What Does Exodus 22:26 Mean?
If you ever bind your neighbor's garment as a pledge, you shall turn back to him what you bound by the time the sun goes down.
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 thou at all take thy neighbour’s raiment to pledge, thou shalt deliver it unto him by that the sun goeth down:THE KEY
A debt may bind the garment, but the sun sets the hour when that bond gives way to the body’s need for covering.
THE MEANING
The garment is the person’s only covering, so it returns before night and remains available against the skin for sleep. When the person cries out from exposure, God hears with compassion.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A pledge does not erase the garment’s purpose as its owner’s only covering or justify holding it through the night.
THE ROOT
כְּסוּתוֹ
kesuto
GROWS FROM
כסה
kasah
to cover
The Hebrew calls it the person’s covering, then names it as the garment against the skin. It is protection, not surplus property, and the verse connects its return to the ability to sleep.
ALSO GROWS
kasah: to cover
כָּסָה
The garment belongs to the action it performs: it covers the person against exposure.
mikhseh: covering, cover
מִכְסֶה
This related word can name a protective cover, keeping the garment’s sheltering function in view.
תְּשִׁיבֶנּוּ
teshivennu
GROWS FROM
שׁוּב
shuv
to return, turn back
“turn back to him” in this verse is teshivennu. The Hebrew verb comes from שׁוּב (shuv, return): the action turns the garment back to its owner. That return is due before night, while the garment is needed for covering and sleep.
ALSO GROWS
shuv: return, turn back
שׁוּב
The pledge moves back to the person from whom it was taken.
heshiv: bring back, restore
הֵשִׁיב
This form makes the direction clear: the holder brings the garment back to its owner.
חָבֹל
chavol
GROWS FROM
חבל
chaval
to bind; to take as a pledge
“bind your neighbor's garment as a pledge” in this verse is chavol. The taking word חָבֹל (chavol, take as a pledge) comes from חבל (chaval, bind). The debt binds a claim to the garment, but the verse places a sunset boundary on that hold because the garment is also the person’s only covering.
ALSO GROWS
chevel: cord, rope
חֶבֶל
The cord is a concrete branch of the binding image carried by the pledge word.
chaval: bind; take as security
חָבַל
This verb makes the pledge’s binding claim explicit, the claim the verse limits before night.
THE PATTERN
The need of an exposed body turns care from words or claims into material provision.
Is it not to break your bread for the hungry, and to bring the wandering poor into your house? When you see the naked, cover him, and do not hide yourself from your own flesh.If a brother or sister is naked, and left without the nourishment of the day, And one of you says to them, Go in wholeness, be warmed and filled, but you do not give them what the body needs. What is the profit?Naked, and you clothed me; I was weak, and you visited me; I was in prison, and you came to me.THE THREAD
You shall surely turn back to him the pledge as the sun goes in, so that he may lie down in his own cloak and bless you; and it is your alignment before the LORD your God.This verse uses the same root שׁוּב (shuv, return) for giving the pledge back as the sun goes down. It names the reason plainly: the person needs the garment to sleep, making the return the point of the sunset boundary.
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