Éxodo 22:4

4 Si alguien roba un buey o un burro o una oveja, y se encuentra el animal en su poder, entonces el ladrón tendrá que pagar el doble del valor del animal robado.

Éxodo 22:4 Meaning and Commentary

Exodus 22:4

If the theft be certainly found in his hand alive
Or, "in finding be found" ^F9, be plainly and evidently found upon him, before witnesses, as the Targum of Jonathan; so that there is no doubt of the theft; and it is a clear case that he had neither as yet killed nor sold the creature he had stolen, and to could be had again directly, and without any damage well as it would appear by this that he was not an old expert thief, and used to such practices, since he would soon have made away with this theft in some way or another:

whether it be ox, or ass, or sheep,
or any other creature; and even, as Jarchi thinks, anything else, as raiment, goods

he shall restore double;
two oxen for an ox, two asses for an ass, and two sheep for a sheep: and, as the same commentator observes, two living ones, and not dead ones, or the price of two living ones: so Solon made theft, by his law, punishable with death, but with a double restitution ^F11; and the reason why here only a double restitution and not fourfold is insisted on, as in ( Exodus 22:1 ) is, because there the theft is persisted in, here not; but either the thief being convicted in his own conscience of his evil, makes confession, or, however, the creatures are found with alive, and so more useful being restored, and, being had again sooner, the loss is not quite so great.

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FOOTNOTES:

F9 (aumt aumh) "inveniendo inventum fuerit", Pagninus, Montanus, Piscator.
F11 A. Gell, l. 11. c. 18.

Éxodo 22:4 In-Context

2 »Si se sorprende a un ladrón en el acto de forzar la entrada a una casa y, durante el enfrentamiento, se le mata a golpes, la persona que mató al ladrón no es culpable de asesinato.

3 Pero si sucede a la luz del día, el que mató al ladrón sí es culpable de asesinato.
»El ladrón que sea capturado pagará la cantidad total de lo que haya robado. Si no puede pagar, se venderá como esclavo para pagar por lo robado.

4 Si alguien roba un buey o un burro o una oveja, y se encuentra el animal en su poder, entonces el ladrón tendrá que pagar el doble del valor del animal robado.

5 »Si un animal pasta en un campo o en un viñedo, y el dueño deja que se meta a pastar en el campo de otro, el dueño del animal tendrá que compensar al dueño del campo con lo mejor de su cosecha de grano o de uvas.

6 »Si alguien prende fuego a espinos y el fuego se sale de control y se extiende al campo de un vecino, y por lo tanto, destruye las gavillas de grano o lo que está por cosecharse o todos los cultivos, el que encendió el fuego tendrá que pagar por la cosecha perdida.