Chapter Twenty-Three

1–9. Laws explaining the ninth commandment. 10–19. Laws concerning festivals and festive seasons. 20–33. Promise of protection of the people of Israel on the way to the promised land, during its conquest and after settlement in it.

Exodus 23:1. You shall not receive a false report; do not join your hand with the wicked to be a witness of injustice. The pronouncement of a just verdict on the accused is hindered by various kinds of false, unreliable rumors about him. Therefore in the name of justice one should not spread anything bad about him, whether invented by oneself or heard from others: one should not be “a gossip among the people” (Lev 19:16, Prov 10:18, Ps 100:5). Out of a desire to please the “great” (Lev 19:15) who seek to destroy an innocent defendant, one should not help him (“join your hand”) with false testimony against the accused. Such a witness awaits the punishment prescribed by law (Deut 19:18-19, Prov 19:5).

Exodus 23:2. You shall not follow a multitude to do evil; and you shall not testify in a lawsuit, turning aside after many to pervert justice; In court testimony one must be guided not by the opinion of the majority, but by truth alone. One must not depart from truth even in the case when the majority of witnesses deliberately testify falsely with the aim of destroying the defendant (Prov 18:5, Matt 27:24-26, Mark 15:15, Luke 23:23, Acts 24:27).

Exodus 23:3. nor shall you show partiality to a poor person in his lawsuit. Merciful, compassionate treatment of the poor (Exod 22:22 and others) must not hinder justice; if he is guilty, then he must be punished (Lev 19:15).

Exodus 23:4. If you meet your enemy’s ox or donkey straying, you shall bring it back to him; Exodus 23:5. If you see the donkey of one who hates you lying under its burden, you shall refrain from leaving him alone; you shall help him with it. Justice requires treating one’s enemy as a brother (Deut 22:1-4). This thought is illustrated by two examples of helping an enemy in distress, and in the second case the help requires greater self-denial, since it is far more difficult to work with an enemy for his benefit (“you shall help him with it”) than to help the enemy in his absence (Exod 23:4).

Exodus 23:6. Do not pervert the justice due to your poor in his lawsuit. According to the Hebrew word “shafat,” used to denote the work of a judge, the requirement of this verse is addressed not to witnesses but to judges. They pervert the cause of the poor when they accept false testimony from witnesses and pronounce unjust verdicts (Deut 27:19, Isa 10:1-2, Jer 5:28). Although the rights of each person, both rich and poor, should not be violated in court, the poor are mentioned because it is easier for the poor to suffer in court than for the rich.

Exodus 23:7. Keep yourself from a false matter; and do not kill the innocent and the righteous, for I will not acquit the guilty. From the connection of the speech it is clear that by injustice one must understand an intentionally incorrect pronouncement of sentence. It is a greater obligation of the judge to avoid consciously unjust verdicts, inasmuch as they lead the innocent to death, which does not remain unpunished (Deut 27:25, Prov 17:26, Jer 7:6-7).

Exodus 23:8. You shall not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds those who have sight and perverts the cause of those who are just. A gift accepted from one of the disputants will inevitably create toward that disputant such a disposition in the judge whereby he loses the ability to properly consider the case. Bribes cause one not to see wrong where it exists (Isa 33:15) and truth where it is obvious. They blind even the wise (Deut 16:19, Sir 20:29) and as a result prevent the cause of the righteous—from the righteous one takes away what is lawfully his (Mic 7:3).

Exodus 23:9. You shall not oppress a foreigner [and shall not persecute him]: you know the feelings of the foreigner, because you yourselves were foreigners in the land of Egypt. The commandment “do not oppress a foreigner” is not a repetition of Exod 22:21. There it was about relationships between individuals among themselves, here it is about judicial proceedings. Foreigners, as having submitted themselves in a certain respect to the laws of the Hebrew people, must be viewed from the perspective of these laws: “there shall be one statute for the Hebrew and for the foreigner” (Deut 1:16).

Exodus 23:10. Six years you shall sow your land and gather in its produce, Exodus 23:11. but the seventh year you shall let it rest and lie fallow, that the poor of your people may eat; and what they leave the beasts of the field may eat. In the same way you shall deal with your vineyard and your olive grove. Continuation of the weekly Sabbath rest is the rest in the seventh jubilee year. Land left untended during this time restored its natural strength, exhausted by the preceding six years of work. Everything that grew on it without human effort (Lev 25:5) became common property and therefore was subject to free use by the needy.

Exodus 23:12. Six days you shall do your work, and on the seventh day you shall rest; that your ox and your donkey may have rest, and that the son of your maidservant and the foreigner may be refreshed. The law concerning Sabbath rest aims at the restoration of strength exhausted by six days of work for a slave and for cattle.

Exodus 23:13. Be careful to observe all that I have said to you; and make no mention of the names of other gods, nor let them be heard from your mouth. The festive seasons, which were a blessing to the Hebrews, must have reminded the people of the giver of their establishment—God, and gratitude for the blessing naturally led to strict fulfillment of His commandments, which precluded the possibility of thoughts of other gods.

Exodus 23:14. Three times a year you shall keep a feast to Me: The worship of the Most High must find expression not only in oral confession of Him as the true God, but also in celebration three times during the year. The three festivals listed below have immediate relation to the life of the Hebrews as an agricultural people.

Exodus 23:15. keep the feast of unleavened bread: you shall eat unleavened bread for seven days, as I commanded you, at the appointed time in the month of Abib, for in it you came out of Egypt; and none shall appear before Me with empty hands; The feast of unleavened bread, the first day of which was the 15th of Abib (Lev 23:6), coincided with the beginning of harvest (Exod 23:10, Deut 16:9), and therefore in gratitude for the newly ripened grain and to seek God’s favor, on the second day of it there was made before the Lord a wave offering of a sheaf of the firstfruits of harvest (Lev 23:10), and from that same time the eating of new grain was permitted (Lev 23:14).

Exodus 23:16. and the feast of harvest, the firstfruits of your labor, of what you sow in the field, and the feast of ingathering at the end of the year, when you gather in from the field the fruit of your labor. The feast of harvest of new fruits of the labor of the Hebrew people (Lev 23:16), the feast of weeks (Exod 23:15, Deut 16:9), or Pentecost, was a feast of “firstfruits of the wheat harvest” (Exod 34:22). The firstfruits of this—two leavened loaves baked from the finest new flour—were offered to the Lord as the first fruit (Lev 23:16-17). The feast of ingathering at the end of the year (Exod 34:22), or the feast of booths (Deut 16:13), lasting seven days (Lev 23:34, Num 29:12), was a time of rejoicing and thanksgiving to God for divine blessing, the visible manifestation of which the Hebrew saw in the gathered fruits (Deut 16:15).

Exodus 23:17. Three times a year all your males shall appear before the Lord your God. Since the farmers saw in the listed festivals the manifestation of God’s beneficent hand, they gathered before “His face” (Deut 16:16), that is, in the tabernacle, to confess the lordship of the Lord. The males appeared; manual labor fell upon them, and therefore they had greater reason and incentive to glorify the one who gave the harvest; but his presence did not exclude the appearance at these festivals of women as well (1 Sam 1:3-4, etc.).

Exodus 23:18. [When I drive out the nations from before you and enlarge your borders], you shall not offer the blood of My sacrifice with anything leavened, and the fat of My feast shall not remain until the morning. Three particular ordinances relating to the three yearly festivals. The Greek-Slavonic text at the beginning of verse 18 has an addition against the Hebrew text: “But when I drive out the nations from before you and enlarge your borders.” This addition possibly was transferred here from the parallel passage Exod 34:24-25 verse (it is absent in some manuscripts). “Do not offer the blood of My sacrifice with anything leavened.” Since the Hebrew preposition “al” means not only “upon” but also “with,” the meaning of this ordinance is that the Passover lamb, which was a sacrifice (see commentary to 12:3 above), should not be eaten with leavened bread. “The fat of My feast sacrifice shall not remain until the morning,”—the sacrifice of the Passover feast (Lev 7:15, Exod 12:10) should not remain until the morning.

Exodus 23:19. The first fruits of your soil you shall bring into the house of the Lord your God. You shall not boil a kid in its mother’s milk. Since the general law concerning the dedication to God of the firstfruits was proclaimed earlier (Exod 22:29), the ordinance of this verse cannot be considered its repetition. Rather, it is possible to think that in the present case the question concerns the offering of firstfruits at the feast of weeks, or Pentecost. “You shall not boil a kid in its mother’s milk.” The religious zeal of those assembled for the great festivals could be expressed by a desire to use the best methods of preparing for eating those parts of sacrificial animals that were left for use both by those who presented the animal in sacrifice and by the priests. The Hebrews themselves could learn from experience, and from foreigners they could receive information, that meat cooked in milk, especially the meat of a kid (Gen 27:9, Judg 6:19, 1 Sam 16:20), becomes especially tender. At a great festival, in the sanctuary, there were sufficient incentives to prepare meat in the most delicious way. The law does not forbid cooking meat in milk: it only forbids using the mother’s milk for this purpose, because natural feeling could be offended by the use of a mother’s milk to make her offspring most deliciously prepared.

Exodus 23:20. Behold, I send an Angel before you to guard you on the way and to bring you into the place that I have prepared [for you]; Exodus 23:21. pay attention to him and obey his voice; do not rebel against him, for he will not pardon your transgression, for My name is in him. Exodus 23:22. [If you will listen to My voice, and will do all that I tell you, and keep My covenant, then you shall be to Me a people chosen out of all the nations, for all the earth is Mine; you shall be to Me a royal priesthood and a holy nation. Say these words to the children of Israel.] If you will listen to His voice and do all that I say, then I will be an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your adversaries. Exodus 23:23. When My Angel goes before you and brings you to the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Canaanites, [the Girgashites,] the Hivites, and the Jebusites, I will cut them off [from before you], Exodus 23:24. You shall not bow down to their gods, nor serve them, nor do as they do, but you shall utterly overthrow them and break their pillars in pieces: Exodus 23:25. You shall serve the Lord your God, and He shall bless your bread [and your wine] and your water; and I will take sickness away from you. Exodus 23:26. No one shall miscarry or be barren in your land; I will fulfill the number of your days. Exodus 23:27. I will send My fear before you and will throw into confusion all the people to whom you come, and I will make all your enemies turn their backs to you; Exodus 23:28. I will send the hornet before you, which shall drive out the Hivites, [the Canaanites,] [the Jebusites,] and the Hittites from before you; Exodus 23:29. I will not drive them out from before you in one year, lest the land become desolate and the wild beasts multiply against you; Exodus 23:30. I will drive them out before you little by little, until you have increased and possess the land. Exodus 23:31. And I will set your border from the Red Sea to the Sea of the Philistines, and from the wilderness to the River [Euphrates], for I will give the inhabitants of the land into your hand, and you shall drive them out from before you; Exodus 23:32. [do not make a covenant with them or] make no covenant with them or with their gods; Exodus 23:33. they shall not dwell in your land, lest they make you sin against Me; for if you serve their gods, it will be a snare to you. God’s protection of the Hebrews will be manifested in the sending of an Angel, a guardian on the way (Exod 23:20), in the communication of new revelations (Exod 23:21), based on obedience to God in invincibility and prosperity of the people (Exod 23:22-26, Lev 26:9, Deut 7:13; the Greek-Slavonic text in Exod 23 has an insertion borrowed from Exod 19:5-6), in the conquest of the land of Canaan not so much by the force of weapons as by the power of divine help (Exod 23:27-28, Deut 2:25, Josh 2:9), in the gradual subjugation of the Canaanites (Exod 23:29-30), as a means of ensuring the development and strengthening of the Hebrews themselves—for if the enemies were destroyed quickly, the land would turn into a desert, and the Hebrews would be forced to suffer from wild beasts (2 Sam 17:25, etc.), and finally in the granting for permanent possession of the land of Canaan within the borders from the Red Sea to the Sea of the Philistines (the Mediterranean) and from the desert (Arabian) to the River Euphrates.