If you ever take is literally “If [ʾim] taking you [singular] will take-in-pledge.” This is the emphatic form used in 21.12, but it is not easy to express it. Revised Standard Version adds ever, but this has been omitted in New Revised Standard Version. Durham has “If you actually take as collateral.” “Take-in-pledge” is one word in the Hebrew. It means to take possession of something owned by the borrower which will be returned to him only when the debt is paid. In this way the lender has some guarantee that that loan will be repaid. New Revised Standard Version has “take … in pawn,” and Translator’s Old Testament translates “take … as security for a loan.”

Your neighbor’s garment, literally “the wrapper of your fellow,” probably refers to “a fellow-Israelite’s [outer] cloak.” The same word is used in verse 9. It is helpful to note that the poor Israelite at that time probably wore only an undergarment and a wide outer garment, and the outer garment served as both a “cloak” (New Revised Standard Version) and a blanket. You shall restore it to him means, as Good News Translation expresses it, “you must give it back to him.” And before the sun goes down, of course, means “by sunset” (New International Version). Contemporary English Version restructures this as follows: “Before sunset you must return any coat taken as security for a loan.” Another possible model is “If you take someone else’s cloak as security when you loan money to him, you must return it to him before the sun sets.”

For that is his only covering uses a word meaning almost the same as the word for garment, but it has the more general meaning of a covering. It is his mantle for his body uses what appears to be a third word, mantle (salmah), but it is a synonym of the one translated as garment (samlah), with only a slight difference in spelling and pronunciation.

Thus there appear to be three different words in these two verses that mean almost the same thing: garment, covering, and mantle. It is not necessary to find three different words in translation. New Revised Standard Version changes the third word to a verb, “to use as a cover,” and Translator’s Old Testament has “to wrap himself in.” Good News Translation combines the second and third into one, “covering.” His body is literally “his skin” (New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh). (Durham has “his bare skin.”) Good News Translation brings out the meaning clearly: “it is the only covering he has to keep him warm.”

In what else shall he sleep? is literally “in what will he lie down?” The idea of else is understood. Contemporary English Version is even clearer: “because that is the only cover the poor have when they sleep at night.” And if he cries to me is literally “and it will be when [ki] he will cry out unto me.” I will hear is the same word used in verse 23, meaning “I will listen” (New Revised Standard Version), or “I will heed.” (New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh, Good News Translation, and Translator’s Old Testament have “I will answer him.”) For I am compassionate is literally “because gracious [am] I.” Good News Translation uses “merciful.”

An alternative translation model for these two verses is:

• If you take someone’s cloak as security when you loan money to him, you must return it before the sun sets, because that is the only covering the poor have to keep them warm when they sleep at night. I am a merciful God, and when the poor call out to me, I will certainly help them.

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 .