Do The Right Thing (Exodus 23:1-9) Series

The KJV and NIV possibly emend the text, changing the verb from "abandon" to "help," verbs that nearly look the same: ????? to ????? . Amusingly, that's how I read the Hebrew originally, and didn't realize what I'd done until reading a commentary (h/t William Propp). Or perhaps they are just loosely translating the sense here. Comparing translations, I'm basically following the NASB here.

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There are times in life, when you might find that someone hates you. You picked up an enemy, for one reason or another, and that relationship is just an ongoing, difficult one.

You maybe know, as a member of God's kingdom people, that you have to be careful about how you treat that person. You can't steal from them. You can't murder them. You can't envy them, or their stuff. There is a line that you can't cross, to get even with them, or punish them.

The situations verses 4-5 describe, are a way to be mean to your enemy, passively. In both of the pictures God paints here, what exactly do you do to your enemy?

Nothing. You do nothing.

Imagine that you see your enemy's ox going astray. Somehow, it slipped the fence, or the rope, and it's roaming free. An ox is a valuable animal. It's worth a lot of money. So imagine that you see that ox, and recognize it as being your enemy's. Maybe, you'd find yourself smirking about it, and thinking, "Serves him right." Maybe you'd turn to your companion, and say, laughing, "If only there was someone who could help him."

But God expects you to love your enemy, by bringing his ox back.

In the second picture God paints, your enemy has a loaded ox, and somewhere along the way it all went wrong for him. Maybe the load slipped, and it became unbalanced, and the ox just can't handle it. Maybe the rope broke, and the load is scattered across the trail.

So you turn a corner, and come across your enemy, who's having a very bad, no good, terrible day. You can tell at a glance what happened.

And your natural, human, fleshly reaction to this situation, is going to be to rub salt in the wound. You might find that the insults, and mocking, flow naturally out of your mouth. You might find yourself celebrating it, like we three kids celebrated the Mercedes when we were little. Maybe, as you walk carefully around the mess, you say to your kids in a loud voice, "This is why I taught you guys the bowline knot."

But God says "no" to this. God, again, expects you to love your enemy, by helping him "rearrange" the load, and "restoring" that ox to what it was before.

And the bigger point God is making here, I think, is that God expects you to do the right thing for all people, including your enemy. That's how this fits in with the legal dispute stuff. Any situation you're in, you do the right thing, for all people (h/t Joe Sprinkle, Book of the Covenant).