If the owner was with it, he shall not make restitution; if it was hired, it came for its hiring fee.
To betray a trust is unjust and base, and the world is right to cry shame on it. We must guard what is entrusted to us as carefully as our own; and an oath before the judges, sworn by the Lord Himself as witness and avenger, ends the dispute, for perjury startles the conscience as much as any sin.
AI summary
Commenting on Exodus 22:7-15
If the owner was present when the animal was borrowed and when it died, the borrower is free of liability; the loss falls on the lender. But if the owner was absent at the time of borrowing, then present at its death, the borrower must pay, for the owner's presence at the start binds him to the debt.
AI summary
[But] if the owner thereof [be] with it, he shall not make [it] good: if it [be] an hired [thing], it came for his hire. (g) He that hired it shall be free by paying the hire.