If you ever take your neighbor’s garment as a pledge, you shall return it to him before the sun goes down.
Parallel translations
- WEB If you take your neighbor’s garment as collateral, you shall restore it to him before the sun goes down,
- KJV If thou at all take thy neighbour’s raiment to pledge, thou shalt deliver it unto him by that the sun goeth down:
- BSB If you take your neighbor’s cloak as collateral, return it to him by sunset,
- NASB If you ever seize your neighbor’s cloak as a pledge, you are to return it to him before the sun sets,
- NLT If you take your neighbor’s cloak as security for a loan, you must return it before sunset.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
A poor man's garment taken as collateral must be returned by nightfall. Even lawful claims must bend to a neighbor's basic needs.
Overview
The law limits a creditor's rights for the sake of the debtor's dignity and survival, requiring the return of his essential cloak each evening. Compassion takes priority over strict legal entitlement. This tempering of justice with mercy reflects the character of God and points to Christ, in whom mercy and justice meet.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 12
- Prov 20:16Take the garment of one who puts up collateral for a stranger; and hold him in pledge for a wayward woman.
- Amos 2:8and they lay themselves down beside every altar on clothes taken in pledge; and in the house of their God they drink the wine of those who have been fined.
- Deut 24:6No man shall take the mill or the upper millstone as a pledge; for he takes a life in pledge.
- Job 24:3They drive away the donkey of the fatherless, and they take the widow’s ox for a pledge.
- Ezek 18:16neither has wronged any, has not taken anything to pledge, neither has taken by robbery, but has given his bread to the hungry, and has covered the naked with a garment;
- Deut 24:10–13When you lend your neighbor any kind of loan, you shall not go into his house to get his pledge.
- Ezek 18:7and has not wronged any, but has restored to the debtor his pledge, has taken nothing by robbery, has given his bread to the hungry, and has covered the naked with a garment;
- Deut 24:17You shall not deprive the foreigner or the fatherless of justice, nor take a widow’s clothing in pledge;
- Prov 22:27If you don’t have means to pay, why should he take away your bed from under you?
- Ezek 33:15if the wicked restore the pledge, give again that which he had taken by robbery, walk in the statutes of life, committing no iniquity; he shall surely live, he shall not die.
- Job 22:6For you have taken pledges from your brother for nothing, and stripped the naked of their clothing.
- Job 24:9There are those who pluck the fatherless from the breast, and take a pledge of the poor,
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
The Passover lamb whose blood turns away death, the exodus through the sea, the manna, the rock, and the tabernacle where God dwells with his people all foreshadow Jesus — our Passover, our redemption, the bread from heaven, and God-with-us in the flesh.
How Exodus 22:26 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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