Because that cloak is the only covering your neighbor has. What else can they sleep in? When they cry out to me, I will hear, for I am compassionate. The rhetorical question — what else can they sleep in? — is God's own statement of empathy for the poor borrower. The divine compassion that motivates the law is explicitly stated: I am compassionate. The same compassion that responded to Israel's cry in Egypt responds to the cry of the poor person shivering without their cloak. James 2:14–16 asks: what good is it if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? If a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food and you say, go in peace; keep warm and well fed, but do nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? The law of the cloak-pledge is the original case study for James' argument.

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