You shall surely restore to him the pledge when the sun goes down, that he may sleep in his garment and bless you. It shall be righteousness to you before Yahweh your God.
To return a pledge to its owner when they need it
The cited verse
The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)
הָשֵׁב תָּשִׁיב לוֹ אֶת־הָעֲבוֹט כְּבֹא הַשֶּׁמֶשׁ וְשָׁכַב בְּשַׂלְמָתוֹ וּבֵרַכְךָ וּלְךָ תִּהְיֶה צְדָקָה לִפְנֵי יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ
In Maimonides’ words
How Maimonides defines this commandment in his Sefer HaMitzvot — his own words, shown as a primary source.
היא שצונו להשיב המשכון לבעליו הישראל בעת צרכו אליו אם יהיה המשכון ממה שיצטרך אליו ביום כגון כלי מלאכתו ומעשהו ישיבהו ביום וימשכנהו בלילה ואם היה ממה שיצטרך אליו בלילה כמו הכסת והמכסה שישיבהו לו בלילה וימשכנהו ביום. ולשון מכילתא עד בא השמש תשיבנו לו זה כסות יום שאתה מחזיר לו כל היום כסות לילה שאתה מחזיר לו כל הלילה מנין תלמוד לומר השב תשיב לו את העבוט כבוא השמש מכאן אמרו חכמים שאם משכן לו כסות יום מחזיר לו כל היום וכסות לילה מחזיר לו כל הלילה. וכבר התבאר בגמרא מכות (דף ט"ז) שאמרו יתעלה לא תבא אל ביתו לעבוט עבוטו הוא לאו הנתק לעשה והעשה הוא אמרו השב תשיב לו מלמד שמחזירין כסות לילה בלילה וכסות יום ביום. וכבר התבארו משפטי מצוה זו בפרק ח' ממציעא. (ואלה המשפטים, תצא, הלכות מלוה ולוה פ"ג):
That is that He commanded us to return the surety to its Jewish owner at the time that he has a need for it: If the surety is from that which he needs during the day - such as tools of his craft or his activity - he returns it to him during the day and holds it in surety at night; and if it is from that which he needs at night - such as a pillow or a blanket - he returns it to him at night and holds it in surety during the day. And the language of the Mekhilta is, "'Before the sun goes down, you shall return it to him' (Exodus 22:25) - this refers to a day-garment, that you can return the entire day. [...] From where [do you know about] a night-garment that it can be returned the entire night? [Hence] we learn to say, 'You shall surely return the pledge to him when the sun goes down' (Devarim 24:13). From here the Sages said, 'A day-garment that is taken as a pledge is returned during the whole day, and a night-garment is returned during the whole night." And it is already been explained in the Gemara, Makkot (Makkot 16a), that His, may He be exalted, saying, "you must not enter his house to seize his pledge" (Deuteronomy 24:10), is a negative commandment that is rectified by a positive commandment. And the positive commandment is His saying, "You shall surely return." [This verse also] teaches that we return a night-garment at night and a day-garment during the day. And the regulations of this commandment have already been explained in Chapter 8 of [Bava] Metzia. (See Parashat Mishpatim; Mishneh Torah, Creditor and Debtor 3).
Hebrew: Sefer HaMitzvot, Warsaw 1883 (public domain). English: Sefaria Edition, trans. Rabbi Francis Nataf, 2021 (CC0). Via Sefaria; translator’s footnotes omitted.
Literary form: a flat, unconditional command
Applicability
How the catalog describes where and when this commandment applies. These are independent descriptions, not a verdict on which laws still count.
- Recorded as practiced today
Classical halakhic consequences
The consequences the classical halakhah attaches to this commandment, grouped by who imposes them. Where a category has none recorded, that absence is itself meaningful.
Imposed by a court
No court-imposed penalty is recorded.
At the hands of Heaven
No divinely-imposed consequence is recorded.
Ritual remedy
No ritual remedy is recorded.
How the streams of Judaism treat this commandment
The streams of Judaism read the same commandment differently — an ongoing plurality, not a ranking. Each position below is reported as the catalog records it; none is presented as the correct one.
- Orthodox Binding
- Conservative Binding
- Reform Kept as an ethical principle
- Reconstructionist Kept as an ethical principle
- Karaite Binding
24 of 613 commandments have been examined in depth so far — this one is queued.
How later traditions received this commandment
How later traditions read or reworked this commandment, each attributed to its own voice. The catalog’s own classification of each reception is shown as it records it, never adopted as GEBible’s.
Philo of Alexandria
- De Specialibus Legibus 2.78-79 rationalized it
- De Virtutibus 89 The catalog describes this reception as: thematic allusion
Josephus
- Antiquities 4.268 reinterpreted it
Beside the older legal codes of its world
The commandment set beside the ancient Near-Eastern legal collections scholars compare it to — a descriptive comparison, not a claim of dependence.
- code of hammurabi distraint/pledge for debt; penalty for death of distrained person Relationship to the parallel: parallel with divergence §§114-116 Roth, Law Collections 2nd ed. (1997)
- middle assyrian laws distraint/pledge of persons for debt Relationship to the parallel: parallel with divergence A §48 Roth, Law Collections 2nd ed. (1997)
- code of hammurabi Old Babylonian pledge/distraint law regulating debt security by prescribing penalties if a distrained person dies in the creditor's house, but not requiring pledged objects to be returned daily for the debtor's use — the Deuteronomic requirement that a poor person's garment be returned by sunset inverts the creditor-security priority to place the debtor's survival needs first Relationship to the parallel: polemical contrast §§114-116 Roth, Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor, 2nd ed. (Scholars Press, 1997)
- middle assyrian laws Middle Assyrian distraint provision regulating the pledge of persons for debt obligations, addressing creditor liability for distrained persons but not requiring daily return of pledged essential items to the debtor Relationship to the parallel: parallel with divergence Tablet A §48 Roth, Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor, 2nd ed. (Scholars Press, 1997)
Where this commandment meets modern human-rights frameworks
One modern normative lens, attributed to it — not GEBible’s assessment. Each row names the framework it measures against and the catalog’s own classification of the relation.
This framework catalogues tensions; it records agreement in only one of its entries. The near-total tension rate is the shape of the instrument, not a finding.
No tension with the catalogued modern frameworks is recorded here.