Keluaran 22:27

22:27 for it is his only covering – it is his garment for his body. ¹  What else can he sleep in? ²  And ³  when he cries out to me, I will hear, for I am gracious.

Ulangan 24:12-13

24:12 If the person is poor you may not use what he gives you as security for a covering. ⁴  24:13 You must by all means ⁵  return to him at sunset the item he gave you as security so that he may sleep in his outer garment and bless you for it; it will be considered a just ⁶  deed by the Lord your God.

[22:27]  ¹ tn Heb “his skin.”

[22:27]  ² tn Literally the text reads, “In what can he lie down?” The cloak would be used for a covering at night to use when sleeping. The garment, then, was the property that could not be taken and not given back – it was the last possession. The modern idiom of “the shirt off his back” gets at the point being made here.

[22:27]  ³ tn Heb “and it will be.”

[24:12]  ⁴ tn Heb “may not lie down in his pledge.” What is in view is the use of clothing as guarantee for the repayment of loans, a matter already addressed elsewhere (Deut 23:19-20; 24:6; cf. Exod 22:25-26; Lev 25:35-37). Cf. NAB “you shall not sleep in the mantle he gives as a pledge”; NRSV “in the garment given you as the pledge.”

[24:13]  ⁵ tn The Hebrew text uses the infinitive absolute for emphasis, which the translation seeks to reflect with “by all means.”

[24:13]  ⁶ tn Or “righteous” (so NIV, NLT).