What Does Exodus 22:10 Mean?
If a man gives to his neighbor a donkey, an ox, a sheep, or any beast to guard, and it dies, or is broken, or is taken captive, with none seeing it.
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 deliver unto his neighbour an ass, or an ox, or a sheep, or any beast, to keep; and it die, or be hurt, or driven away, no man seeing it:THE KEY
The Hebrew holds giving and guarding together: the animal is placed in someone’s care before the verse names a loss no one witnesses.
THE MEANING
The verse names the limits of what anyone can know: an animal entrusted for guarding can die, be broken, or be carried off unseen. What is entrusted still has a keeper even when no witness can settle how the loss occurred. The next verse makes room for an oath where sight cannot settle the matter.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the assumption that an unseen loss itself proves theft; the next verse allows the keeper’s oath to be accepted without repayment.
THE ROOT
לִשְׁמֹר
lishmor
GROWS FROM
שמר
To keep watch, guard, or preserve.
The animal is placed under active guard, not merely held. The word makes the neighbor’s role a charge of watchfulness, even when the outcome cannot be witnessed.
ALSO GROWS
shomer: Keeper, guard, or watchman.
שֹׁמֵר
The keeper is the one carrying the watch over what has been entrusted.
mishmeret: Guard duty, watch, or custody.
מִשְׁמֶרֶת
This branch shows that keeping is an assigned responsibility, not simply possession.
יִתֵּן
yittēn
GROWS FROM
נתן
To give, set, or place.
“gives” in this verse is yittēn. The Hebrew begins with a person giving an animal to a neighbor for guarding. Giving and custody sit together: the animal is placed in another’s care, and its fate matters within that trust.
ALSO GROWS
mattān: Gift.
מַתָּן
The same root carries the act of giving; here the transfer places the animal into another person’s care.
nātūn: Given or assigned.
נָתוּן
This form makes visible the state of something placed with another, as the animal is here.
רֹאֶה
ro’eh
GROWS FROM
ראה
To see, look, or perceive.
“with none seeing it” in this verse is ro’eh. The verse explicitly says no one is seeing the event. It leaves the loss unwitnessed rather than filling the gap with a claim about what happened.
ALSO GROWS
mar’eh: Sight, appearance, or vision.
מַרְאֶה
The branch keeps the focus on what can be seen, the very limit named in the verse.
ro’eh: One who sees; a seer.
רֹאֶה
The verse’s missing observer is the absent seer who might have settled the account.
THE PATTERN
Entrusted care is expressed through attention to what has been placed in one’s hands, even when the outcome is uncertain.
Know well the faces of your flocks, and set your heart upon the herds.The one who is steady in the least is steady also in much, and the one who is crooked in the least is crooked also in much.Moreover, it is sought among portioners that someone be found steady.THE THREAD
Then the oath of the LORD shall be between them both, that he has not stretched out his hand toward his neighbor's goods; and the owner of it shall take it, and he shall not make it whole.Verse 10 leaves the loss unwitnessed; this verse gives the response when sight cannot settle what happened. An oath and the owner’s acceptance keep the absence of a witness from becoming automatic proof of theft.
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