) If a man steals an ox or small livestock, and he slaughters it, or he sells it, five cattle he shall make whole/compensate in place of the ox,
while four sheep/goats [shall be] in place of the small livestock.
(2) If, while breaking in, the thief is discovered/caught, and he is struck, and he dies, there is no bloodguilt for him.
(3) If the sun has risen upon him, [there is] bloodguilt to him.
He shall surely make whole/restitution.
If he (=the thief) isn't able to repay, he shall be sold for the value of his stolen possession.
(4) If the stolen possession is actually/in fact found in his hand-- whether an ox, or donkey, or small livestock-- alive, double he shall make whole/restitution.
(5) When a man grazes [his livestock] in a field or a vineyard, and he lets his livestock stray, and he grazes in another's field, from the best part of his field or from the best part of his vineyard he shall make whole/compensation. [everything from "from the best" to "vineyard" is focused]
(6) When fire breaks out, and it finds thorn bushes, and it is consumed-- the stacked grain or standing grain or field--, the one who started the fire shall surely/in fact make whole/compensate.
(7) When a man gives to his neighbor silver or vessels (of stuff) to watch over, and it is stolen from the house of the man, if the thief is found, he shall surely make whole/restitution two fold.
(8) If the thief isn't found, the owner of the house shall be brought to the God/Elohim/Deity-- if he didn't stretch out his hand to the work/possession of his neighbor.
(9) Concerning every issue/report of transgression regarding an ox, regarding a donkey, regarding small livestock, regarding clothing, regarding all lost property, where he says, "This belongs to me," to the God/Elohim/Deity the issue/report of the two of them shall come, ["to the God" is focused], the one whom God/Elohim declares guilty shall make whole/compensation double to his neighbor.
(10) When a man gives to his neighbor a donkey or an ox or a small livestock or any cattle/beast to guard/watch over, and it died, or it is injured, or it is driven away, and no one sees, (11) an oath of Yahweh shall be made between the two of them, whether or not he stretched out his hand to the possession of his neighbor, and its owner shall accept [the oath], and he shall not make whole/restitution,
(12) while if it was actually stolen from with him, he shall make whole/restitution to its owner.
(13) If it was actually torn apart, he shall bring the evidence/testimony.
The mangled carcass, he shall not make whole/restitution [for],
(14) and when a man asks from his neighbor, and it was injured, or it died-- [and] its owner not being there with him-- he shall surely make whole/restitution.
(15) If its owner [was] with him, he shall not make whole/restitution.
If it was hired, it shall come with its hiring fee.
