Exodus 22:6

Summary

The verse describes a legal case: if a fire spreads and consumes thornbushes, a stack of sheaves, standing grain, or a field, the person who kindled the fire must make full compensation. The passage uses a conditional legal structure typical of Exodus case law (casuistic formulation).

Key words

• ki ("if", H3588A) — introduces the conditional clause that frames the entire legal scenario.
• te.Tze' ("it will go forth", H3318L) — qal imperfect referring to the fire's spreading action, marking the triggering event of the case.
• ne.'e.Khal ("it will be consumed", H0398) — niphal (passive) sequential perfect; the grammatical voice shifts to passive, emphasizing the object (the heap of sheaves) as the one acted upon rather than naming an agent directly.
• sha.Lem yesha.Lem ("certainly he will make compensation", H7999A) — the infinitive sha.Lem paired with the imperfect yesha.Lem forms an emphatic construction (infinitive absolute + finite verb of the same root), intensifying the obligation to pay.
• mav.'Ir ("[one who] kindled", H1197A) — hiphil participle, identifying the responsible party as the one who caused the fire (causative sense: "the one who caused burning"), rather than merely "the one near the fire."

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built as a chain of sequential clauses connected by the narrative vav (H9001), moving from the outbreak of fire (te.Tze' 'esh, "a fire will go forth") to its effects: it "finds" (ma.tze.'Ah) thornbushes, and as a result a heap of sheaves (ga.Dish) "is consumed" (ne.'e.Khal, niphal). The three possible objects of destruction — the heap of sheaves, "the standing grain" (ka.Mah, with definite article), and "the field" (sa.Deh, also with article) — are joined by the disjunctive 'o ("or", H0176A), listing escalating scope of damage rather than three separate incidents.

The resolution of the case falls on the participant labeled ha.mav.'Ir ("the one who kindled", H1197A), a hiphil participle built on the same root as be.'e.Rah ("fire", H1200), the noun used for the fire in the final clause. This root-repetition (mav.'Ir... be.'e.Rah) creates a wordplay in Hebrew not visible in translation: the "kindler" is linked lexically to the "kindling" itself. The obligation to pay is expressed through the infinitive absolute sha.Lem followed by the finite verb yesha.Lem, both from H7999A, a common Hebrew intensifying construction that stresses certainty or completeness of the required payment, rendered in English versions as "must make full restitution" or "shall surely pay."

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the Hebrew's threefold list (heap, standing grain, field) as "ἅλωνας ἢ στάχυς ἢ πεδίον" ("threshing floors or ears of grain or plain"), using "threshing floors" where the Hebrew has ga.Dish ("heap of sheaves", H1430A) — a shift from the stacked-sheaves image to the location where grain is processed. The Vulgate uses "acervos frugum" ("heaps of crops") for ga.Dish, closer to the Hebrew image, and "stantes segetes" ("standing crops") for ka.Mah, matching the Hebrew's "standing grain" more directly than the LXX's "στάχυς" ("ears of grain").