Deuteronomy 22:1 Thou shalt not see thy brother’s ox or his sheep go astray, and hide thyself from them: thou shalt in any case bring them again unto thy brother.
Do you remember the sheer, unadulterated joy of finding a penny when you were a kid? Perhaps you thought, “Wow! What a windfall!” Sometimes it really is. Perhaps you find money in a parking lot where there is no telling who left it and no chance that anyone could ever redeem it. However, we have this mentality of “finders keepers, losers weepers” that we get when we are about seven years old, and it never changes.
Deuteronomy 22:1 says, “Thou shalt not see thy brother’s ox or his sheep go astray, and hide thyself from them: thou shalt in any case bring them again unto thy brother.” It goes on to basically say, “If you find something that belongs to another, even if you don’t know whose it is, then you keep it for the moment with the intent of restoring it to him again.”
Many times today adults have this idea of “plausible deniability” where they plead ignorance instead of owning up to the truth. Maybe when you were a kid, you got in trouble and you would defend yourself to your dad or mom by saying, “Oh, I forgot,” “It was an accident,” or “I didn’t know.” The bottom line is that it is not wise to let ignorance govern you.
There are times when we plead ignorance, but while God does have sympathy on our ignorance, God places a premium on our knowing. In short, we are responsible to pay attention. I don’t know everything, but I should be paying attention. If I see something that is a brother’s, I shouldn’t hide myself. This is where I may not be seeking for the dollar in the parking lot, but I ought not to hide when I see something that belongs to another. In other words, we are not to hide when we see. We are responsible to pay attention.
Secondly, we are responsible to pay back. I simply mean that when I have something that belongs to someone else, I should pay that back. Now, it is easy when we are talking about sheep, oxen, or a dollar bill in the parking lot, but there may be a number of other applications to this principle in our lives that are not so much things that we find as things that are right to do by others. I cannot pretend like I do not know what is expected of me and what belongs to another.
So, every day in life I need to make sure that I am paying attention and paying back. I cannot hide when I see something that needs to be taken care of.