What Does Deuteronomy 22:2 Mean in the King James?
And if thy brother be not nigh unto thee, or if thou know him not, then thou shalt bring it unto thine own house, and it shall be with thee until thy brother seek after it, and thou shalt restore it to him again.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
An owner’s absence does not make what is theirs ownerless; the household becomes a temporary bridge between seeking and return.
THE MEANING
The verse holds ownership steady through absence: not knowing the person does not make what belongs to them ownerless. What is in your care remains there only until the one seeking it can receive it back.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that distance or unfamiliarity dissolves another person’s claim: a thing does not become yours simply because its owner is far away or unknown.
THE ROOT
וַהֲשֵׁבֹתוֹ
vahashevoto
GROWS FROM
שׁוּב
Return, turn back; in the causative form here, make something return.
The word rendered “restore” is a causative form of שׁוּב (shuv), meaning return or turn back: you make the thing return. It stays with you only for an interval, and its path reaches completion when it goes back to the one who seeks it.
ALSO GROWS
teshuvah: Return, turning; also an answer or response.
תְּשׁוּבָה
The sense of a response as something that comes back echoes the verse’s movement from seeking to return.
meshiv: One who returns or restores.
מֵשִׁיב
This branch names the agent of return, illuminating the keeper’s role in bringing the found thing back.
יְדַעְתּוֹ
yedaʿto
GROWS FROM
יָדַע
Know, recognize, perceive; knowing by encounter.
“know” in this verse is yedaʿto. The verse places not knowing the person beside sheltering what belongs to them. Recognition is absent, but the person’s claim remains; personal knowledge is not what makes the thing theirs.
ALSO GROWS
daʿat: Knowledge or understanding.
דַּעַת
This noun grows from the same root and shows how knowing is carried into the language of understanding.
yediʿah: Knowledge or knowing.
יְדִיעָה
The shared root keeps the verse’s “know him not” connected to the broader language of recognition and knowing.
דְּרֹשׁ
derosh
GROWS FROM
דָּרַשׁ
Seek, inquire, search out.
The brother’s return is linked to his active seeking. The root also carries inquiry, so “seek after it” suggests searching it out rather than simply waiting for it to reappear.
ALSO GROWS
derishah: A request or inquiry.
דְּרִישָׁה
This branch shows the root’s connection between seeking and actively asking or searching.
midrash: Inquiry, study, or interpretation.
מִדְרָשׁ
The word preserves the root’s sense of searching something out, adding depth to the brother’s pursuit of what is lost.
THE PATTERN
What is lost remains connected to its owner, and the keeper’s role carries it toward return.
If thou meet thine enemy’s ox or his ass going astray, thou shalt surely bring it back to him again.Then it shall be, because he hath sinned, and is guilty, that he shall restore that which he took violently away, or the thing which he hath deceitfully gotten, or that which was delivered him to keep, or the lost thing which he found,What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it?THE THREAD
If thou meet thine enemy’s ox or his ass going astray, thou shalt surely bring it back to him again.The same Hebrew root שׁוּב (shuv), meaning return or turn back, stands beneath “bring it back” there and “restore it” here. In Exodus the owner is an enemy; here the brother may be distant or unknown, yet return still governs the thing’s temporary keeping.
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