Matthew Henry on Exodus 22:1-6
Here are the laws,
I. Concerning theft, which are these: - 1. If a man steal any cattle (in which the wealth of those times chiefly consisted), and they be found in his custody, he must restore double, Exo 22:4. Thus he must both satisfy for the wrong and suffer for the crime. But it was afterwards provided that if the thief were touched in conscience, and voluntarily confessed it, before it was discovered or enquired into by any other, then he should only make restitution of what he had stolen, and add to it a fifth part, Lev 6:4, Lev 6:5. 2. If he had killed or sold the sheep or ox he had stolen, and thereby persisted in his crime, he must restore five oxen for an ox, and four sheep for a…
Read the whole note in the consoleJamieson-Fausset-Brown on Exodus 22:6
If fire break out, and catch in thorns--This refers to the common practice in the East of setting fire to the dry grass before the fall of the autumnal rains, which prevents the ravages of vermin, and is considered a good preparation of the ground for the next crop. The very parched state of the herbage and the long droughts of summer, make the kindling of a fire an operation often dangerous, and always requiring caution from its liability to spread rapidly.
stacks--or as it is rendered "shocks" (Jdg 15:5; Job 5:26), means simply a bundle of loose sheaves.
Adam Clarke on Exodus 22:6
If fire break out - Mr. Harmer observes that it is a common custom in the east to set the dry herbage on fire before the autumnal rains, which fires, for want of care, often do great damage: and in countries where great drought prevails, and the herbage is generally parched, great caution was peculiarly necessary; and a law to guard against such evils, and to punish inattention and neglect, was highly expedient. See Harmer's Observat., vol. iii., p. 310, etc.
John Gill on Exodus 22:6
If fire break out,.... Even though of itself, as Jarchi interprets it:
and catch in thorns a thorn hedge or fence, with which cornfields might be en closed:
so that the stacks of corn, or the standing corn, or the field, be consumed therewith; whether it be corn cut down, bound up in sheaves, and laid up in heaps or stacks, or whether it be yet growing, and not fully ripe, at least not cut down, or any other fruits of the field; if the fire that takes the thorns which are near them should reach to those, and kindle upon them and destroy them:
he that kindleth the fire, shall surely make restitution: that is, though he kindles the fire upon his own ground, yet being careless of it, it brea…
