This sheet on Exodus 23 was written by Yael Landman for 929 and can also be found here
Exodus 23:4 treats a case of lost property: “When you encounter your enemy’s ox or ass wandering, you must take it back to him.” Deuteronomy 22:1-3 expands this law, generalizing the ox to any property (including non-animals); casting the property-owner as “your fellow” rather than specifically an enemy; and adding that if the owner lives far away or the finder doesn’t know them, the finder must hold on to the property in their own home until the owner comes for it.
What steps could an ancient Israelite take upon finding a missing object and failing to identify the owner? Although the Bible offers little more information, we can look at texts from neighboring societies and from post-biblical literature for ideas – without concluding that all that was true elsewhere, or at other times, was true in Israel and Judah per se.
The ancient Babylonian Laws of Eshnunna (LE §50) require governmental officials to bring lost property to the city of Eshnunna. If an official evades this responsibility and instead keeps the property for too long, he’s charged with theft. The Hittite Laws (HL §71) from ancient Hatti (present-day Turkey) require a finder of a lost animal to bring it to the king’s gate or local elders. The finder may use the animal until the owner claims it, indicating that the purpose of bringing the animal to the authorities was to create an official record, not to deposit the property. (Like in Deuteronomy, the property could remain in the finder’s home.)
Rabbinic literature also suggests the involvement of public institutions when property had been found. According to the rabbis, finders bore the responsibility of announcing what they had found, originally at the Temple during the Three Festivals, when Israelites would congregate in Jerusalem; in the synagogues and academies after the destruction of the Temple; and quietly among neighbors once it became dangerous to do otherwise (see tBM 2:17; mBM 2:6; bBM 28b). Officials at the institution (the Temple, synagogue, etc.) were not apparently involved, unlike in HL and LE, but the institution served as a setting for a public proclamation. Some archaeologists believe that a stone podium found in Jerusalem was one such “Stone of Claims.”
Neither Exodus nor Deuteronomy alludes to the involvement of public institutions or officials, instead referring only to owner and finder. What happened in practice may forever remain lost.
Dr. Yael Landman is Visiting Research Fellow in Judaic Studies at Brooklyn College and Acquisitions Editor at Gorgias Press.
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