Exodus
Exodus 23
1“You shall not spread a false report. Don’t join your hand with the wicked to be a malicious witness.
2“You shall not follow a crowd to do evil. You shall not testify in court to side with a multitude to pervert justice. 3You shall not favor a poor man in his cause.
4“If you meet your enemy’s ox or his donkey going astray, you shall surely bring it back to him again. 5If you see the donkey of him who hates you fallen down under his burden, don’t leave him. You shall surely help him with it.
6“You shall not deny justice to your poor people in their lawsuits.
7“Keep far from a false charge, and don’t kill the innocent and righteous; for I will not justify the wicked.
8“You shall take no bribe, for a bribe blinds those who have sight and perverts the words of the righteous.
9“You shall not oppress an alien, for you know the heart of an alien, since you were aliens in the land of Egypt.
10“For six years you shall sow your land, and shall gather in its increase, 11but the seventh year you shall let it rest and lie fallow, that the poor of your people may eat; and what they leave the animal of the field shall eat. In the same way, you shall deal with your vineyard and with your olive grove.
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 the son of your servant, and the alien may be refreshed.
13“Be careful to do all things that I have said to you; and don’t invoke the name of other gods or even let them be heard out of your mouth.
14“You shall observe a feast to me three times a year. 15You shall observe the feast of unleavened bread. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, as I commanded you, at the time appointed in the month Abib (for in it you came out of Egypt), and no one shall appear before me empty. 16And the feast of harvest, the first fruits of your labors, which you sow in the field; and the feast of ingathering, at the end of the year, when you gather in your labors out of the field. 17Three times in the year all your males shall appear before the Lord Yahweh.
18“You shall not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leavened bread. The fat of my feast shall not remain all night until the morning.
19You shall bring the first of the first fruits of your ground into the house of Yahweh your God.
“You shall not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk.
20“Behold, I send an angel before you, to keep you by the way, and to bring you into the place which I have prepared. 21Pay attention to him, and listen to his voice. Don’t provoke him, for he will not pardon your disobedience, for my name is in him. 22But if you indeed listen to his voice, and do all that I speak, then I will be an enemy to your enemies, and an adversary to your adversaries. 23For my angel shall go before you, and bring you in to the Amorite, the Hittite, the Perizzite, the Canaanite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite; and I will cut them off. 24You shall not bow down to their gods, nor serve them, nor follow their practices, but you shall utterly overthrow them and demolish their pillars. 25You shall serve Yahweh your God, and he will bless your bread and your water, and I will take sickness away from among you. 26No one will miscarry or be barren in your land. I will fulfill the number of your days. 27I will send my terror before you, and will confuse all the people to whom you come, and I will make all your enemies turn their backs to you. 28I will send the hornet before you, which will drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite, from before you. 29I will not drive them out from before you in one year, lest the land become desolate, and the animals of the field multiply against you. 30Little by little I will drive them out from before you, until you have increased and inherit the land. 31I will set your border from the Red Sea even 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. 32You shall make no covenant with them, nor with their gods. 33They 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.”
Commentary
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What others are saying
5 commentators · 75 notes on this chapter
Matthew Henry3
Writes as a pastor rather than a critic. Expect devotional and practical application over historical or linguistic analysis, read through a Reformed covenantal frame — and expect the Old Testament to be read forward toward Christ throughout.
Why this voice is here: The most widely read English commentary for three centuries. Included as a baseline: where Henry and a modern voice diverge, the divergence itself is usually the interesting part.
Here are, I. Cautions concerning judicial proceedings; it was not enough that they had good laws, better than ever any nation had, but care must be taken for the due administration of justice according to those laws. 1. The witnesses are here cautioned that…
Here is, I. The institution of the sabbatical year, Exo 23:10, Exo 23:11. Every seventh year the land was to rest; they must not plough nor sow it at the beginning of the year, and then they could not expect any great harvest at the end of the year: but what…
Three gracious promises are here made to Israel, to engage them to their duty and encourage them in it; and each of the promises has some needful precepts and cautions joined to it. I. It is here promised that they should be guided and kept in their way…
John Gill33
The most exhaustive and the most doctrinally committed here. Expect high — even supralapsarian — Calvinism applied consistently, and unusually heavy use of rabbinic and Talmudic sources for Jewish context. Where a passage bears on election or the will, Gill will read it in one direction, and knowing that in advance is the point.
Why this voice is here: The strongest Calvinist reading available in the public domain, and the best on Jewish background. Read alongside Clarke, not instead of him — between them you get both sides of the argument.
Thou shalt not raise a false report,.... Of a neighbour, or of any man whatever, either secretly by private slanders, whispers, backbiting and tale bearing, by innuendos, detracting from his good name and credit, suggesting things false and wicked concerning…
Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil,.... The Targums of Jerusalem and Jonathan add, but to do good. As in private life, the examples of the many, who are generally the most wicked, are not to be followed, though they too often are; examples, and…
Neither shalt thou countenance a poor man in his cause. Because he is a poor man, and for that reason endeavour to carry his cause for him, right or wrong, from a foolish pity to him as a poor man, and from an affectation of gaining the applause of people on…
Adam Clarke23
The linguist of this set. Expect Hebrew and Greek word study, oriental custom, and geography — and an Arminian reading of grace and free will where Gill or Henry would read election. Note one real divergence: Clarke denied the eternal sonship of Christ, a position most of the tradition rejects, so read him closely on the person of Christ.
Why this voice is here: Where you want to know what a word actually says, Clarke is the one who will tell you — with the caveat above on Christ’s sonship.
Thou shalt not raise a false report - Acting contrary to this precept is a sin against the ninth commandment. And the inventor and receiver of false and slanderous reports, are almost equally criminal. The word seems to refer to either, and our translators…
Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil - Be singular. Singularity, if in the right, can never be criminal. So completely disgraceful is the way of sin, that if there were not a multitude walking in that way, who help to keep each other in countenance…
Neither shalt thou countenance a poor man in his cause - The word דל dal, which we translate poor man, is probably put here in opposition to רבים rabbim, the great, or noble men, in the preceding verse: if so, the meaning is, Thou shalt neither be influenced…
Keil & Delitzsch5
The technical one, and Old Testament only. Expect Hebrew grammar, textual argument, and direct engagement with nineteenth-century critical scholarship — closer to a scholarly apparatus than a devotional read. Where a modern critic claims a text is late or composite, this is where the conservative counter-argument was made.
Why this voice is here: Old Testament only, and heavy going — but the place to look when someone asserts a passage cannot mean what it appears to.
Lastly, no one was to violate another's rights. - Exo 23:1. "Thou shalt not raise (bring out) an empty report." שׁוא שׁמע, a report that has no foundation, and, as the context shows, does injury to another, charges him with wrongdoing, and involves him in…
The Fundamental Rights of Israel in its Religious and Theocratical Relation to Jehovah. - As the observance of the Sabbath and sabbatical year is not instituted in Exo 23:10-12, so Exo 23:14-19 do not contain either the original or earliest appointment of the…
"Three times in the year" (i.e., according to Exo 23:14 and Deu 16:16, at the three feasts just mentioned) "all thy males shall appear before the face of the Lord Jehovah." The command to appear, i.e., to make a pilgrimage to the sanctuary, was restricted to…
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown11
The concise option. Three authors split the canon, so the voice shifts between sections. Expect brief, sober, conservative notes that resolve difficulties rather than dwelling on them — useful for orientation, thinner than Gill or Clarke where a passage is genuinely contested.
Why this voice is here: The quickest way to see what the mainstream Reformed reading of a passage is. Start here, then go to Gill or Clarke when it matters.
decline--depart, deviate from the straight path of rectitude.
countenance--adorn, embellish--thou shalt not varnish the cause even of a poor man to give it a better coloring than it merits.
six years thou shalt sow thy land--intermitting the cultivation of the land every seventh year. But it appears that even then there was a spontaneous produce which the poor were permitted freely to gather for their use, and the beasts driven out fed on the…
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