Tanak Foundations-Concepts in Exodus-Chapter 23

Exo 23.1-32 tells us about truth in justice; laws promoting kindness and civil conduct; concepts concerning the sabbatical year and the sabbath day; the Shelosh Regalim or the three foot festivals; sacrifices and first fruit offerings; the angel with the name of God in him; blessings for obedience; taking possession of the land; the borders of the land.

v 1…You shall not carry a false rumor (of anyone); do not join your hand (to carry it on) with a wicked man (who is in the wrong) to be a malicious witness (to bring about his acquittal).

v 2…You shall not follow a multitude (the majority) in doing evil, nor shall you testify in a dispute so as to turn aside (take sides with) after a multitude in order to pervert justice;

v 3…nor shall you be partial to a poor man in his dispute (be impartial to everyone-Jam 2.1-9).

v 4…If you meet your enemy’s ox or his donkey wandering away you shall surely return it to him.

v 5…If you see the donkey of one who hates you lying helpless under its load, you shall refrain from leaving it to him, you shall surely release it to him (help him).

v 6…You shall not pervert the justice due to your needy brethren in his dispute (he was not to be favored just because he is poor).

v 7…Keep far from a false charge (or take the wrong side) and do not kill the innocent or the righteous (if they appear to be innocent), for I will not acquit (justify) the guilty (who pronounce an unjust sentence; God will inflict the deserved punishment).

v 8…And you shall not take a bribe (a gift); for a bribe blinds the clear-sighted and subverts the cause of the just.

v 9…And you shall not oppress a stranger (Ger), since you yourselves know the feelings of a stranger, for you also were strangers in the land of Egypt.

v 10…And you shall sow your land for six years and gather in its yield,

v 11…but the seventh year (the sabbatical year) you shall let it rest and lie fallow, so that the needy of your people may eat (that which grows of itself); and whatever they leave the beast of the field may eat. You are to do the same with your vineyard and your olive (grove).

v 12…Six says you are to do your work (a picture of the 6000 year Olam Ha Zeh), but on the seventh day (a picture of the Day of the Lord, the Lord’s day in God’s 7000 year plan called the Atid Lavo or “future /age/coming”) you shall cease (from your labor) in order that your ox and your donkey may rest, and the son of your female servant, as well as your stranger, may refresh (catch their breath) themselves (Exo 34.21).

v 13…Now concerning everything which I have said to you, be on guard (be careful to observe them); and do not make mention (invoke, remember( the name of other gods, nor let them be heard from your mouth (don’t encourage idol worship).

v 14…Three times a year (shelosh regalim) you shall celebrate a festival (hag) to me (Deut 16.16).

v 15…You shall observe (by doing certain things, at certain times, by certain people at certain places) the Festival of Unleavened Bread (Hag ha Matzah), for seven days you are to eat unleavened bread (matzot), as I commanded you, at the appointed time (moed) in the month of Aviv (Aviv/Nisan 15-21st). And none shall appear before me empty handed (Deut 16.17).

v 16…Also the Festival of the Harvest (Shavuot, fifty days in between) the first fruits of your labors (the two wave loaves) of what you sow in the field; also the Festival of the Ingathering at the end of the year (the “turning of the year” or the civil year; Tishri is the first month of the civil year) when you gather in your labors of the field (all the fruits of the land are gathered; this verse shows that there were two calendars being used, the civil and the religious).

v 17…Three times a year all your males shall shall appear before the Lord God (Adon Yehovah; in the Temple in Jerusalem eventually).

v 18…You shall not offer the blood of my sacrifice (the Passover lamb) with leavened bread (chametz-Exo 12.8 says it is to be matzah), nor is the fat (chelev) of my feast to remain overnight till morning (Exo 12.10).

v 19…You shall bring the choice first fruits of your soil into the house of the Lord your God (Deut 26.1-15 tells us how it was presented). You shall not boil a kid inthe milk of its mother (Hebrew “bashel” meaning to boil, ripen or mature, and the same word in Hebrew in Gen 40.10 where it means “ripen” or “produced”; you are not to let the kid mature but give it as required-Exo 22.29-30; it also alludes to the teaching of “not staying in the milk of the word-Heb 5.12-13; literally this was also an idolatrous practice of the Canaanites).

v 20…Behold (see), I am going to send an angel (Moses was God’s messenger) before you to guard you along the way, and to bring you into the place which I have prepared.

v 21…Be on your guard before him and obey his voice; do not be rebellious toward him, for he will not pardon your transgressions (because Moses cannot pardon) since my name (authority-Exo 3.13-14) is in him.

v 22…But if you truly obey his voice (Moses talked with Yehovah face to face and spoke directly to the people the exact words of God) and do all that I say (through him), then I will be an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your adversaries.

v 23…For my angel will go before you and bring you to the land of the Amorites (talkers), the Hittites (terrorizers), the Perizzites (squatters), the Canaanites (merchants, traffickers), the Hivites (livers), and the Jebusites (trodden down, and I will completely destroy them.

v 24…You are not to worship their gods, nor serve them, nor do according to their deeds; but you shall utterly overthrow them, and break their sacred pillars (mazavot) in pieces.

v 25…But you shall serve the Lord your God, and he will bless your bread and your water (security in their necessities); and I will remove sickness from your midst.

v 26…There shall be no one miscarrying or barren in your land; I will fulfill the number of your days (or “that yur days may be long” in Exo 20.12; there is blessings in obedience.

v 27…I will send my terror ahead of you (or “terror of me”), and throw into confusion the people among whom you come and I will make all your enemies turn their backs to you (in retreat).

v 28…And I will send hornets (“bandits” or literal hornets-Deut 7.20; Josh 24.12) ahead of you, that they may drive out the Hivites, the Canaanites, and the Hittites before you.

v 29…I will not drive them out in a single year, that the land may not become desolate, and the beasts of the field become too numerous for you.

v 30…I will drive them out before you little by little (God drives out our enemies the same way), until you become fruitful and take possession of the land.

v 31…And I will fix your boundaries from the Red Sea to the sea of the Philistines (the southeast coast of the Mediterranean), and from the wilderness (south of Canaan) to the River (Euphrates), for I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hand, and you will drive them out before you.

v 32…You shall make no covenant (an alliance) with them (the inhabitants of Canaan) or with their gods (which will lead into idolatry).

v 33…They shall not live in the land, lest they make you sin against me; for if you serve their gods, it will surely be a snare to you.”

Posted in All Teachings, Articles, Idioms, Phrases and Concepts, Prophecy/Eschatology, The Festivals of the Lord, The Tanak, Tying into the New Testament

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*