Exodus 22:11

the oath of Yahweh] 2 Samuel 21:7; 1 Kings 2:43. The person is whom the animal had been entrusted must swear solemnly that he has not appropriated it himself.

shall accept it viz. the oath. Both Burckhardt (Bedouins, i. 126 9) and Doughty (Arab. Deserta, i. 267), state that among the Arabs now, if a person suspected of theft is willing to take certain specially solemn oaths, he is considered to be acquitted.

not make restitution no reasonable precaution having been neglected. In primitive and semi-primitive societies an accused or suspected person is often allowed to clear himself by taking a solemn oath of purgation; there are several examples in the Code of Hạmmurabi (see p. 423; cf. also Exo 1 Kings 8:31 f.). The practice was also common in the Middle Ages (see E. B. Tylor's arts. Oath and Ordeal in the Encycl. Brit.and -Ordeals and Oaths" in Macmillan's Magazine, May, 1876). The oath might be followed by an ordeal (see Manu viii. 109 116, cited by Gray, Numbers, p. 45); or it might involve such curses upon the person taking it, if he did not speak the truth, that the act of taking it constituted itself the ordeal.