If anyone gives a donkey, an ox, a sheep or any other animal to their neighbor for safekeeping and it dies or is injured or is taken away while no one is looking. The custodial responsibility law is applied to living animals: what happens when an animal in your care dies or is injured without any apparent negligence? The death of an animal in custody creates a potential dispute about whether the custodian was responsible. The law must handle both the facts (animal died) and the unknowable (what happened to it). Verse 11 will resolve the uncertainty through the oath — when facts are inaccessible, the covenant commitment to truthfulness becomes the adjudicative mechanism.

COMMUNITY REFLECTIONS

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