What Does Exodus 22:12 Mean in the King James?
And if it be stolen from him, he shall make restitution unto the owner thereof.
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
The word for restitution shares its root with wholeness: repayment is a way of making good what was lost.
THE MEANING
When something in your care is stolen, the loss still has a rightful owner. The verse makes repair concrete: what was lost is answered by repayment to the one who lost it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
If theft caused the loss, the person entrusted with what was stolen owes nothing.
THE ROOT
יְשַׁלֵּם
yeshallēm
GROWS FROM
שלם
sh-l-m
To be whole or complete; in this verb form, to repay or make good.
The verb translated “make restitution” is יְשַׁלֵּם (yeshallēm, “he shall repay”), from the root שלם (sh-l-m, “whole, complete”). The same root underlies wholeness and repayment, letting the word carry the sense of making good what was lost.
ALSO GROWS
shalom: Wholeness, well-being
שָׁלוֹם
This branch makes the root’s sense of wholeness audible beneath the act of repayment.
shillēm: Repaid, recompensed
שִׁלֵּם
This is the repayment sense of the same root, showing how the verse’s restitution belongs to the language of making whole.
shalēm: Whole, complete
שָׁלֵם
This form names the completeness that repayment seeks to restore after a loss.
THE PATTERN
Repair takes concrete shape when value is returned to the one who bore the loss.
Or all that about which he hath sworn falsely; he shall even restore it in the principal, and shall add the fifth part more thereto, and give it unto him to whom it appertaineth, in the day of his trespass offering.And Zacchæus stood, and said unto the Lord; Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have taken any thing from any man by false accusation, I restore him fourfold.THE THREAD
But if he be found, he shall restore sevenfold; he shall give all the substance of his house.“Restore” here is יְשַׁלֵּם (yeshallēm, “he shall repay”), from the same root שלם (sh-l-m, “whole, complete”) as “make restitution” in Exodus. The shared root folds repayment and wholeness together: what is taken calls for value returned.
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