על החוקים לפרטיהם, ספר ד ג׳On the Special Laws, Book IV 3
א׳
1[11] Other stolen goods then are to be paid for at twice their value, but if the thief has taken a sheep or an ox the law estimates them worthy of a larger penalty, thus giving precedence to the animals which excel all the other domesticated kinds not only in comeliness of body but in the benefits they bring to human life. This was the reason why he made a difference even between the two just named in the amount of the penalty to be paid. He reckoned up the services which each of them renders and ordained that the compensation should correspond thereto.
ב׳
2[12] The thief has to pay four sheep but five oxen for the one that he has stolen because the sheep renders four contributions, milk, cheese, wool and the lambs which are born every year, while the ox makes five, three the same as the sheep, of milk, cheese and offspring, and two peculiar to itself, ploughing and threshing, the first of them being the beginning of the sowing of the crops, the second their end, serving to purge them when harvested and make them more ready to be used as food.