Haqem Taqim: The Obligation to Raise What Has Fallen
Deuteronomy 22:4 yields three overlapping but distinct obligations. Commandment #167 (from Exodus 23:5) is the duty to unload a collapsing animal. Commandment #168 (from Deuteronomy 22:4) is the duty to reload an animal once it stands. Commandment #173 — this article — is the duty to physically raise the fallen animal, the act that must precede loading. The Talmud (Bava Metzia 32a–b) derives all three from the haqem taqim formula: 'raise up, you shall raise up,' 'with him.' The sequence is: unload → raise → reload.
You Shall Help Him to Lift Them Up
Deuteronomy 22:4's commandment — haqem taqim — uses the infinitive absolute construction (literally 'raise up, you shall raise up') to express intensity and completeness. The obligation is not to gesture at helping; it is to physically lift the animal back onto its feet. The Talmud (Bava Metzia 32a–b) distinguishes three separate obligations embedded in this passage and its companion verse (Exodus 23:5): unloading a collapsed animal (#167), physically raising a fallen animal (#173, this commandment), and reloading the animal once it stands (#168). These are sequential, not identical.
The he field for this commandment in the rabbinic tradition is הָקֵם תָּקִים — the raising. It is specifically about getting the animal back on its feet, which is a prior and distinct act from loading cargo onto its back. An animal pinned by its own weight, legs folded under it, cannot be loaded until it is first helped to stand. The raising commandment addresses that prior, often harder, physical task.
Animal Welfare and Human Character
The Torah's concern for animals in pain is not incidental. Proverbs 12:10: 'A righteous man has regard for the life of his animal, but the mercy of the wicked is cruel.' The commandment to raise a fallen animal is one expression of the broader principle of tzar ba'alei chayyim — the prohibition of causing unnecessary suffering to living creatures. An animal lying on the road, unable to rise, is suffering now. The commandment does not allow that suffering to be ignored.
The Talmud (Bava Metzia 32b) rules that when both the unloading obligation (Exodus 23:5) and the raising/loading obligation (Deuteronomy 22:4) arise simultaneously — two animals fallen in the same road — unloading takes priority, because relieving an animal already crushed under its burden is more urgent than helping one that has merely fallen without a load. This prioritization shows that the law calibrates the degree of animal distress, not merely the category of obligation.
Key Figures
Study Questions
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