Laws About Restitution

Story:  Laws About Restitution

Passage: Exodus 21:33-22:15

Characters:  God, Israel

Summary:    God gave Moses a set of laws about restitution.  These will be outlined in the notes below.

  

Notes:  The rules continue with rules designed towards how to pay someone back for loss of property.  First, if an animal falls into a pit, the owner of the pit pays for the animal and the dead animal is his responsibility.  If someone’s ox kills another ox, the two parties sell the live ox and split both the profits, and the dead ox.  If the live ox was known to be prone to violence and it’s owner did not keep it away from other animals, it’s owner replaces the dead animal.  If an ox or a sheep is stolen and sold or killed, the thief owes the owner of the stolen animal four sheep or five oxen depending on what was stolen.  If a thief is caught breaking in and is killed, there is no bloodguilt on the killer.  The passage then says if the sun has risen on the thief, then there is bloodguilt.  All I can figure from this and from reading other translations is that if the thief is caught at night, he can be killed.  But if he is caught in the daytime, there is no reason to kill him.  If nothing else, this probably discouraged nighttime theft and discouraged theft in general.  A thief was to pay for what he stole and if he could not, he was to be sold.  He was to pay double what was stolen.  If a man lets his animals feed in another man’s field, he is to pay back what was eaten from the best of his fields.  If a fire inadvertently is started which burns grain, the man who started the fire pays for everything burned.  If money or goods are given to a neighbor to keep safe and they are stolen and the thief is found, he is to pay back double.  If the thief is not caught, the owner comes before God to find out if it was stolen because of his negligence.  If there is a breach of trust resulting in a dispute of ownership of an item, the case was to be brought before God and the person found to be wrong was to pay double to his neighbor.  This would discourage any dishonesty because if you were the one lying, you ended up losing more than you would gain by lying.  If an animal dies in a neighbor’s care, God allowed an oath to be made in His name that the neighbor was innocent.  The owner was to accept that oath.  If the animal is stolen, the neighbor was to pay for the stolen animal.  If it is killed by beasts, he has to make no restitution.  If a borrowed animal dies in the neighbor’s presence, there is to be no restitution.  I guess this is because it would be known that he was not responsible and tried to save the animal.  If the animal was hired, its death is covered by the fee to hire the animal.  This is the first recorded example of insurance!  These laws can be summed up with one sentence.  If you are responsible for someone else’s loss of property, you are responsible to replace either the property, or the value of the property.  The only other law sandwiched in here which is unusual is the law allowing thieves to be killed at night.  I find it interesting that dishonesty and thievery results in a greater payment than the value of what was lost.  This really discourages stealing and dishonesty by making it riskier to steal or lie.

Questions:  Why were thieves not to be killed in the daytime?  Were there easy ways to utilize loopholes in this system?  Did the culture have enough accountability that these loopholes would not be taken advantage of?

Lessons:  We see the importance of responsibility and fairness.  Even if the loss of property was an accident, it is to be repaid in full.  If you were responsible in any way, you did not have to have had any ill intent to get the punishment.  In the same way, we may not have intentionally intended to rebel against God, but we did, and thus we deserve the full punishment for sinners.  Thanks to His grace, He bore that punishment for us!