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Deuteronomy 22 Bible study: You may not hide yourself
Three times in four verses the law says you may not "hide yourself" from a brother's stray animal, lost thing or fallen donkey (22:1-4), as Exodus had said of an enemy's (Exodus 23:4-5); and letting a mother bird go carries the two promises of "Honor your father and your mother" (22:7; 5:16).
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“You shall not see your brother’s donkey or his ox fallen down by the way, and hide yourself from them. You shall surely help him to lift them up again.”
Try it · Did you catch it?
“Deuteronomy 22 tells Israel to return a brother's lost garment, not only his lost animals.”
Is that in Deuteronomy 22, or not? Make your call.
What's really going on
No looking the other way
The chapter opens with a stray animal: "You shall not see your brother’s ox or his sheep go astray and hide yourself from them. You shall surely bring them again to your brother" (22:1). The law thinks ahead. If the owner lives far off or is a stranger to you, "If your brother isn’t near to you, or if you don’t know him", then "you shall bring it home to your house, and it shall be with you until your brother comes looking for it, and you shall restore it to him" (22:2). It isn't only animals: "So you shall do with his donkey. So you shall do with his garment. So you shall do with every lost thing of your brother’s, which he has lost and you have found. You may not hide yourself" (22:3). And when an animal has fallen: "You shall surely help him to lift them up again" (22:4). Three times in four verses the law names the thing it forbids: to "hide yourself" (22:1, 22:3, 22:4).
Where it leads to Jesus
Lifting what has fallen
Deuteronomy 22:4leads toMatthew 12:11-12
When a brother's donkey or ox has "fallen down by the way", the law says, "You shall surely help him to lift them up again" (22:4). In the synagogue, when Jesus was asked, "Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath day?" (Matthew 12:10), he answered, "What man is there among you who has one sheep, and if this one falls into a pit on the Sabbath day, won’t he grab on to it and lift it out? Of how much more value then is a man than a sheep! Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath day" (Matthew 12:11-12). Jesus doesn't cite Deuteronomy 22, so this is a reading. Some hear in his question the care this law asked for a fallen animal, carried to a man. Others note that Jesus speaks of a man's own sheep on the Sabbath, while 22:4 is about a brother's animal and says nothing of the Sabbath, and read his words as answering the Sabbath question alone (Matthew 12:10).
Honest questions
Questions people ask about Deuteronomy 22
That was a taste
The rest of Deuteronomy 22 is waiting in Favor
- Exodus said it of an enemy
- A nest, a roof, and long days
- Laws about marriage
- Lost, driven away, brought back
- A roof people walked on
- 13 questions as you read
- 11 more Hebrew words
- A short check at the end
- Your notes, saved as you go
Favor reads the Bible in order, so you'll reach Deuteronomy 22 with everything before it in view. First week free, then $10 a month per person.
The Hebrew word behind it
עָלַםalamsay a-LAM
Brown-Driver-Briggs: "conceal", and for the form used here, "utterly neglect to aid". Strong's: "to veil from sight, i.e. conceal". The WEB gives it as "hide yourself" three times in four verses (22:1, 22:3, 22:4), and Deuteronomy uses it nowhere else. Isaiah uses the same verb, in the same form: "that you not hide yourself from your own flesh" (Isaiah 58:7). Proverbs uses it, in another form, for closing one's eyes, set beside giving to the poor: "One who gives to the poor has no lack; but one who closes his eyes will have many curses" (Proverbs 28:27).
For your group
Deuteronomy 22 Bible study questions
- 1"You may not hide yourself" (22:3). When have you seen a problem that wasn't yours and looked the other way? What made it easy to hide?
- 2A lost animal was to stay with you "until your brother comes looking for it" (22:2), even if you didn't know him. Looking after what belongs to someone else costs time and space. Who could you do that for this week?
- 3The builder was to make a railing "so that you don’t bring blood on your house if anyone falls from there" (22:8). Where in your home, work or group could you think ahead for someone who might get hurt?
Leading a group? In Favor, everyone reads Deuteronomy 22 during the week and answers these questions privately. Answers stay sealed until you meet, then appear together, and you can print the week's sheet.
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What is Favor?
Favor is a Bible study app that explains every chapter as you read: the Hebrew and Greek behind the words, the details most readers miss, and how each part of the Bible leads to Jesus. Read on your own, or start a Bible study with friends, family or your church.
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Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Hebrew and Greek words are checked against the original-language texts and public-domain lexicons. What we believe · Favor home