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.
ExplanationCommentary
Verse 3. If, and so forth Hebrew “thou must not hide thyself,” so as to pass it by, nor yet conceal it from the right owner. When a thing is certainly abandoned by him, it belongs to the person who seizes it first; but if it be only lost it, must surely be restored, if possible, (Grot. Jur. ii. 10,) as nature forbids us to take advantage of another’s misfortune. Cicero.—The Rabbins have corrupted this law, like so many others, by their evil interpretations. They pretend that a Jew must restore what he has found belonging to another true believer, if it have certain marks by which it may be known, but not if it belonged to a prevaricator or infidel. In the former supposition, they got the thing cried on a high stone near Jerusalem four times, and if the owner did not then claim his property, the finder might keep it. Seld. Jur. vi. 4.—The inhabitants of Cumæ condemned the next neighbour to restore what had been lost; as Hesiod (op. 348,) very well remarks, that things would not easily be lost, if the neighbours were not ill-disposed.