Exodus 22 Summary and Study Guide

In Israel a thief paid his victim back, sometimes five times over, because there was no prison to send him to. This Exodus 22 summary and study guide follows the chapter that sets those payments, and names the debts God says He will collect Himself.

Setting the Stage

When God gave Israel the Ten Commandments, the people heard His voice out of the fire and could not bear it. They stood a long way off and asked Moses to listen for them. “Speak thou with us, and we will hear: but let not God speak with us, lest we die” (Exodus 20:19). They wanted a man between themselves and God.

God agreed to it. Moses went up alone into the thick darkness, and the rulings he brought back down, Exodus 22 among them, are what God spoke to him there. The chapter before this one covered servants, killing and injury. Exodus 22 covers what a man owns, and then what he owes. For the wider story, see our Book of Exodus Summary by Chapter.

Comprehensive Exodus 22 Summary

God is still speaking to Moses on Sinai, and He turns to what people own. A man who steals an ox and kills or sells it pays back five oxen; a stolen sheep costs him four. If the animal is found alive in his hands he pays double, since he has not destroyed what he took.

A thief who cannot pay is sold to cover the debt, because Israel had no prison. A householder who kills an intruder in the night carries no guilt for the death. By daylight the same blow makes him guilty.

From theft God moves to carelessness. A man who lets his animal loose in a neighbour’s field repays from the best of his own field and vineyard. A man burning thorn hedges who lets the fire reach his neighbour’s grain pays for what burned, whatever he meant to happen.

Then comes trust. Money left with a neighbour, animals left with a herdsman, and no witness when they disappear. Where nothing can be proved, the keeper swears before the LORD and the owner has to accept it. A man who borrows an animal carries the whole loss; a man who paid to hire it does not.

At verse sixteen the subject changes from property to people. A man who seduces an unbetrothed girl must pay the bride price and marry her, and her father may refuse him and keep the money anyway. Three offences carry death: sorcery, lying with a beast, and sacrificing to any god but the LORD.

Then God speaks in His own voice. Israel must not wrong the foreigner living among them, the widow, the fatherless, or the poor man whose coat is his only blanket, because He hears them Himself. He closes with what Israel owes Him: firstfruits without delay, the firstborn, and holiness.

One Word Summary

• Restitution: the payment the chapter keeps demanding
• Compassion: God’s own stated reason for the laws on the poor
• Holiness: the purpose named in the last verse

In One Sentence

God gives Moses the law for repairing damage in Israel, setting what a thief owes his victim, what a careless man owes his neighbour, and what every Israelite owes the foreigner, the widow, the poor and God Himself.

Theme of Exodus 22

Exodus 22 is about a holy people who repair what they break. Restitution is the chapter’s controlling demand, running from a stolen ox through a burnt field to a borrowed animal that died.

Three more run alongside it: that a man answers for damage he never intended, that Israel keeps its bed and its worship clear of what the surrounding nations practised, and that God Himself takes up the cause of people no court will protect. The chapter closes by claiming the first of everything Israel owns, and names the purpose behind all of it, that Israel is to be holy to God.

Exodus 22 Outline

• Exodus 22:1-4: God sets what a thief must pay back for stolen livestock.
• Exodus 22:5-6: A man answers for a beast let loose in a neighbour’s field and for a fire that spreads from the thorn hedge into standing grain.
• Exodus 22:7-9: A neighbour holds money or goods that go missing, and the judges settle who owes whom.
• Exodus 22:10-13: An animal left with a keeper dies, is hurt, is driven away, is stolen, or is torn.
• Exodus 22:14-15: A man borrows an animal, or pays to hire one.
• Exodus 22:16-17: A man seduces an unbetrothed girl, and her father may refuse to give her to him.
• Exodus 22:18-20: God names three offences punished by death: sorcery, lying with a beast, and sacrificing to another god.
• Exodus 22:21-24: God takes up the cause of the foreigner, the widow and the fatherless Himself.
• Exodus 22:25-27: Israel lends to the poor without interest and returns a pledged coat by sunset.
• Exodus 22:28-31: God requires reverence, firstfruits, the firstborn, and holiness.

The Restitution Schedule in Exodus 22

Exodus 22 prices its wrongs one situation at a time.

Read down the second column and the pattern shows itself. The amount tends to rise with what the offender chose and to fall with what he could not help. Where nothing could be proved, the keeper’s oath stood and the owner walked away with nothing. That is close to the root of treating a man as innocent until he is shown guilty.

Observations from Exodus 22

God keeps coming back to one word (22:1-15)

Some form of restore, restitution or make it good runs through ten of the first fifteen verses. God is not mainly arranging punishments here. He is arranging repairs, and the man who did the damage is the one who pays for it.

God switches to the first person where no court can reach (22:23, 22:24, 22:27)

Every penalty in the first twenty verses is carried out by men. Then God changes how He speaks. “I will surely hear their cry” (22:23), “I will kill you with the sword” (22:24), “I will hear; for I am gracious” (22:27). God says that He will listen when these people call on Him, and that He will act. A widow cheated quietly has no case to bring, so God takes the case Himself.

The cry God hears is the cry Israel raised in Egypt (22:23, 22:27)

Israel had cried under slavery and God heard them (Exodus 2:23-24). Now the same two words come back, and they are pointed at Israel. Wrong a widow and she cries the way you cried, and the God who came down for you will come down for her.

The chapter opens with an ox and ends with dogs (22:1, 22:31)

It starts with the most valuable animal a man could own and finishes with meat thrown to scavengers. Between the two, God has moved from what a man owns to what a man is, and God gives His reason in the final line: “ye shall be holy men unto me” (22:31). Israel belongs to God, and that is why the whole chapter exists.

Difficult Verses Explained

Does “Thou Shalt Not Suffer a Witch to Live” Command Christians to Kill?

No. Exodus 22:18 is a criminal law for the nation of Israel, carried out by Israel’s own courts, against the practices God lists in Deuteronomy 18:10-12: divination, enchantment, consulting familiar spirits and calling up the dead. Saul went to a woman with a familiar spirit at Endor and it cost him (1 Samuel 28:7).

The New Testament condemns sorcery just as firmly (Acts 19:19; Galatians 5:20; Revelation 21:8) and never once gives the church power to put anyone to death for it. The witch trials of later centuries took a verse written for Israel’s magistrates and handed it to a church that was never given the sword.

Why Is Killing a Thief Blameless at Night and Bloodshed by Day?

The chapter states the difference without giving its reason, and the explanation commentators reach for is what the householder can see. At night a man breaking through the wall may be there to kill, and the owner has no way of knowing, so the law leaves him blameless.

In daylight the intruder can be identified, neighbours can be called, and the thief can be taken to court instead, so killing him becomes bloodshed. Either way the law limits what a man may do to defend his goods, and it is the thief’s life that the limit is there for. Greek, Roman and English law all drew the same line.

Does Exodus 22:25 Forbid All Interest on Loans?

It forbids interest on a loan to a poor Israelite. The King James word “usury” translates a Hebrew word that simply means interest, with no sense of an excessive rate attached to it, so this is not a rule against charging too much.

God permits Israel to take interest from a foreigner (Deuteronomy 23:20), and Jesus speaks of money put out to the exchangers with interest as ordinary business (Matthew 25:27). The line God draws is need, not percentage: a loan to a man in trouble is help, and profiting from his trouble is forbidden.

Does “The Firstborn of Thy Sons Shalt Thou Give Unto Me” Command Child Sacrifice?

No, and the law God had already given says so. Exodus 13:13 tells Israel that every firstborn son is to be redeemed, and Numbers 18:15-16 fixes the price at five shekels. Exodus 22:29 is a short restatement of a command whose redemption clause was set out nine chapters earlier, which is why Mary and Joseph brought Jesus to the temple to present Him to the Lord under that same law (Luke 2:22-23).

On child sacrifice itself God speaks for Himself. Of those who made their sons and daughters pass through the fire to Molech He says it was a thing “which I commanded them not, neither came it into my mind” (Jeremiah 32:35). He never ordered it, and it never so much as occurred to Him.

Common Misunderstandings

• That Exodus 22 is a random list of unrelated rules. It sits inside the Book of the Covenant, which runs from Exodus 20:22 to Exodus 23:33, and nearly every statute in it applies a commandment already given in Exodus 20. Theft, trespass, fire, trusts, borrowing and lending all work out “Thou shalt not steal” (Exodus 20:15).
• That the penalties make it a harsh code. Set beside the law codes of the ancient world it is the mild one. The Code of Hammurabi put a thief to death if he could not pay, and scaled his fine to the rank of the man he stole from. Israel’s law never killed a man over property, and never priced a victim by his status.
• That it is civil law with no spiritual content. God speaks in the first person three times in it, promising to hear the widow, to answer with the sword, and to listen to the poor man because He is gracious (22:23, 22:24, 22:27). He then ends the chapter by telling Israel that these rules exist because Israel belongs to Him.

Christ Connection

The clearest line from this chapter to Christ runs through the firstborn. God tells Israel, “the firstborn of thy sons shalt thou give unto me” (22:29), and every firstborn son in Israel was then bought back with a payment so that no father ever handed one over (Exodus 13:13; Numbers 18:15-16).

For centuries Israel practised giving a son and receiving him back. Then God did with His own Son what no Israelite father ever had to do. “He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all” (Romans 8:32). God gave His Son and did not redeem Him, so that we could be redeemed instead.

Three more of the chapter’s demands find their answer in Him:

• The restitution law and the man who paid it willingly. Exodus 22:1 forced a thief to repay fourfold. Zacchaeus offered it himself before anyone asked: “if I have taken any thing from any man by false accusation, I restore him fourfold” (Luke 19:8). He promised to pay back four times whatever he had taken by fraud. The law compelled repayment. Meeting Christ produced it.
• The man devoted to destruction. Whoever sacrificed to another god was to be “utterly destroyed” (22:20), a word meaning handed over to God under a curse. Paul writes that “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us” (Galatians 3:13). Christ took the curse that the idolater had earned.
• The oath that ended the dispute. When nothing could be proved, an oath before the LORD settled the case and the owner had to accept it (22:11). Hebrews uses that very principle of God Himself: “an oath for confirmation is to them an end of all strife” (Hebrews 6:16). An oath closes an argument, and God swore one, so that our standing with Him rests on His word rather than on evidence we could produce.

When, Where, and Why

• When: Roughly three months after Israel left Egypt, in the year the covenant was given at Sinai (Exodus 19:1). Traditional dating puts it around 1491 BC.
• Where: Mount Sinai. God is speaking to Moses in the thick darkness on the mountain while the people wait below, which is why the chapter is one unbroken speech with no scene and no dialogue.
• Why: Israel had just become a nation, with no courts of its own and no body of law behind it. Moses records these rulings so that the people would know how wrongs were to be judged and repaired, and so that the God who heard their cry in Egypt could tell them plainly that He would hear the cry of anyone they wronged.

Key Verses

“If a man shall steal an ox, or a sheep, and kill it, or sell it; he shall restore five oxen for an ox, and four sheep for a sheep.”

Exodus 22:1

A man who steals an animal and then butchers or sells it pays back four or five of his own. This is the chapter’s governing idea in its sharpest form: the thief is stopped and then made to leave his victim better off than he found him.

Years later David reached for this very rule without seeing that he was sentencing himself, ruling that the man in Nathan’s parable “shall restore the lamb fourfold” (2 Samuel 12:6). David demanded four times the value of the stolen lamb.

“Thou shalt neither vex a stranger, nor oppress him: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.”

Exodus 22:21

Leave the foreigner living among you in peace and deal fairly with him, because you were once foreigners in Egypt yourselves. God bases the command on Israel’s own memory, and it is the one reason in the chapter that Israel had lived through itself. Commentators have long noted how unusual it is: the law codes of the surrounding nations protected citizens, and a resident foreigner was largely on his own.

“If thou afflict them in any wise, and they cry at all unto me, I will surely hear their cry; And my wrath shall wax hot, and I will kill you with the sword; and your wives shall be widows, and your children fatherless.”

Exodus 22:23-24

If you mistreat a widow or an orphan and they call out to God, He will hear them, and He will answer with the sword. The sentence is measured to the crime: the man who makes a widow ends by leaving one behind him.

“For that is his covering only, it is his raiment for his skin: wherein shall he sleep? and it shall come to pass, when he crieth unto me, that I will hear; for I am gracious.”

Exodus 22:27

The cloak he wears in the daytime is the only covering he owns at night, so what will he sleep in if you hold on to it? God gives His own character as the reason: He is gracious, and He expects His people to lend like it. Amos later charges Israel with breaking this exact law and doing it at worship, lying down beside the altar on clothes taken in pledge (Amos 2:8).

“And ye shall be holy men unto me: neither shall ye eat any flesh that is torn of beasts in the field; ye shall cast it to the dogs.”

Exodus 22:31

You are to be set apart for Me, so do not eat an animal that a predator has killed; throw it to the dogs instead. An animal killed that way was never bled, and Israel was forbidden to eat blood at all (Leviticus 17:14), so even the nation’s diet marked it out the way the rest of the chapter did. The verse states the purpose behind all thirty verses above it.

Key Lessons from Exodus 22

• In this chapter a wrong is put right by paying the injured party back (22:1, 22:4).
• A man is answerable for the fire he did not mean to spread and the animal he did not mean to lose (22:6, 22:14).
• What a neighbour leaves in your care is to be guarded as carefully as your own (22:7-13).
• God measures Israel by how it treats the people who have nobody to speak for them (22:21-24).
• Money lent to someone in trouble is help, and God forbids turning it into profit (22:25-27).
• Everything the chapter asks rests on one purpose, that Israel belongs to God and is to be holy (22:31).

To go deeper into what this chapter asks of you, read our full study: 24 Life-Changing Lessons from Exodus 22.

Bible Study Questions

1. Why does a thief who kills or sells a stolen ox pay five, while a thief caught with it alive pays only two (22:1, 22:4)? 
2. In 22:11 an owner has to accept the keeper’s oath and receives nothing. What does it cost a person to leave a loss with God when no proof exists?
3. God tells Israel not to wrong the foreigner “for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt” (22:21). What does He expect their memory to do to their behaviour?
4. God names no human punishment for afflicting a widow or an orphan, and instead says “I will surely hear their cry” (22:23). Why do you think He handles this one Himself?
5. Read 22:26-27 again. What would change about the way you lend, give or collect if you took the reason God gives there seriously?
6. The chapter ends with “ye shall be holy men unto me” (22:31). How does that verse change the way you read the thirty verses before it?

For a quick check on how well you know this chapter, try our Exodus 22 Quiz with Answers.

Frequently Asked Questions

Exodus 22, The Full Text (KJV)

Read the full chapter below for reference.

1 If a man shall steal an ox, or a sheep, and kill it, or sell it; he shall restore five oxen for an ox, and four sheep for a sheep.

2 If a thief be found breaking up, and be smitten that he die, there shall no blood be shed for him.

3 If the sun be risen upon him, there shall be blood shed for him; for he should make full restitution; if he have nothing, then he shall be sold for his theft.

4 If the theft be certainly found in his hand alive, whether it be ox, or ass, or sheep; he shall restore double.

5 If a man shall cause a field or vineyard to be eaten, and shall put in his beast, and shall feed in another man’s field; of the best of his own field, and of the best of his own vineyard, shall he make restitution.

6 If fire break out, and catch in thorns, so that the stacks of corn, or the standing corn, or the field, be consumed therewith; he that kindled the fire shall surely make restitution.

7 If a man shall deliver unto his neighbour money or stuff to keep, and it be stolen out of the man’s house; if the thief be found, let him pay double.

8 If the thief be not found, then the master of the house shall be brought unto the judges, to see whether he have put his hand unto his neighbour’s goods.

9 For all manner of trespass, whether it be for ox, for ass, for sheep, for raiment, or for any manner of lost thing, which another challengeth to be his, the cause of both parties shall come before the judges; and whom the judges shall condemn, he shall pay double unto his neighbour.

10 If a man deliver unto his neighbour an ass, or an ox, or a sheep, or any beast, to keep; and it die, or be hurt, or driven away, no man seeing it:

11 Then shall an oath of the LORD be between them both, that he hath not put his hand unto his neighbour’s goods; and the owner of it shall accept thereof, and he shall not make it good.

12 And if it be stolen from him, he shall make restitution unto the owner thereof.

13 If it be torn in pieces, then let him bring it for witness, and he shall not make good that which was torn.

14 And if a man borrow ought of his neighbour, and it be hurt, or die, the owner thereof being not with it, he shall surely make it good.

15 But if the owner thereof be with it, he shall not make it good: if it be an hired thing, it came for his hire.

16 And if a man entice a maid that is not betrothed, and lie with her, he shall surely endow her to be his wife.

17 If her father utterly refuse to give her unto him, he shall pay money according to the dowry of virgins.

18 Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.

19 Whosoever lieth with a beast shall surely be put to death.

20 He that sacrificeth unto any god, save unto the LORD only, he shall be utterly destroyed.

21 Thou shalt neither vex a stranger, nor oppress him: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.

22 Ye shall not afflict any widow, or fatherless child.

23 If thou afflict them in any wise, and they cry at all unto me, I will surely hear their cry;

24 And my wrath shall wax hot, and I will kill you with the sword; and your wives shall be widows, and your children fatherless.

25 If thou lend money to any of my people that is poor by thee, thou shalt not be to him as an usurer, neither shalt thou lay upon him usury.

26 If thou at all take thy neighbour’s raiment to pledge, thou shalt deliver it unto him by that the sun goeth down:

27 For that is his covering only, it is his raiment for his skin: wherein shall he sleep? and it shall come to pass, when he crieth unto me, that I will hear; for I am gracious.

28 Thou shalt not revile the gods, nor curse the ruler of thy people.

29 Thou shalt not delay to offer the first of thy ripe fruits, and of thy liquors: the firstborn of thy sons shalt thou give unto me.

30 Likewise shalt thou do with thine oxen, and with thy sheep: seven days it shall be with his dam; on the eighth day thou shalt give it me.

31 And ye shall be holy men unto me: neither shall ye eat any flesh that is torn of beasts in the field; ye shall cast it to the dogs.