This Mishnah will talk about cases where a person admits that he owes money and then later denies the whole claim against him. The Mishnah says: Someone says to another person, the next day, when they went to him and said, “Okay, give me my money. Time to pay up.” Then the person answered him, “No, no, no. I already gave it to you.” In that case, the man is not obligated to swear that he already paid. Now he is denying everything. He is denying the whole thing. He originally claimed that he owed the money. He admitted to that. And there is enough time for him to have fully paid it by the next day. So right now, he is denying the full claim. Therefore, we do not make him swear anything. The fact that he admitted the whole thing in the beginning sort of becomes irrelevant, because maybe he paid that whole thing. And right now, he is denying the whole thing. So he is not admitting to a partial claim. But if on the next day he contradicts what he said earlier and says, “No, you don’t have any money by me. I don’t owe you any money. I never owed you money,” then he is contradicting the first claim he made yesterday, when he admitted to owing him 100 maneh (a monetary unit). In that case, he is obligated to pay, because the admission the day before is as if he gave testimony that he did owe money. Therefore, we do not believe him now when he claims that he does not owe any money. The admission itself, which he made at that original time, is all that matters.
Another case. Someone says to another person, “A maneh of mine is by you.” The person answers, “Yes, yes, I owe you money. I owe you money.” Then the person making the claim says, “Do me a favor. Don’t give it back to me unless we’re in front of witnesses.” That’s the condition I want for the money to be returned. The next day, when the person comes with the claim and says, “Okay, you know what? Now it’s time to pay me. Let’s get me that money that you owe me,” the other person answers, “No, I already gave it to you privately. I gave it to you just when it was me and you, not in front of witnesses.” He is still obligated to pay the money at that point, because originally, part of the agreement they had was that he would return it to him in front of edim (witnesses). And he did not. Therefore, that claim is still outstanding. That debt still has to be paid. And therefore, he has to give him the money now, even if he already gave it to him. That’s tough luck on him. He didn’t follow the conditions. He has to give it to him again, and it has to be done in front of edim in order to end this debt.