Finders Keepers? Not!

TorahBytes

For the week of September 14, 2024 / 11 Elul 5784

Ki Teitzei
Torah: D’varim/Deuteronomy 21:10 – 25:19
Haftarah: Isaiah 54:1-10
Originally posted the week of September 2, 2006 / 9 Elul 5766 (edited)

You shall not see your brother’s ox or his sheep going astray and ignore them. You shall take them back to your brother. And if he does not live near you and you do not know who he is, you shall bring it home to your house, and it shall stay with you until your brother seeks it. Then you shall restore it to him. And you shall do the same with his donkey or with his garment, or with any lost thing of your brother’s, which he loses and you find; you may not ignore it. (D’varim/Deuteronomy 22:1-3)

I can remember very clearly when I was young learning a very important principle regarding personal property. It was “finders keepers, losers weepers.” This was very easy-to-remember. Just in case you are not familiar with this saying, it means if you found something someone lost, it was yours to keep. Of course, if I did happen upon something of significant value, I was expected to look around to see if the possible owner might be nearby. But if not, whatever it might be, it became rightfully mine.

As one who claims to respect the authority of Scripture, the verses I quoted at the beginning challenge (or should I say contradict?) this principle. God calls us to return lost things to their original owner even if we don’t know who the person is or if they live far away. Moreover, we are to take care of the thing found until the person comes looking for it.

Godly directives such as these should lead us to ask certain questions. Does this apply to things of small value? For example, if I find twenty-five cents in a vacant parking lot, should I take it home and wait for someone to claim it? What about perishable items? Perhaps in that same vacant lot late at night after the grocery store is closed, a bunch of ripe bananas is found. Would it be wrong for a homeless, hungry person to eat them? Looking again at these verses, they are referring to items of substantial and lasting value, not things of little value or perishables.

Another question has to do with how long we should hold on to something before the original owner loses his claim to it. The passage does not speak of a time limit. Perhaps if it were an animal, then it should never be slaughtered, but would it be okay in the meantime to milk it, if it were a milking animal, or to shear its wool if it were a sheep, or to use its services if it were a work animal? I don’t know. And if the item were a cloak—which today might be a coat, jacket, or sweater—should it be put away in a closet forever just in case the owner comes to claim it? Again, I don’t know.

What I do know is that we need to take our responsibility toward the care of other people’s things seriously. There is more to biblical property rights than the prohibition regarding stealing. My losing something does not cancel my ownership of an item. I also have an obligation to others to ensure that I do my part in returning lost items to their original owner. How we deal with some of the implications of these directives must at least start with accepting our God-given responsibilities.

Whether it is this or another directive, we need to allow the Bible to confront and contradict our long-held life principles. It may even confront and contradict what we thought God was saying to us more recently. If we want to walk in God’s ways, we need to hear what he is saying about all of life and live accordingly.

All scriptures, English Standard Version (ESV) of the Bible