If you see the ass uses ki, the stronger word for If, indicating that this law is not dependent on the preceding law. (See the discussion on case law at 21.2.) Ass means “donkey” as in verse 4. One who hates you is literally “your hater.” This is a different word from “enemy” in verse 4 (see the comment there), but both New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh and Good News Translation understand it to mean “your enemy,” and Good News Translation simply uses the pronoun “his,” referring back to verse 4. Lying under its burden means that the “donkey” has evidently “fallen under its load” (Good News Translation) and is “lying helpless” (Revised English Bible) on the ground. The word for lying suggests that the animal is flat on the ground, but not necessarily lying on its side. Contemporary English Version has “If a donkey is overloaded and falls down.” However, one may also express this as “If your enemy has put too heavy a load on his donkey, and it falls down [or, collapses].”

You shall refrain from leaving him with it is not clear in the Hebrew, as the footnote in Revised Standard Version indicates. The Hebrew has the conjunction “and” (“and you refrain from leaving”), but Revised Standard Version interprets this “and” as an implied “then,” which introduces the main clause (meaning “then you shall refrain…”). New Revised Standard Version, however, translates the conjunction as “and,” understanding this clause to be an extension of the dependent clause (“When you see … and you would hold back…”). Either interpretation is possible.

A further problem is that the expression refrain from leaving may be understood either as leaving the donkey or as leaving the owner of the donkey. Revised Standard Version understand the expression to mean leaving the owner with the donkey, but New Revised Standard Version understands it to mean “leaving” the donkey, in the sense of “setting it free.” But the word for leaving may also mean lifting, or releasing, or setting free. So New Revised Standard Version has “and you would hold back from setting it free.” This meaning of “setting free,” or “lifting,” is what both Revised Standard Version and New Revised Standard Version give to the same Hebrew word in the last clause. Note that Good News Translation places this clause at the end of the verse in order to bring out the meaning more clearly: “don’t just walk off.”

You shall help him to lift it up is literally “releasing you shall release with him,” using the same emphatic form found in 21.12. Good News Translation translates the obvious meaning, “help him get the donkey to its feet again,” but New Revised Standard Version brings out the emphatic form with the word “must,” “you must help him set it free.” Contemporary English Version simply has “you must do what you can to help.”

Considering all these problems, it seems best to translate as follows:

• If ever you see a donkey that has fallen under its load, and it belongs to someone who hates you, you must help him get the animal back on its feet. You should not just walk away.

Quoted with permission from Osborn, Noel D. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Exodus. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1999. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .