Your assignments for today were Exodus 21:37 and 22:3. This will help finish off the discussion of
bonding and get us to the next set of urban legends.
Exodus 21:37: When a
man steals an ox or sheep and butchers it or sells it, he shall pay five cattle
for the ox and four sheep for the sheep.
Exodus 22:3: If the stolen item is actually found in his
hand, ox or ass or sheep, and it’s alive, he pays double.
These verses go with the one I already discussed about the
thief in the night that the homeowner is allowed to kill, but only if the thief
doesn’t drop the stuff and run.
They prove that property theft is NOT a capital crime in
Judaism. This is one reason why Exodus
20:13 and Deuteronomy 5:17 are interpreted to mean kidnapping for sale as a
slave, not property theft.
An ox could be worth as much as a maneh or 100 zuz or the
value of 50 goats or sheep. A zuz is a
silver dinar. Why was a dead animal so
much more expensive than a live one?
Think of the economy of those times. An ox was not a milk animal, a goat was a
milk animal. An ox was a draft
animal. It could plow, thresh, run a
grain mill, or haul heavy loads. A sheep
was a clothing animal. If you got the
live animal back, the thief only made double restitution for depriving you of
the work or the milk or the fleece. If
he killed the animal, the owner had to replace it to carry on his livelihood.
Fifty goats in the 21st century can produce something like
500 pounds of cheese a day, and a pound of feta goes for $9. Likewise, 50 sheep produce enough wool for 8
three-piece men’s suits, which nowadays go for about $1200 on the Brooks
Brothers site. If goats and sheep were
half as productive in the Mishnaic period, still, a mixed herd of 25 goats and
25 sheep basically provided a family’s clothing and protein for the year. The ox helped produce the grain and pulse and
vegetables and get saleable goods to market so the family had some spending money.
Why should a law-abiding family be deprived of necessary
household goods or farming tools any longer than necessary? So the thief had to pay the whole restitution
at once. I already discussed how battery
can create poverty, and poverty makes paying debts difficult if not
impossible. The court that convicted a
man of being a thief was allowed to bond him out. It paid off his creditors and ensured that
his family would have maintenance as long as the bond lasted.
And now, in under 30 weeks, we have come full circle in the
discussion of battery. It was wrong
because it deprived a family of the injured person’s wages plus it required
doctor’s bills; it might also reduce their income. The impoverishment could lead to theft, and
the thief might have to be bonded to pay restitution. The battery might also reduce the value of
the thief’s bond. Something a skilled
laborer could pay off in three years, might take the entire six years if he had
been injured to the point where he could no longer practice his skills.
But battery was a worse problem because it was the opening
stage of a murder case, which could deprive a family permanently of part of its
income, or rather two families because if murder was proven, the murderer could
be put to death.
With this discussion of property theft and bonding, we have
moved out of criminal law into civil law, which consists of contracts and
torts. Next, I’ll finish off financial
torts because that’s another part of Jewish law where urban legends
abound. Your assignment is to read
Exodus 22:24, Leviticus 25:36-37 and Deuteronomy 23:20.
© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved
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