Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Deuteronomy · About this commentary
You Shall Not Hide Yourself
Deuteronomy 22:1-12
1 You shall not see your brother’s ox or his sheep go astray and hide yourself from them. You shall surely bring them again to your brother. · WEB
A found animal must be kept until its owner comes, and a roof must have a railing — the law legislates against looking away.
The section is a run of small rules, and a phrase repeated three times holds them together: you may not hide yourself Deuteronomy 22:1 Deuteronomy 22:3 Deuteronomy 22:4.
The situations are ordinary. A neighbor's ox has wandered. A donkey has collapsed under a load on the road. Something has been dropped and you have picked it up.
In each case the temptation is not theft but avoidance — the small decision not to have noticed. The law names that decision and forbids it, which is a striking thing for a legal code to attempt, since nobody could ever be prosecuted for failing to see something.
And the duty is not discharged by leaving the animal where it is. If the owner is unknown or lives far off, you shall bring it home to your house, and it shall be with you until your brother comes looking for it Deuteronomy 22:2. You feed a stranger's ox indefinitely, at your own cost, and wait.
The fallen donkey is the sharper case. You shall surely help him to lift them up again Deuteronomy 22:4 — a job that takes two men, and it means stopping whatever you were doing.
The rule about the bird's nest has the same instinct Deuteronomy 22:6–7. Eggs or chicks may be taken; the mother must be let go. Nothing is being protected from use — the law permits the taking. What it refuses is the clean sweep that ends the line, and the promise attached is the one given to the fifth commandment: that it may be well with you, and that you may prolong your days.
The railing on a new roof is the most practical verse in the book Deuteronomy 22:8. Flat roofs were living space. A parapet is required as a building regulation, and the ground given is bloodguilt: an avoidable death in your house is your responsibility, whoever fell.
The rules about mixtures — two seeds in a vineyard, an ox and a donkey yoked together, wool and linen woven in one cloth Deuteronomy 22:9–11 — belong to the same principle as the food laws. They teach a people to notice distinctions, in the ordinary business of farming and dressing, all day. The ox and the donkey have a mercy in them as well: two animals of different size and pace, harnessed to one plow, wear each other out.
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