But if the owner thereof be with it, he shall not make it good: if it be an hired thing, it came for his hire.

But if the owner be present, he shall not make restitution, especially if it were hired and came for the hire of his work.

if its owner is with it, he doth not repay,, if it is a hired thing, it hath come for its hire.

If the owner is with it, he will not have to make payment: if he gave money for the use of it, the loss is covered by the payment.

If the owner thereof be with it, he shall not make it good; if it be a hireling, he loseth his hire.

But if the owner was present, he shall not make restitution, especially if it had been brought for hired work.

Si dominus ejus fuerit cum eo, non reddet: si conductum fuerit, veniens pro mercede sua.

It came for his hire - The sum paid for hiring was regarded as covering the risk of accident.

[But] if the owner thereof [be] with it, he shall not make [it] good: if it [be] an hired [thing], it (g) came for his hire.
(g) He that hired it shall be free by paying the hire.

But if the owner thereof be with it,.... When it is hurt or dies; for in some cases the owner might go along with his beast, being borrowed or hired to do work with it; or, however, being upon the spot, must be satisfied that it was not ill used; and it may be reasonably presumed he would do all he could to preserve it: and this being the case:
he shall not make it good; that is, the borrower, but the loss would lie upon the lender; seeing this might have been the case if it had been at home, and not borrowed or lent. The Jewish writers understand all this in a different manner, that if the owner is not with it in the time of borrowing, though he is with it in the time of its being hurt, or of its death, the borrower must pay; but if he was with it in the time of borrowing, though not in the time of its receiving damage, or of its death, the borrower was free (c); for, as Jarchi says, whether it be in that work (for which he was borrowed), or in another work (it matters not), if he was with it at the time of borrowing, there was no necessity of his being with it at the time of its hurt or death. The reason of which, I must confess, I do not understand; unless the meaning is, that it was necessary that the owner, and the beast, should be both borrowed or hired together; and which indeed seems to be the sense of the Misnah, or tradition (d), which runs thus,"if a man borrows a cow, and borrows or hires its owner with it; or if he hires or borrows the owner, and after that borrows the cow, and it dies, he is free, as it is said, Exodus 22:15 but if he borrows the cow, and afterwards borrows or hires the owner, and it dies, he is bound to pay, as it is said, Exodus 22:13 if his owner is not with it, &c.''If it be an hired thing, it came for its hire; that is, if the beast which was come to some damage, or was dead, was hired, and not borrowed, then, whether the owner was with it or not at that time, he could demand no more than hire, and the person that hired it was obliged to pay that and no more; or if the owner himself was hired along with his beast, and so was present when it received its damage, or its death, nothing more could come to him than what he agreed for.
(c) Misn. Bava Metzia, c. 8. sect. 1. Maimon. & Bartenora in ib. (d) Ibid.