What Does Exodus 22:1 Mean?
If a man shall steal an ox, or a sheep, and slaughter it, or sell it; he shall make whole five oxen for an ox, and four sheep for a sheep.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
If a man shall steal an ox, or a sheep, and kill it, or sell it; he shall restore five oxen for an ox, and four sheep for a sheep.THE KEY
“Restore” carries the root sense of wholeness, yet here the repair is deliberately larger than the loss: one stolen ox or sheep becomes a fivefold or fourfold debt.
THE MEANING
This verse gives taking and disposing of another’s animal a measurable cost: five oxen for an ox, four sheep for a sheep. The loss remains answerable even after the animal is killed or sold, and the repayment exceeds what was taken.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that a loss disappears once what was taken is gone: this verse says the obligation remains, and the debt grows.
THE ROOT
יְשַׁלֵּם
yeshallēm
GROWS FROM
שלם
sh-l-m
To be whole or complete; in this verb form, to repay or make good.
“make whole” in this verse is yeshallēm. The word translated “restore” belongs to the same root family as words for wholeness and well-being. That connection lets repayment carry more than the sense of returning property: it is a response to what has been disrupted, while the fivefold and fourfold amounts keep the cost of the loss visible.
ALSO GROWS
shalom: Wholeness, well-being
שָׁלוֹם
It shares the root’s association with a condition made whole, illuminating the sense of repair within repayment.
shalem: Whole, complete
שָׁלֵם
This form makes the root’s idea of completeness explicit, a meaning carried into the act of making good a loss.
shillem: Repaid, recompensed
שִׁלֵּם
This related verb names the repayment that the verse requires.
THE PATTERN
Restitution answers a loss with a quantified repayment that exceeds what was taken.
Then they speak their falling short into the open, which they have done; and he makes his crossing over whole, with its head, and adds to it a fifth of it, and gives it to the one against whom he crossed over.But if he is found, he restores it whole, sevenfold; he gives all the wealth of his house.And Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, "Look, Lord, I give half of what I have to the emptied, and if I have taken anything from anyone by false accusation, I give back fourfold."THE THREAD
But if he is found, he restores it whole, sevenfold; he gives all the wealth of his house.Proverbs uses the same Hebrew repayment verb, יְשַׁלֵּם (yeshallēm), from שלם (sh-l-m), as Exodus 22:1. The shared root joins repayment with wholeness, while the sevenfold measure makes the scale of repair unmistakable.
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