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Perek 7 opens a new discussion, about the penalties that are imposed upon a ganav, i.e. a person who steals property without the victim's awareness (like the ganavim who stole my catalytic converter in the middle of the night). This is in contrast with a gazlan, who brazenly steals when confronting the property owner directly.
The Torah (in Parashat Mishpatim) specifies two types of penalties for the ganav upon his being caught and successfully prosecuted. The general penalty is called kefel ("double"), i.e. that the ganav must pay his victim twice the value that he stole. However, under very particular circumstances, namely when the ganav has stolen an ox or a sheep and then subsequently slaughtered or sold the ox or the sheep, the Torah imposes a steeper penalty: the ganav must pay four times the value of the ox, and five times the value of the sheep.
Mishna 1 lays out the basics of how kefel and the "payments of 4 or 5" play out.
Mishna 2 and Mishna 4 are best learned together as a unit, along with the first couple of lines of Mishna 5. Together they make the points that in order for the "payment of 4 or 5" to kick in:
(1) both the act of theft and the slaughtering or selling have to be appropriately witnessed
(2) the ganav's act of slaughtering needs to not have triggered a separate capital punishment statute
(3) the ganav needs to be have 0% prior ownership of the animal. If he is a part-owner of it, the 4 and 5 payments don't apply.
(4) the slaughter has to be a "kosher slaughter", i.e. one that renders the animal kosher to eat. The Mishna's first opinion and Rabbi Shimon disagree about cases in which the slaughter was kosher, but for external reasons the animal is forbidden to be eaten anyway.
Mishna 3 throws the concept of edim zomimim in to the mix. Edim zomimim are witnesses who are subsequently revealed to not have been physically present at the event that they had given testimony about. The law is that edim zomimim are penalized by having to themselves absorb the legal consequences that their testimony (had it been sustained) would have imposed upon the person they had testified about. The Mishna explores under what circumstances edim zomimim would be hit with the "payment of 4 or 5", the payment that their testimony would have imposed upon the falsely accused.
Mishnayot 5 and 6 lay down another fundamental principle. A person doesn't technically become a ganav (and subject to the kefel and "4 or 5" penalties) until he has taken the animal into his legal possession. This involves removing the object or animal from the owner's property, or picking it up off the ground (which is hard to do with an ox). The Mishnayot explore variations on the case.
Mishna 7 goes a little off-topic and lists various rabbinic enactments concerning the raising of animals in the Land of Israel. One of them reminds me a sign I once saw in the Jerusalem Zoo, in an enclosure that held some kind of boar. The sign read " דאָס איז נישט אַ חזיר " . (For the non-Yiddish readers among us, "This is Not a Pig".)
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