Exodus 22:5

a field i.e. a field of his own, from which he allows the cattle to stray into the field of a neighbour.

the best The Heb. as Genesis 47:6; Genesis 47:11, also of land. The verse contains difficulties, however; and two corrections have accordingly been proposed. (1) Why, as no malicious intention seems to be imputed to the owner of the cattle, is compensation to be made from the bestof his field? LXX. Sam. read words after -another man's field," which remove this difficulty, viz. -[he shall surely make it good from his own field according to its produce; but if it eat the whole of the field,] of the best of his own field," &c.; the wholeof the crop is eaten; the carelessness is accordingly greater, no judgement can be formed of the quality of the destroyed crop, and it is consequently to be replaced from the best which can be given. (2) This however by no means removes all the difficulties: (a) a -vineyard" was not a pasture-ground for cattle, it was protected against animals by a stone fence, Isaiah 5:5; (b) the renderings -cause to be eaten" and -feed" (הבעיר and בער) are doubtful: to -eat" or to -feed" (i.e. to graze) is an uncertain rendering of בער, even in Isaiah 3:14; Isaiah 5:5; Isaiah 6:13; and both words elsewhere mean only to kindle(fire: so in v.6), to burn, or (fig.) to destroy. Hence it is very probable that we should read with slight changes (הבערה for בעירה, and ובערה for ובער), -If a man cause a field or a vineyard to be burnt [to destroy stubble or weeds, as is still the custom in Palestine in summer: cf. on ch. Exodus 15:7, and Verg. G.i. 84 f.], and let the burning (same word as in v.6b, -the fire") spread, and it burn in another man's field, of the best," &c. (so Bä.; and, long before him, Aldis Wright, Journ. of Phil.iv., 1872, p. 72 f.): as the damage is due carelessness, if not (Wright) to incendiarism, the reason why compensation is to be made of the -best" becomes apparent (cf. Cook, p. 202). Fire spreads rapidly in the hot summers of Palestine; and such carelessness is punished severely by the Arabs (L. and B.ii. 293).