Exodus 22:10

כִּֽי־יִתֵּן אִישׁ אֶל־רֵעֵהוּ חֲמוֹר אוֹ־שׁוֹר אוֹ־שֶׂה וְכָל־בְּהֵמָה לִשְׁמֹר וּמֵת אוֹ־נִשְׁבַּר אוֹ־נִשְׁבָּה אֵין רֹאֶֽה׃

✦ Hebrew interlinear

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✦ The same verse in five languages

Hebrew

כִּֽי־יִתֵּן֩ אִ֨ישׁ אֶל־רֵעֵ֜הוּ חֲמ֨וֹר אוֹ־שׁ֥וֹר אוֹ־שֶׂ֛ה וְכָל־בְּהֵמָ֖ה לִשְׁמֹ֑ר וּמֵ֛ת אוֹ־נִשְׁבַּ֥ר אוֹ־נִשְׁבָּ֖ה אֵ֥ין רֹאֶֽה׃

Greek (Septuagint)

Ἐὰν τις δῶ τῶ πλησίον ὑποζύγιον ἢ μόσχον ἢ πρόβατον ἢ πᾶν κτῆνος φυλάξαι, καὶ συντριβῇ ἢ τελευτήσῃ ἢ αἰχμάλωτον γένηται, καὶ μηδεὶς γνῷ,

Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0

Latin (Vulgate)

Si quis commendaverit proximo suo asinum, bovem, ovem, et omne jumentum ad custodiam, et mortuum fuerit, aut debilitatum, vel captum ab hostibus, nullusque hoc viderit:

Spanish

“Si alguien le da a cuidar a su vecino un burro, un toro, una oveja o cualquier otro animal, y el animal se muere, se lastima o se lo roban sin que nadie se dé cuenta,

Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)

Si alguno hubiere dado á su prójimo asno, ó buey, ú oveja, ó cualquier otro animal á guardar, y se muriere, ó se perniquebrare, ó fuere llevado sin verlo nadie;

English

If a man gives a donkey, an ox, a sheep, or any other animal to be cared for by his neighbor, but it dies or is injured or stolen while no one is watching,

✦ What the text says

Summary

The verse opens a legal case (ki, "if", H3588A) concerning an animal — donkey, ox, sheep, or any beast — entrusted by one person to a neighbor for safekeeping. It then lists three possible mishaps (death, injury, capture) that can occur to it while no witness is present.

Key words

yiTen ("he will give", H5414G) — qal imperfect, marking the entrusting act as the hypothetical condition that triggers the case.
re'Ehu ("his neighbor", H7453 + H9023) — construct noun with pronominal suffix; identifies the recipient of the entrusted animal as a re'a ("neighbor/companion") belonging to the giver's social circle.
liShmor ("to keep it", H8104H) — qal infinitive, expressing the purpose of the transaction: the animal is given specifically "for guarding."
niShbar ("it was broken/maimed", H7665) — niphal perfect, passive voice, indicating the animal suffered injury without an agent named.
niShbah ("it was captured", H7617) — niphal perfect, passive voice, parallel to niShbar, describing loss by seizure without a stated agent.
ro'Eh ("one who sees", H7200G) — qal participle following 'ein ("there is not", H0369), forming the phrase "there is no one seeing," i.e., no witness present.

What the text says

The verse is structured as a conditional clause (ki) followed by a chain of narrative perfects (u-Met, o-nishBar, o-nishBah) that report a sequence of possible outcomes after the entrusting act. The verb yiTen ("he will give") sets the scenario in the imperfect, typical of casuistic law formulation, while the subsequent verbs shift into the vav-consecutive perfect, a common Biblical Hebrew construction for narrating sequential events tied to a prior condition.

Grammatically notable is the alternation between qal and niphal stems: Met ("it died") uses a simple qal form, describing an event without implying an external cause, whereas nishBar ("it was maimed") and nishBah ("it was captured") use the niphal (passive/reflexive) stem, which grammatically avoids naming who broke or captured the animal. This distinguishes a natural death from a bodily injury or human/external abduction, without the text over specifying a responsible party.

The clause 'ein ro'eh ("there is no one seeing," H0369 + H7200G) uses a participle to describe the absence of a witness as an ongoing state at the moment of the animal's loss, rather than a single past action — grammatically framing the absence of observation as a circumstantial condition.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders behemah ("animal", H0929) as κτῆνος generically and adds μηδεὶς γνῷ ("no one knows"), shifting slightly from the Hebrew's 'ein ro'eh ("there is no one seeing") toward a broader "no one knows" formulation. The Vulgate's nullusque hoc viderit ("and no one has seen this") stays closer to the Hebrew's visual sense of ro'eh. The Vulgate also explicitly adds "ab hostibus" ("by enemies") for nishbah, an interpretive specification not present in the Hebrew or LXX texts.

This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.