אם במחתרת, as well as at night, prepared to either kill or be killed in the pursuit of his quest. This is why there is no demand to account for his blood which has been shed. אין לו דמים, the killer does not even have to make financial restitution to the slain thief’s next of kin.

אם זרחה השמש, if he was stealing in broad daylight.

אם המצא תמצא בידו, he had not sold or otherwise disposed of the stolen animal;

חיים, he had not slaughtered it preparatory to consuming it; then שנים ישלם, he pays only double its market value as restitution and not four or five times its value.

כי יבער, if he causes his beast to feed in someone else’s field

מיטב שדהו, from the best quality of the offending party’s field he has to pay the injured party. This is the way our sages (Baba Kamma 6) have explained our verse. According to the plain meaning of the text the meaning is that the injured party will receive his compensation based on the best quality of the land he owns, not that of the offending party. The reason is that the animal causing the damage may have eaten some of that quality produce of the injured party’s fields.

כי תצא אש, the one lighting the fire was negligent in not taking sufficient precautions that the fire be confined to his own property assuming no extraordinary wind is blowing.

גדיש, a stack of grain which had already been harvested, or even הקמה, while it was still growing on the field. Or even השדה, the “field,” i.e. the soil on which the crops grow was damaged by the flames licking it.

כי יתן איש אל רעהו כסף או כלים, in this paragraph the Torah releases the guardian of responsibility for loss by natural causes or thievery when the custodian in question does not receive compensation for his looking after the items in question. In the second paragraph the custodian of whom the Torah speaks is a שומר שכר, a paid trustee. According to the plain meaning of the text, in the first paragraph the Torah speaks of chattels which are to be kept in the house of the trustee just as his own chattels. He is supposed to treat them with no less care than he treats his own chattels. This is why if they were stolen from his house he is free from responsibility, as he had guarded them as well as he guards his own property. In the second paragraph the Torah lists as examples of what had been given to the trustee animals, objects requiring to be tended, to be fed, etc. Moreover, such animals are usually grazing in the pasture and not under the constant supervision of their owners. If the trustee undertook to look after them, something involving a lot of attention and time, he would not do this unless he would receive compensation for such an undertaking. Seeing the trustee is being paid, he is liable for restitution if any of these animals are stolen while under his care.

'אם לא ימצא הגנב ונקרב וגו, the words אם לא ימצא are understood by our sages (Baba Kamma 63) as meaning that the trustee claimed the animals had been stolen, while in effect he himself had stolen them. If he swore an oath before the judges that he was not involved in their disappearance and he is found afterwards to have perjured himself then he must compensate the owner by paying him twice the value of the “stolen” animals. Personally, I will explain the verse in terms of the plain text, although this does not reflect the halachah. The words אם לא ימצא הגנב ונקרב בעל הבית אל האלוהים, refer to the trustee. שלא שלח ידו במלאכת רעהו, he swears that he personally had not been guilty of appropriating any of his fellow man’s goods but that those that are missing were stolen. On the basis of such an oath he is exonerated from all responsibility.

על כל דבר פשע...אבדה, concerning any matter entrusted to him involved in an accusation that he had abused his fellow man’s trust, כי הוא זה, identifying it as the very thing he claims had been stolen from him either by a thief or by the trustee; those declared guilty by judges will have to pay double the value of the stolen goods to the person owning it.

ומת או נשבר, when death or injury was caused by ferocious beasts. Just as the verse speaking of מתה or נשבה speaks of the entire animal being lost (destroyed), the same applies to the word נשבר as the entire animal becoming useless, seeing it had been killed by another beast. We find something parallel in Kings I 13,28 where a donkey and lion are described as standing beside the carcass of the prophet without violating it. The relevant words in our verse are אין רואה, that no one witnessed what happened.

שבועת ה' תהיה בין שניהם, as a result, the trustee is not held responsible for accidents, i.e. superior force against which he could not have prevailed.

ולקח בעליו, the owner of the dead animal must accept the trustee’s oath, and he is free from paying any damages to the owner.

יביאהו עד, any part of the carcass of the animal which had been devoured by a predator is acceptable as evidence of what had happened to it. We have a verse in Amos 3,12 describing the situation, כאשר יציל הרועה מפי הארי שתי כרעים או בדל רוזן, “as a shepherd rescues from a lion’s jaws two shank bones or the tip of an ear.”

וכי ישאל, an animal to perform work for him.

ונשבר או מת, it suffers either death or becomes otherwise defunct.

בעליו אין עמו, according to the plain meaning of the text: “its owner is not present supervising the work the animal performed.” According to Baba Metzia 95 even if the owner was engaged with different work, as long as the owner is present while the death or injury occurred, the borrower is not liable for damages.

אם שכיר הוא, if the animal in question had been hired by the one working it

בא בשכרו, the risks involved were accepted by the party renting out the animal for work. The situation is not comparable to the case of the party who had received the animal on loan as a friendly gesture. As a result of this difference the party hiring such an animal is not responsible for accidents. He shares the same degree of responsibility which the Torah imposed on the trustee who gets paid for looking after other people’s property. If the animal had been stolen or disappeared due to negligence, the fact that the man who hired it had paid for this does not relieve him of responsibility for preventing theft or disappearance. There are differences of opinion regarding the degrees of liability between Rabbi Meir and Rabbi Yehudah in Baba Kamma 45.

אשר לא ארשה, for if the girl had been betrothed to someone the penalty would be death by stoning as spelled out in Deuteronomy 22,24.

מהר ימהרנה כמהר הבתולות, 50 shekel, just like someone raping a virgin. The penalty money is to be given to the victim’s father as spelled out in Deuteronomy 22,29. Seduction results in the same compensation as rape.

מכשפה לא תחיה. Seeing that it is the custom of women engaging in witchcraft to practice their art in hidden places such as caves as we find in the case of the 80 witches executed by Shimon ben Shetach in Ashkelon on a single day. (Sanhedrin 45). The unusual formulation לא תחיה is meant to tell the authorities not to despair of bringing these culprits to justice in spite of their practicing their craft in hideouts. They should be hunted down until found.

זבח לאלוהים, the vowel patach under the letter ל makes it clear that an alien deity is meant. If the meaning were a sacrifice to G’d, the vowel under the letter ל would be a tzeyreh

לאלוהים, to the ones concerning which I said in the Ten Commandments לא יהיה לך אלוהים אחרים, “you must not have any other deities.” (20,2)

(3) SHALL BE PROSCRIBED. Shall be killed.

לא תונה, do not wrong him with words. In Leviticus 25,14 the Torah refers to similar legislation when applying to monetary matters. The same legislation applies to not wronging fellow Jews who are not converts, of course. The reason the Torah chose the convert as the example of the victim in our verse is that converts have much less of a chance to protect themselves against abuse of any kind, seeing they have no family to stand up for them if a wrong has been committed against them. Not only this, it is so easy to wrong a convert by mentioning what his parents do and what he himself used to do before he converted.

ולא תלחצנו, to perform work for you seeing he has no “redeemer” who looks out for his interest. G’d mentioned this to remind the Israelites who also had no one in Egypt to plead their case. (Exodus 3,9)

כי גרים הייתם, due to your personal experience of such a status, you, better than anyone else, know that seeing that the oppression of strangers is a great wrong, the punishment for violating such a commandment is equally harsh. (compare Exodus 23,9)

לא תענון, as in Exodus 1,11. The Torah employs the most likely scenarios as the examples it chooses.

'והיו נשיכם וגו a warning of the punishment being made to fit the crime.

לא תהיה לו כנושה, when the time comes to repay the loan do not press the creditor to accept a pledge as collateral instead of repaying it, (compare Kings II 4,1) or Isaiah 50,1 who describes מי מנושי אשר מכרתי אתכם לו? “which of the creditors was it to whom I sold you off?” Every creditor who faces an insolvent debtor takes a pledge as collateral to secure the loan owed him. The Torah compares such a procedure to imposing interest on an overdue loan; therefore,

לא תשימון עליו נשך as a device to extend the period for repayment.

אם חבל תחבל, even when you take such a pledge with the approval of the court, (compare Deuteronomy 24,11 according to which even the official of the court overseeing such a procedure is not allowed into the house of the debtor, and the debtor must himself bring you such a pledge to serve as collateral) the pledge must not consist of chattels which the debtor cannot do without. All of these considerations are included in the words “do not be like creditor to him.”

עד בא השמש , you may hold on to this garment only during the night when the wearer has no need for it. (based on Baba Metzia 114).

ושמעתי כי חנון אני, even though the creditor has obtained the pledge legally, and he does not have to return it except in exchange for payment of the loan it secures, the Torah expects you to do more than the law requires, something known in Talmudic parlance as לפנים משורת הדין. G’d warns that although from a legal standpoint He should ignore the pleas of the debtor, He will nonetheless listen to his plea as He is compassionate by nature. When discussing G’d’s attitude to the pleas of a widow or orphan in verse 22 the Torah describes this as not only based on His compassion but on legal considerations. Hence the words: “for I am compassionate” do not appear in that context.

אלוהים לא תקלל ונשיא בעמך לא תאר. The Torah again selected the most likely scenario of someone cursing people in authority. People who lose in litigation are apt to curse the judge ruling against them. We find a similar verse in Kohelet 10,20 where Solomon writes: “don’t revile a king even among your intimates.” Another verse in which the Torah refers to a spectacle arousing curses is found in Deuteronomy 21,23 where the Torah refers to the body of a judicially executed person being buried by nightfall. The reason given is that seeing such a body evokes curses against the judges who had convicted the victim.

מלאתך ודמעך אל תאחר, a reference to Deuteronomy 18,4 where the Torah warns not to be tardy in bringing the first fruit to Jerusalem as a gift to G’d. In chapter 22,9 such crops are called מלאה.

ודמעך, a reference to the harvest of the olive groves and the vineyards, the drops of the fruit being compared in appearance to human tears.

לא תאחר, do not be tardy in discharging this obligation but offer them as the first of all your tithes. The same applies to the redemption of the first born males for which the Torah stipulated that this be done at the completion of the first month after the baby is born.

ואנשי קודש, do not eat matters which are proscribed [טמא not strictly in a halachic sense, Ed.] such as something treifah. The Torah in Deuteronomy also links the prohibition of eating animals which died of causes other than ritual slaughter (נבלה) as linked to your being עם קדוש “a holy nation.”