A CLOAK — the large outer wrap an Israelite wore by day and slept under by night, which is why Exodus 22:26-27 forbids keeping one overnight as a pledge: it is the poor man's blanket. Not the same word as beged, the general term for a garment. ⭐ It runs three times through Deuteronomy 22, in three unrelated laws, and the thread is easy to miss: at 22:3 a lost cloak is property you are obliged to keep safe until its owner comes looking; at 22:5 a woman's cloak is a boundary a man may not cross; and at 22:17 a cloak is spread out in the city gate as the evidence that decides whether a woman lives. ⚠ It is the garment of the exodus itself — the dough carried out of Egypt was bound up in the people's simlot (Exodus 12:34) — and the one Israel's wore out in the wilderness, Deuteronomy 8:4. ⭐ Deuteronomy 24:13 (now on these pages) has it as salmah, the same word with two of its letters exchanged — the spelling Exodus 22:26 uses of the pledged cloak: a creditor may not lie down in a poor man's pledge, so that the poor man may lie down in his salmah and bless him. Deuteronomy 29:4 (not yet on these pages) will say the salmot of the wilderness did not wear out in forty years. → first discussed at Deut 22:3