Exodus 23

The TorahRooted Bible (TRB), translated directly from the Hebrew and Greek.

Laws of justice

¹ "You shall not spread a false report. Do not join hands with the wicked to be a malicious witness. ² You shall not follow a crowd to do evil, nor shall you testify in a dispute so as to turn aside after a crowd and pervert justice. ³ Nor shall you show partiality to a poor man in his dispute.

⁴ "If you meet your enemy's ox or his donkey going astray, you shall surely bring it back to him. ⁵ If you see the donkey of one who hates you lying under its load, you shall not leave him alone with it; you shall surely help him set it free.

⁶ "You shall not pervert the justice due to your poor in his dispute. ⁷ Keep far from a false matter, and do not kill the innocent and the righteous, for I will not justify the wicked. ⁸ And you shall take no bribe, for a bribe blinds those who see and twists the words of the righteous. ⁹ You shall not oppress a stranger, for you know the soul of a stranger, since you were strangers in the land of Egypt.

The Shabbat year and the appointed feasts

¹⁰ "For six years you shall sow your land and gather in its produce, 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 beast of the field shall eat. You shall do likewise with your vineyard and your olive grove. ¹² Six days you shall do your work, but on the seventh day you shall rest, so that your ox and your donkey may rest, and the son of your female servant and the stranger may be refreshed. ¹³ Pay attention to all that I have said to you, and make no mention of the name of other gods; let it not be heard from your mouth.

¹⁴ "Three times a year you shall keep a feast to Me. ¹⁵ You shall keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread: seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, as I commanded you, at the appointed time in the month of Aviv, for in it you came out of Egypt. None shall appear before Me empty-handed. ¹⁶ You shall keep the Feast of Harvest, the firstfruits of your labors, of what you sow in the field; and the Feast of Ingathering at the end of the year, when you gather in the fruit of your labors from the field. ¹⁷ Three times a year all your males shall appear before the Adon Yahweh.

¹⁸ "You shall not offer the blood of My sacrifice with leavened bread, nor shall the fat of My feast remain until morning. ¹⁹ The first of the firstfruits of your ground you shall bring into the house of Yahweh your Elohim. You shall not boil a kid in its mother's milk.

The angel and the promise of the land

²⁰ "See, I am sending an angel before you to guard you on the way and to bring you to the place that I have prepared. ²¹ Pay attention to him and listen to his voice; do not rebel against him, for he will not pardon your transgression, for My name is in him. ²² But if you truly 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. ²³ For My angel will go before you and bring you in to the Amorites and the Hittites and the Perizzites and the Canaanites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, and I will cut them off.

²⁴ "You shall not bow down to their gods, nor serve them, nor do according to their deeds; but you shall utterly overthrow them and break their pillars in pieces. ²⁵ You shall serve Yahweh your Elohim, and He will bless your bread and your water, and I will take sickness away from your midst. ²⁶ None shall miscarry or be barren in your land; I will fulfill the number of your days. ²⁷ I will send My terror before you, and will throw into confusion all the people against whom you come, and I will make all your enemies turn their backs to you. ²⁸ And I will send the hornet before you, which shall drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite from before you. ²⁹ I will not drive them out from before you in one year, lest the land become desolate and the beasts of the field multiply against you. ³⁰ Little by little I will drive them out from before you, until you have increased and inherit the land. ³¹ And I will set your border from the Red Sea to the Sea of the Philistines, and from the wilderness to the River; for I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hand, and you shall drive them out before you. ³² You shall make no covenant with them or with their gods. ³³ They shall not dwell in your land, lest they make you sin against Me; for if you serve their gods, it will surely be a snare to you."

Notes

• 23:11 "Let it rest" is tishmetennah, from shamat, "to release," the root of the shemittah, the "release" of the seventh year (Deuteronomy 15:1-2). Leviticus 25:2-4 calls this year "a Shabbat for the land," and in the first century Jews in the land still kept it: Josephus tells of seventh-year exemptions from taxes (Antiquities 14.202).
• 23:12 "You shall rest" is tishbot, the verb behind Shabbat. "Be refreshed" is yinnafesh, related to nefesh, "breath, soul": to catch one's breath. The same word is used of God Himself, who "rested and was refreshed" on the seventh day (31:17). The weekly Shabbat is given here as rest for the servant, the stranger and even the animals.
• 23:16 The Feast of Harvest (chag ha-katsir) is the wheat harvest, called the Feast of Weeks, Shavuot, in 34:22; in Greek, Pentecost (Acts 2:1). The Feast of Ingathering (chag ha-asif) is Sukkot, the Feast of Tabernacles (Leviticus 23:34). "At the end of the year" is betset ha-shanah, literally "at the going out of the year," the close of the farming year in autumn; the year of months still begins in the spring (12:2).
• 23:19 The command is given three times in the Torah (also 34:26 and Deuteronomy 14:21), each time beside offerings or holiness. Its purpose is not stated; many have seen in it respect for the bond between mother and young, as in 22:30 and Deuteronomy 22:6-7. Later rabbinic tradition built on this verse the wider rules for separating meat and milk.
• 23:20 "Angel" is malakh, "messenger." The ancient Greek of this verse, "I send My messenger before your face," is the wording used together with Malachi 3:1 in Mark 1:2 and Matthew 11:10 (also Luke 7:27), applied there to John the Baptist preparing the way.
• 23:21 "My name is in him": God's name stands for His very self and authority, so this messenger acts with Yahweh's own authority and can withhold pardon. Some ancient Jewish and many Christian readers saw in him more than an ordinary angel (compare Isaiah 63:9, "the angel of His presence"); the text itself does not explain further.

Exodus 22 · Exodus 24

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