Exodus 22:5

Summary

Exodus 22:5 presents a casuistic law (introduced by ki, "if", H3588A) concerning damage caused when someone's livestock graze in another person's field or vineyard. The law specifies that compensation must be paid using the best produce of the offender's own field or vineyard.

Key words

• yav'er ("he will cause to be grazed over", H1197B) — Hiphil (causative) jussive form of the verb, opening the case with "let him graze / cause to graze," setting up the initial condition.
• shillach ("he will let go", H7971H) — Piel sequential perfect; continues the legal narrative chain begun by the jussive, describing the act of releasing the animal.
• bi'er ("it will graze", H1197B) — same root as yav'er but here in Piel sequential perfect, describing the animal's actual grazing in the neighbor's field, continuing the sequence.
• meitav ("the best of", H4315) — construct noun appearing twice (meitav sadehu, meitav karmo), each time governing "his field" or "his vineyard," specifying the quality of produce required for restitution.
• yeshallem ("he will make compensation", H7999A) — Piel imperfect; the final main verb (apodosis) of the legal sentence, stating the obligation to pay.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence follows the standard casuistic legal pattern: a conditional particle (ki) introduces the protasis, followed by a chain of verb forms — jussive (yav'er) then two sequential perfects (shillach, vi'er) — that narrate the sequence of events (a person causes grazing, releases his cattle [be'iro, "his cattle", H1165 with 3ms suffix], and the cattle then grazes in another's field [sdeh acher, construct + adjective, "field of another"]). The apodosis (main clause) is marked by the shift to imperfect (yeshallem), stating the legal consequence.

The compensation clause uses two parallel construct chains — meitav sadehu ("best of his field") and meitav karmo ("best of his vineyard") — both governed by the same verb yeshallem. The construct state (X of Y) ties "best" directly to the offender's own field and vineyard, specifying that restitution is drawn from his highest-quality produce, not an equivalent amount of ordinary produce.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the opening verb with καταβοσκήσῃ ("graze over") for both the first and second grazing actions, and inserts an additional conditional clause — "ἀποτίσει ἐκ τοῦ ἀγροῦ αὐτοῦ κατὰ τὸ γένημα αὐτοῦ... ἐὰν δὲ πάντα τὸν ἀγρὸν καταβοσκήσῃ" ("he shall pay from his field according to its produce... but if he grazes the whole field") — that does not appear among the Hebrew words listed for this verse. The Vulgate renders the opening verb as læserit ("shall have damaged/injured") rather than a grazing verb, framing the initial act as harm to the field rather than a causative act of grazing.