Exodus 22:12

Summary

The verse addresses the case where a borrowed or entrusted animal is stolen while in someone's keeping. It establishes that if theft is confirmed, the keeper must pay restitution to the owner.

Key words

• ga.No ("certainly ", H1589) — infinitive absolute of the qal stem, placed before the finite verb to intensify or confirm the action described.
• yi.ga.Nev ("it will be stolen", H1589) — niphal (passive) imperfect of the same root, indicating that the subject undergoes the action of stealing rather than performing it.
• me.'i.M ("from with him", H9006 + H5973B + H9033) — preposition compound with pronominal suffix, marking the location "from his keeping" or "from his possession."
• ye.sha.Lem ("he will make restitution", H7999A) — piel imperfect, the intensive stem conveying a completed act of full repayment or compensation.
• v.'a.La ("owner", H1167G) — masculine plural noun in construct form with the following suffix, literally "owners of it," referring to the one to whom restitution is due.

What the text says

The clause opens with ve'im ("and if", H9002 + H0518A), introducing a conditional scenario distinct from a preceding case (implied by the structure "but if"). The core of the verse rests on the doubled verbal construction ga.No yi.ga.Nev — an infinitive absolute (H1589) followed by the niphal imperfect of the same root (H1589). This repetition, typical of Biblical Hebrew legal and narrative style, does not indicate two separate actions but rather intensifies or confirms the single action: the certainty that theft occurred, as opposed to negligence or accident.

The phrase me'immo ("from with him", H9006 + H5973B + H9033) specifies that the theft happened while the item was in the keeper's custody, using the compound preposition "from with" to denote physical possession or charge.

The apodosis, yeshallem livʿalayv ("he will make restitution to its owner(s)", H7999A + H1167G), uses the piel imperfect of shalam to denote an intensive, complete act of payment. The noun baʿal ("owner", H1167G) appears in construct plural form with a suffix, yielding "its owners," though it refers to a single owner — the plural construct form is a common grammatical pattern in Hebrew for such possessive nouns and does not necessarily indicate multiple people.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the restitution clause as ἀποτίσει τῷ κυρίῳ ("he will pay to the lord/master"), using κυρίῳ where the Hebrew has the plural construct noun baʿalayv ("its owner(s)", H1167G). The Vulgate similarly reads restituet damnum domino ("he will restore the damage to the lord"), adding damnum ("damage/loss") — a specifying noun not present in the Hebrew text, which simply states "he will make restitution" without naming what is restored. The Hebrew's doubled verb construction (ga.No yi.ga.Nev) emphasizing certainty of theft is not morphologically reproduced in the LXX or Vulgate, which use single verbs (κλαπῇ, ablatum fuerit) to convey the conditional theft.