Divine verdict OT style

 

"But if the thief is not found, the owner of the house must appear before the judges, and they must determine whether the owner of the house has laid hands on the other person’s property." Ex 22:8

The phrase “appear before the judges” in Ex 22:8 can also be translated as “appear before God.” The word translated as “judges/God” is Elohim, a common designation for God. While “judges” might be a possible translation in Ex 22:8, the most natural reading is to understand it as referring to God. 

When the text indicates that the receiver of the goods (the “owner of the house” [22:8]) is to appear before God, it has in view a particular method for resolving the dispute at hand, namely, what scholars call suprarational procedures. 

These are procedures that go beyond the pale of rational evidence, such as testimony, physical evidence or documentary evidence, by appealing directly to divinity to settle the matter.

 Three basic categories of suprarational methods are used for resolving legal disputes: the judicial oath, the judicial ordeal and the judicial oracle. Only one party to a trial could take the judicial oath. If that party did so, the court granted that party victory in the case and felt confident that divine power would punish the oath-taker, if the latter had sworn falsely, with greater severity than any legal penalty might (see note on 20:7).

 The most common version of the judicial ordeal was the river ordeal, popular in Mesopotamia. Mesopotamian courts allowed the river god to render the verdict in such cases. If the party undergoing the ordeal sank, the person was guilty; if not, the person was innocent.

What appears most common in ancient Egypt and Israel was the judicial oracle. Here too, the case is offered directly to the deity for a verdict, but not using an ordeal. Thus, this law regarding deposit in Ex 22:8 is calling for a judicial oracle to decide the case. Ex 22:8 says that God will decide whether one person “has laid his hands on the other person’s property.” According to Ex 22:9, the one whom God finds guilty must pay damages (“pay back double”).

PAY BACK DOUBLE EX 22:9

This verse establishes the general principle on which the situation in the previous verse is based. Whenever there is a disagreement between the depositor and the receiver about goods that may or may not have been deposited, the case is to be decided by a judicial oracle (see the article “Divine Verdict,” p. 152). 

If the receiver is declared guilty, he has most likely committed wrongdoing by appropriating the deposited goods for himself. Perhaps he has denied that the depositor ever gave him anything. 

But if the depositor is declared guilty, it means either he never deposited any goods in the first place and now claims that certain goods, which actually belong to the receiver, are his, or he has asked to be returned to him more goods than he originally deposited and is accusing the receiver of cheating him.

Interestingly, the penalty for the depositor in Exodus matches that of the receiver if the latter should be found guilty. The reason is that if the depositor (or would-be depositor) is guilty, what he is guilty of is a false accusation. He has brought against the receiver criminal charges, which the judicial oracle has clearly refuted. In much of ancient Near Eastern law and later Biblical text (Dt 19:16–21), false accusers are to be punished with the same penalty that the defendant in the trial would have received if the accusation had turned out to be true; hence, the matching penalty.

Keener, C. S., & Walton, J. H., eds. (2016). NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible: Bringing to Life the Ancient World of Scripture (p. 152). Zondervan.