The Law of the Wandering Cow: Restitution and Responsibility Text: Exodus 22:5
Introduction: A World Without Fences
We live in an age that despises fences. Our generation celebrates the tearing down of boundaries, whether they be moral, sexual, or national. We are told that true freedom is found in erasing distinctions and living without restraint. But a world without fences is a world where everything is trampled. It is a world where my cow is free to eat your corn, and your problems are free to become my problems, and the only recourse is to appeal to a bloated, bureaucratic state to sort out the mess with a mountain of regulations that a plain man can't decipher.
The modern world thinks of the law of God as a set of arbitrary and burdensome restrictions. But this is to get it exactly backwards. The law of God, particularly the case laws we find here in Exodus, is the very foundation of true liberty. These laws are God's fences. They establish clear lines of responsibility and provide a clear path for justice when those lines are crossed. They are not designed to create a nanny state; they are designed to create a society of responsible, self-governing individuals who know how to love their neighbor in practical, tangible ways. Loving your neighbor means respecting his property. It means you are responsible for your own stuff.
The book of Exodus is not just about the grand narrative of deliverance from Egypt. After God gives the Ten Commandments from the mountain, He then provides what amounts to the case law that unpacks those great principles. The Ten Commandments are the major headings, the great pillars. The laws in Exodus 21 through 23 are the applications. They show what "Thou shalt not steal" and "Thou shalt not covet" look like on a Tuesday afternoon when your ox gets loose. This is not abstract theology; this is dirt-under-the-fingernails righteousness. And our text today is a prime example of this. It deals with a simple, agrarian problem, but the principle it establishes is profound and eternally relevant. It is the principle of restitution for culpable negligence.
The Text
"If a man lets a field or vineyard be grazed bare and lets his animal loose so that it grazes in another man’s field, he shall make restitution from the best of his own field and the best of his own vineyard."
(Exodus 22:5 LSB)
Culpable Negligence
Let's break down the scenario God lays out for us.
"If a man lets a field or vineyard be grazed bare and lets his animal loose so that it grazes in another man’s field..." (Exodus 22:5a)
The first thing to notice is the nature of the offense. This is not about a tornado carrying your cow into the next county. This is not an "act of God" for which you bear no responsibility. The text describes a situation that arises from carelessness. The man "lets" his field be grazed bare, implying he's used up his own resources. Then he "lets his animal loose." This is not a deliberate act of theft, where a man secretly drives his cattle onto his neighbor's land in the dead of night. That would be a different crime with a different penalty, likely involving double or fourfold restitution as we see in other statutes. This is a sin of omission, a failure of stewardship.
This is what we call culpable negligence. You are responsible for what is yours. Your property, your animals, your children, your words, they are all your responsibility. If your dog bites the mailman, you cannot say, "Well, I didn't tell him to do it." The dog is yours. You are responsible for keeping him on a leash. In the same way, this ancient Israelite was responsible for his livestock. He was to ensure his animal did not wander off and enrich itself at his neighbor's expense. His negligence caused his neighbor a real, quantifiable loss.
This principle demolishes the victim mentality that is so pervasive today. We are taught to blame society, our upbringing, or systemic forces for our failures. But God's law brings it right back home. You let the animal loose. You are responsible. It doesn't matter if you "didn't mean to." Good intentions do not repair a damaged vineyard. The Bible requires restitution for culpable negligence, not just for deliberate theft. This is a cornerstone of a just and orderly society. Without it, personal responsibility dissolves, and the social fabric unravels.
The Principle of Restitution
The second part of the verse provides God's remedy for this negligence.
"...he shall make restitution from the best of his own field and the best of his own vineyard." (Exodus 22:5b)
The solution is not to fine the man and give the money to the state. The solution is not to send him to jail, where he becomes a further burden on the community and is unable to make anything right. The solution is biblical restitution. He must make his neighbor whole again.
But notice the standard. It is not "an eye for an eye" in the sense of simple replacement. He doesn't just replace the eaten grapes with an equivalent amount of his own grapes. He is to make restitution "from the best" of what he has. Why? This serves two purposes. First, it ensures that the victim is truly compensated. If your prize-winning grapes were eaten, you shouldn't be repaid with your neighbor's scrawny, sour ones. Justice requires that the quality of the loss is taken into account. The victim should not be left in a worse position because of his neighbor's carelessness.
Second, this standard is a powerful deterrent against future negligence. If you know that your carelessness will cost you the very best of what you have, you will be far more diligent in mending your fences and watching your livestock. It makes responsibility the more profitable option. This is sanctified pragmatism. God's law is not just righteous; it is wise. It creates incentives for godly and neighborly behavior.
This is a far cry from our modern system. Our system of justice is primarily punitive, not restorative. We are more interested in punishing the offender than in restoring the victim. A man steals a car and wrecks it. We send him to prison. The victim, meanwhile, is left to fight with his insurance company, his rates go up, and he is never truly made whole. The biblical system puts the priority on setting things right between the two parties involved. The offender has a debt, not to the abstract "state," but to the man he has wronged, and he must pay it.
Grace, Restitution, and the Gospel
Now, some will hear this and think it sounds harsh. They will say, "But what about grace? What about forgiveness?" This is a profound misunderstanding of how law and grace relate. The coming of Christ does not abolish our duty to make restitution; it empowers it.
When we talk about restitution in the Old Testament, it was always accompanied by a sacrifice, a guilt offering (Lev. 6:1-7). A man had to make things right with his neighbor (the horizontal dimension) and make things right with God (the vertical dimension). The sin against his neighbor was also a sin against God, because it violated God's law.
In the New Covenant, Jesus Christ is our great and final guilt offering. His sacrifice on the cross pays the infinite debt we owe to God for our sin. When it comes to the guilt of our sin, the coming of Jesus wipes the slate clean. But this does not mean that the horizontal obligation disappears. In fact, because our vertical debt has been so graciously and completely cancelled, we should be the most eager people on earth to settle our horizontal debts.
Look at Zacchaeus in the Gospels (Luke 19). When salvation comes to his house, what is his immediate, joyful, exuberant response? It is the response of restitution. "Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor. And if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold." Jesus did not say, "No, Zacchaeus, you're under grace now, just keep the money." No, Jesus declared, "Today salvation has come to this house." True repentance bears the fruit of restitution. Grace does not eliminate the need for restitution; grace makes true, joyful restitution possible.
So when we wrong someone, when our negligence causes them loss, our first thought should not be to make excuses. It should be to make it right. If your words have damaged someone's reputation, you must work to restore it. If your carelessness has cost someone money, you must pay them back, and you should do so generously, from the best of what you have. This is what it means to love your neighbor. It is not a sentimental feeling; it is a practical, costly, and beautiful duty.
God's law here in Exodus 22 is a picture of His perfect justice. And that justice is fully satisfied in the cross. But it is also a blueprint for our lives. We are to be a people who mend our fences, who take responsibility for our wandering livestock, and who, when we fail, are quick to restore what we have damaged, not grudgingly, but gladly, as those who have been forgiven an infinite debt.