Exodus 22:7
כִּֽי־יִתֵּן אִישׁ אֶל־רֵעֵהוּ כֶּסֶף אֽוֹ־כֵלִים לִשְׁמֹר וְגֻנַּב מִבֵּית הָאִישׁ אִם־יִמָּצֵא הַגַּנָּב יְשַׁלֵּם שְׁנָֽיִם׃
✦ Hebrew interlinear
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✦ The same verse in five languages
כִּֽי־יִתֵּן֩ אִ֨ישׁ אֶל־רֵעֵ֜הוּ כֶּ֤סֶף אֽוֹ־כֵלִים֙ לִשְׁמֹ֔ר וְגֻנַּ֖ב מִבֵּ֣ית הָאִ֑ישׁ אִם־יִמָּצֵ֥א הַגַּנָּ֖ב יְשַׁלֵּ֥ם שְׁנָֽיִם׃
Ἐὰν δέ τις δῷ τῷ πλησίον ἀργύριον ἢ σκεύη φυλάξαι καὶ κλαπῇ ἐκ τῆς οἰκίας τοῦ ἀνθρώπου, ἐὰν εὑρεθῇ ὁ κλέψας, ἀποτίσει τὸ διπλοῦν·
Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0
Latin (Vulgate)
Si quis commendaverit amico pecuniam aut vas in custodiam, et ab eo, qui susceperat, furto ablata fuerint: si invenitur fur, duplum reddet:
“Si alguien le da a cuidar dinero o cosas de valor a su vecino, y se las roban de la casa del vecino, el ladrón tendrá que pagar el doble si lo atrapan.
Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)
Cuando alguno diere á su prójimo plata ó alhajas á guardar, y fuere hurtado de la casa de aquel hombre, si el ladrón se hallare, pagará el doble.
If a man gives his neighbor money or goods for safekeeping and they are stolen from the neighbor ’s house, the thief, if caught, must pay back double.
✦ What the text says
Summary
The verse establishes a legal case: if a man gives money or objects to his neighbor for safekeeping, and these are stolen from that neighbor's house, the thief — if found — must pay back double the value.
Key words
yiTten ("he will give", H5414G) — qal imperfect, marking the hypothetical/future action that opens the conditional clause introduced by ki ("if", H3588A).
lishMor ("to keep", H8104H) — qal infinitive construct, expressing the purpose for which the money or objects were handed over: safekeeping, not ownership transfer.
guNav ("it will be stolen", H1589) — pual (intensive passive) sequential perfect, linked by the narrative ve- ("and", H9001) to the previous verb; it describes the objects as having been stolen without naming an agent.
yimmaTze' ("he will be found", H4672) — niphal imperfect, a passive form indicating that the thief's identity is established through discovery, not stated directly.
yeshalLem ("he will make restitution", H7999A) — piel (intensive) imperfect, denoting an obligatory, completed act of repayment, intensified in form relative to a simple qal payment.
What the text says
The Hebrew sentence is built as a nested conditional structure using two particles: ki ("if", H3588A) opens the main case (deposit and theft), while 'im ("if", H0518A) introduces a second, embedded condition (whether the thief is found). This layering shows that the verse addresses two contingencies in sequence: first the act of entrusting and losing the goods, then the separate question of whether the perpetrator is identified.
The verbs shift voice deliberately. yiTten ("he will give", H5414G) is active, naming the depositor's action. guNav ("it will be stolen", H1589), in the pual, removes the agent from view — the text does not say who stole it, only that the theft occurred. Similarly, yimmaTze' ("he will be found", H4672), in the niphal, describes the thief's exposure as a passive event rather than crediting a specific finder. Only when the thief is grammatically established as ha-gaNav ("the thief", H1590) does the text return to an active, obligatory verb: yeshalLem ("he will make restitution", H7999A), in the intensive piel stem, indicating an emphatic, non-optional repayment.
The construct phrases re'Ehu ("his neighbor", H7453 + suffix) and beit ha-'Ish ("house of the man", H1004B + H0376G) anchor the location and relationship of the parties: the goods must be shown to have been in the neighbor's house specifically, tying the loss to that domestic space.
Differences between versions
The LXX renders keSef ("money", H3701G) as argyrion and kelim ("articles", H3627) as skeuē ("vessels/goods"), a fairly literal correspondence. The Vulgate uses pecuniam ("money") and vas ("vessel," singular), narrowing the plural kelim to a singular category term. Modern translations (BSB, RV1909, SBLIBRE) render kelim more broadly as "goods," "alhajas" (jewelry/valuables), or "cosas de valor" (things of value), reflecting interpretive choices not fixed by the Hebrew term itself, which simply denotes "articles" or "objects" without specifying type.
This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.