Exodus 23: 1 – 33
False Reports
23 “You shall not circulate a false report. Do not put your hand with the wicked to be an unrighteous witness. 2 You shall not follow a crowd to do evil; nor shall you testify in a dispute so as to turn aside after many to pervert justice. 3 You shall not 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 again. 5 If you see the donkey of one who hates you lying under its burden, and you would refrain from helping it, you shall surely help him with it. 6 “You shall not pervert the judgment of your poor in his dispute. 7 Keep yourself far from a false matter; do not kill the innocent and righteous. For I will not justify the wicked. 8 And you shall take no bribe, for a bribe blinds the discerning and perverts the words of the righteous. 9 “Also you shall not oppress a stranger, for you know the heart of a stranger, because you were strangers in the land of Egypt. 10 “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 beasts of the field may eat. In like manner you shall do with your vineyard and 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 rest, and the son of your female servant and the stranger may be refreshed. 13 “And in all that I have said to you, be circumspect and make no mention of the name of other gods, nor let it be heard from your mouth. 14 “Three times you shall keep a feast to Me in the year: 15 You shall keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread (you shall eat unleavened bread seven days, as I commanded you, at the time appointed in the month of Abib, for in it you came out of Egypt; none shall appear before Me empty); 16 and the Feast of Harvest, the firstfruits of your labors which you have sown in the field; and the Feast of Ingathering at the end of the year, when you have gathered in the fruit of your labors from the field. 17 “Three times in the year all your males shall appear before the Lord GOD. 18 “You shall not offer the blood of My sacrifice with leavened bread; nor shall the fat of My sacrifice remain until morning. 19 The first of the firstfruits of your land you shall bring into the house of the LORD 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 in the way and to bring you into the place which I have prepared. 21 Beware of Him and obey His voice; do not provoke Him, for He will not pardon your transgressions; for My name is in Him. 22 But if you indeed obey His voice and do all that I speak, 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 and 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 works; but you shall utterly overthrow them and completely break down their sacred pillars. 25 “So you shall serve the LORD your God, and He will bless your bread and your water. And I will take sickness away from the midst of you. 26 No one shall suffer miscarriage or be barren in your land; I will fulfill the number of your days. 27 “I will send My fear before you, I will cause confusion among all the people to whom you come, and will make all your enemies turn their backs to you. 28 And I will send hornets 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 become too numerous for you. 30 Little by little I will drive them out from before you, until you have increased, and you inherit the land. 31 And I will set your bounds from the Red Sea to the sea, Philistia, and from the desert 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, nor 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.”
Today’s title ‘False Reports’ is a lot sweeter than the title I was thinking about using - ‘Hey folks, we are here to lie to you but we don’t want you to know that the facts we are giving you are all lies.’ We can also understand this way of deceit as ‘Propaganda.’
Propaganda is information that is not objective and is used primarily to influence an audience and further an agenda. It often presents facts selectively to encourage a particular synthesis or perception or by using loaded language to produce an emotional rather than a rational response to the information that is presented. Propaganda is often associated with material prepared by governments, but activist groups, companies and the media can also produce propaganda.
Propaganda may be administered in insidious ways. For instance, disparaging information about the history of certain groups, individuals, or foreign countries may be encouraged or tolerated in the educational system. Since few people actually double check what they learn at school, such disinformation will be repeated by journalists as well as parents, thus reinforcing the idea that the disinformation item is really, a well known fact, even though no one repeating the lies are able to point to an authoritative source. The disinformation is then recycled in the media and in the educational system without having any direct governmental intervention on the media. Such permeating propaganda may be used for political goals: by giving citizens a false impression of the quality or policies of their country, they may be incited to reject certain proposals or certain remarks or ignore the experience of others.
A false report is a crime governed by federal and state laws, which vary by each state, involving a person who, with intent to deceive, knowingly makes a false statement that is material to the criminal investigation of a crime and makes the statement to law enforcement officials. A question then we all needs to ask is ‘how come we do not see any of these horrible liars arrested for this type of crime?
It is startling to me to see that the Lord’s enemies take to heart everything He tells us ‘not to do’. They take these ‘you shall not do’ things and make it their point to do. I strongly believe that they believe doing the opposite of what our Holy God commands will help them greatly succeed on this earth. We see the first example of this point in verse 1 regarding the filing of a false report.
23 “You shall not circulate a false report. Do not put your hand with the wicked to be an unrighteous witness.
This is a warning against perjury. It is outright lying. To take up false information in order to use it, is to be hand in hand with the wicked, that is, with those condemned by Yahweh. Such people stand against God.
When we see the words ‘Do not put your hand with the wicked it means to shake hands in agreement to do false things.’ A joining of hands to confirm the agreement to give false testimony seems to be in mind, an act which puts all under equal condemnation.
2 You shall not follow a crowd to do evil; nor shall you testify in a dispute so as to turn aside after many to pervert justice.
This is a warning against being influenced by the crowd, whether in private affairs or in court. If a crowd plans evil it is to be avoided. Nor must a man join with the many to bring about a wrong judgment. God’s man must stand up for right and truth even against the will of a crowd.
3 You shall not show partiality to a poor man in his dispute.
Rich and poor are to be treated the same. To be prejudiced on behalf of a poor man is no better than being prejudiced on behalf of a rich man. The truth is what matters without fear or favor.
4 “If you meet your enemy’s ox or his donkey going astray, you shall surely bring it back to him again. 5 If you see the donkey of one who hates you lying under its burden, and you would refrain from helping it, you shall surely help him with it. 6 “You shall not pervert the judgment of your poor in his dispute.
Concern for the animal’s welfare is possibly as much in mind here as concern for the ‘enemy’. Attitudes between people are not to prevent acts of mercy towards dumb animals. Sometimes when you do such an act of mercy it will often produce reconciliation.
This sudden switch in subject matter is typical of ancient law codes, but in fact the switch may not be as noticeable to the ancient mind as to us. After concern for the poor man comes concern for brute beasts. It is simply a step downwards. The change of format is required by the content.
The phrase ‘your poor’ is found elsewhere only in Deuteronomy 15.11 and speaks of the poor as a whole. To wrest (or bend) judgment suggests the twisting or maneuvering of the facts. Thus the command is not to interfere with true judgment just because the poor are involved. This would seem to warn against discriminating against the poor, the opposite of verse 3. The content of verses 4 and 5 may well have been deliberately included here to separate the two ideas in verse 3 and verse 6 so that they could be stated separately and not cause any confusion.
7 Keep yourself far from a false matter; do not kill the innocent and righteous. For I will not justify the wicked.
Anything that is dubious or false is to be avoided, especially as relating to matters of justice. To assist in a false verdict is to punish and even possibly kill those who are righteous, and to declare the wicked innocent. This is something our Holy Father Yahweh God could not participate in and therefore neither can His people. It is contrary to all that our Great God Yahweh Is.
8 And you shall take no bribe, for a bribe blinds the discerning and perverts the words of the righteous.
This refers especially to witnesses, but it can also be seen as referring to any occasion when the reception of a gift could produce biased judgment. To accept a gift from someone about whom you are called to give an opinion, or from his friends, is strictly forbidden. We will always favor those who reward us however much we may protest otherwise, and this can apply equally in churches as well as in courts of law.
A gift blinds the open-eyed.’ This is the fact, however much we persuade ourselves otherwise. Its effect is subtle but certain. It makes us close our eyes to what we have seen. It makes even the righteous behave and speak unrighteous, in other words to say what otherwise they would not have said.
As today, bribery was a common fact of Old Testament life and utterly condemned
9 “Also you shall not oppress a stranger, for you know the heart of a stranger, because you were strangers in the land of Egypt.
The position of this verse shows that the previous warning is in mind. Strangers who are trying to live among us have as much right to justice as anyone else and it is especially easy to be turned against a foreigner by ‘gifts’. But they deserve justice too.
We are next going to see regulations from our Holy God concerning acknowledgement of His Lordship regarding work and rest.
10 “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 beasts of the field may eat. In like manner you shall do with your vineyard and your olive grove.
Agriculturally this would allow the land to rest so that it could recover its vitality. It was a practice observed also in other nations. But here it was made an offering to the poor. During the six years the farmer could gather in and store his grain ready for the seventh year, and he would cater for his bondmen, but the poor who worked for others, as they could, would have no grain on the seventh year for there would be no work. This thus catered for their need. And each seventh year would be dedicated to God in recognition of His gift of the land to His people. This is made specific in Leviticus 25.4 but it is clearly its intent here as is evident from its connection with the weekly Sabbath in the following verse. Both are Sabbaths to Yahweh their God (20.10).
In Deuteronomy 14.28-15.11 we have an extension of God’s provision for the poor. Not only could they enjoy the gleanings and this seventh year bonanza, but a provision would in future be made for them from the third year of tithes and by release from debt in the seventh year.
These provisions looked forward to when the land has been given to them as Yahweh promised to them in Egypt. They were a preparation for and a guarantee of what was to come. It is possible they had already been observed in Egypt. By these provisions God was reminding them of what their future will be, and encouraging their hopes. But they assumed a quick conquest of the land so that the provisions could be applied. In the end they could only be observed spasmodically. That they would not be strictly observed is brought out in Leviticus 26.34; 2 Chronicles 36.21, God knew what to expect of them, but those who did so in obedience to God would find their land more fruitful as a result.
12 Six days you shall do your work, and on the seventh day you shall rest, that your ox and your donkey may rest, and the son of your female servant and the stranger may be refreshed. 13 “And in all that I have said to you, be circumspect and make no mention of the name of other gods, nor let it be heard from your mouth.
This is a repetition of the fourth commandment. Here the stress is twofold first on the benefit to beasts and servants (and second on its provision as a means of meditating on God (compare Exodus 20.11).
It is stressed that those who have no say in the matter should be able to rest, the oxen and the asses who bore the burden of the work and the sons of handmaids (either sons of concubines or sons of servants) and resident aliens who would have no land and would therefore be laborers.
The placing of verse 13 here, while it applies to all that has gone before, emphasizes that the Sabbath is to be a day in which men will speak of God. They are to ensure then that they do not speak of other gods but that they concentrate their attention on the true and living God -Yahweh.
The people have arrived at Mount Sinai and are preparing for what lies ahead. These laws are therefore providing them with a blueprint of that future and acting as a spur. It is always a sign of good leadership to picture the final fulfillment of what is in front as an encouragement in the face of difficulties. As these specific regulations for the future were read out to them at various times and seen as God’s law they would renew their vision for that future. It was so easy in the wilderness to lose sight of that future.
Those who complain at such detailed provisions being made in the wilderness have never been on a long march into the unknown under arduous conditions, when often the only thing that holds the spirits up is the consideration of the future. As they heard these regulations read out, it assured them that, although the going was tough now, in the not too distant future there would be harvests, there would be ingathering’s, they would have fields to leave fallow, for this is what the regulations guaranteed. It was worth struggling through the wilderness for. It was worth going on for, it was worth fighting for. And later the outline would be filled in as they neared their final goal. (Moses was not expecting it to take forty years. That would be due to disobedience).
14 “Three times you shall keep a feast to Me in the year:
There were to be three feasts, the feast of unleavened bread at the beginning of the religious year, the feast of harvest (or ‘sevens’) celebrating the first fruits, and the feast of ingathering (or ‘tabernacles’) ‘at the end of the year’, that is at the end of the period of sowing and reaping. Note the concentration on the fruitfulness of the ground. Their future was bright indeed.
15 You shall keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread (you shall eat unleavened bread seven days, as I commanded you, at the time appointed in the month of Abib, for in it you came out of Egypt; none shall appear before Me empty);
This first feast was closely connected with the Passover and has already been outlined in chapters 12 and 13. It was the time when the harvesting began (Deuteronomy 16.9). It would ever remind them of their deliverance from Egypt when they had to eat unleavened bread because of the haste in which they came out. It would include the waving of the sheaf before Yahweh (Leviticus 23.11).
All must appear bringing offerings and sacrifices from their first things (34.19-20) and gifts from their harvest first fruits to The Ever Lasting God Yahweh as they are able. But the especial point is that all will have such gifts to bring.
16 and the Feast of Harvest, the first fruits of your labors which you have sown in the field; and the Feast of Ingathering at the end of the year, when you have gathered in the fruit of your labors from the field.
This feast would be held seven sevens plus one day after the feast of unleavened bread (Leviticus 23.15-21), and would celebrate the wheat harvest. It would include the waving of two wave loaves of fine flour baked with leaven as first fruits to our Great God Yahweh, and celebrated the first fruits of their labors. It was later called the Feast of Sevens (weeks), and Pentecost.
This was celebrated in the seventh month and was later called the feast of tabernacles. This was the final celebration of the whole harvest including the grapes and olives, the vintage was gathered in and the threshing was over for another year (Leviticus 23.33-44).
These three feasts encapsulated all the hopes of the children of Israel. They were promised here to a landless people who were encamped in the wilderness but who looked forward in the future to owning their own land, with fruitful fields and full harvests in the land of milk and honey. In these commandments their hope for the future was written large. What encouragement must have been theirs as they contemplated them.
17 “Three times in the year all your males shall appear before the Lord GOD.
This is the first specific indication that all are to gather three times a year at a central sanctuary to celebrate God’s goodness. At these times sections of the history and the covenants would be read out as a reminder to the people of God’s promises and requirements, including the earlier covenants with the fathers and the initial covenants with Adam (Genesis 1.28-30; 3.17-19) and Noah (Genesis 9.1-7) with their background histories, and the people would make their response. Every seven years the whole of the Law which had been given to Moses and which he had written down (Deuteronomy 31.9, 24) would be read out (Deuteronomy 31.11).
The children of Israel would be, and indeed already were, divided into twelve sub-tribes whose unity was to be maintained by their connection with a central sanctuary.
The gathering was to be officially of the males, but they would often later be accompanied by their families. Such a gathering would also be called for when danger threatened (Judges 5.13-23). They would come to His central sanctuary to worship and renew the covenant.
18 “You shall not offer the blood of My sacrifice with leavened bread; nor shall the fat of My sacrifice remain until morning.
In all sacrifices the blood and the fat was offered to Yahweh. The eating of blood was forbidden. And when the blood of the sacrifice was offered to Yahweh only unleavened cakes were to be offered. This emphasized that leavening was seen as corrupting, and nothing corrupted was to be brought to Yahweh.
Either way we too when we offer our sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving must ensure that all corruption in our lives has been removed by cleansing.
19 The first of the first fruits of your land you shall bring into the house of the LORD your God. You shall not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk.
Wherever God revealed Himself could be called ‘the house of God’ (Genesis 28.17), for it meant a dwelling-place, where God had revealed Himself. Here it therefore meant the place where God was approached, the Tent of Meeting and later the Tabernacle (34.26). The first of the first fruits may mean the choicest of the first fruits or literally what ripened first. The point was that Yahweh would receive His portion before His people received theirs as an acknowledgement that what they received came from Him and belonged to Him. This may have special reference to the Feast of Harvest or Sevens (Weeks) where the first fruits were especially offered (23.16).
It is thought by some that elsewhere among the nations kids were boiled in their mother’s milk so that the resulting magical mixture could be sprinkled on the fields hoping to produce fertility. It may have been that this was so. But the more probable reason would seem to be that it was seen as unseemly that a calf should be boiled in what should rather have been seen as maintaining its life, that is, that it was seen as a contradiction in Creation that was unacceptable. It made the mother destroy her kid rather than sustaining it. It was an attack on the conception of motherhood that could not be allowed.
A mother’s role was to be seen as strictly that of life providing, and anything else a distortion of
For us the lesson is clear. We are to have a regard to what is seemly and what is not. If we cannot see that to seethe a kid in its mother’s milk could be seen as unseemly then there is little to be said for us. It would demonstrate a lack of appreciation of motherhood, and a lack of the sensitivity that all God’s people should have, that could only condemn us. For this example stresses proper consideration of relationships, and that all distortions of motherhood are an abomination to God.
20 “Behold, I send an Angel before you to keep you in the way and to bring you into the place which I have prepared. 21 Beware of Him and obey His voice; do not provoke Him, for He will not pardon your transgressions; for My name is in Him.
Once again we see a reference to the Angel of Yahweh, that mysterious figure who personally represented Yahweh and yet was somehow different. The Angel brings Yahweh more physically into a situation. He Is Yahweh, for Yahweh can say, ‘My name is in Him’. And He can then add ‘My Angel will go before you -- and I will cut them off’, demonstrating that the Angel and Yahweh act as One.
The Angel of Yahweh will keep them in the way and bring them to the prepared place in which they will enjoy the harvests of which He has spoken.
Obedience was necessary if they were to inherit the promises. If they broke His laws His Angel would not forgive it for He Was a representation of the holy Yahweh, God of the covenant. Yet such was His mercy that when they did provoke Him He partly overlooked their transgression for Moses’ sake, although warning that their sin would eventually be visited on them.
What Yahweh Is, He Is. The Old Testament reveals Yahweh in three ways, under His Own name, as the Angel of Yahweh (Yahweh in personal, close revelation) and as the Spirit of Yahweh, (the invisible Yahweh seen in powerful and visible action). But each is Yahweh and reveals His nature and being. Kind of sounds like the Blessed Holy Trinity, doesn’t it?
22 But if you indeed obey His voice and do all that I speak, then I will be an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your adversaries.
Obedience will bring the Lord’s support against their coming enemies. Their enemies would be His enemies, because they were His people and He was their Lord. But if they were not obedient to the treaty He would come and punish them (verse 21).
Please take note the change in personal pronouns. ‘His voice --- all that I speak’. Yahweh and the Angel speak as One.
23 For My Angel will go before you and bring you in to the Amorites and the Hittites and the Perizzites and the Canaanites and 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 works; but you shall utterly overthrow them and completely break down their sacred pillars.
The general treaty is now applied to the particular situation. As they enter the land they will meet up with the multiplicity of its inhabitants. And the Angel of Yahweh will go before them and Yahweh will cut off their enemies. The use of six may indicate three (the number of completeness) intensified and thus signify that the six nations are to be seen as all the inhabitants in the land.
Rivals to the Lord must be rejected and their symbols destroyed. They are not to be tolerated. There Is One Lord and He Is Yahweh. Peoples entering a land would often begin to include the gods of the land within their worship to ensure their protection. But this was not to be so here. They too must be cut off and cast out. The land is Yahweh’s.
‘Nor do after their works.’ Canaanite religion was debased and sexually perverted. The Israelites were to ‘Break in pieces their pillars.’ This refers to the standing stones which were often a feature of Canaanite shrines. Pillars were often set up as memorials but these were different, they were identified with a god and venerated, and offerings were placed before them. They represented Canaanite religion and its gods.
25 “So you shall serve the LORD your God, and He will bless your bread and your water. And I will take sickness away from the midst of you. 26 No one shall suffer miscarriage or be barren in your land; I will fulfill the number of your days.
Yahweh Himself will provide for all their needs of food, water, fertility and long life. The gods of rain and storm and the fertility gods were a regular feature of Canaanite life and religion. But they will be irrelevant for what Yahweh will do. It will be far better than anything that the Canaanites claim for their gods. He can ensure that they have food and water in abundance that all their women are fertile and that they live long lives. This was a picture of a new Eden but it would fail in its fulfillment because of the disobedience of the people.
Our Holy God Yahweh alone is to be served and all rivals are to be rejected. Service includes both being faithful to the ordinances laid down for worship, and obedience to His covenant stipulations.
27 “I will send My fear before you, I will cause confusion among all the people to whom you come, and will make all your enemies turn their backs to you. 28 And I will send hornets before you, which shall drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite from before you.
Yahweh will prepare the way before them by bringing a great fear on their future foes. Thus they will be beaten before the battle begins, and will flee in terror from them (‘turn their backs to you’. He will also use physical terrors to aid in the discomfiting all those who presently lived in Cannon.
This may mean that Yahweh will also support them by using natural terrors to discomfit their foes. The hornet is a larger version of the wasp with a vicious sting, which can sometimes cause death, and a fearsome reputation. All would know of the terror the appearance of a swarm of hornets could cause, and it would seem that a literal plague of hornets did at one notable stage throw the forces of the two kings of the Amorites into disarray (Joshua 24.12).
We see here that the context may suggest that the description has the Angel of Yahweh in mind, pictured in terms of the fearsome hornet, swarming down on the enemy and causing them to flee in terror. The Israelite attacks in all quarters may well have seemed like to their enemy like swarms of hornets, coming from nowhere and buzzing round their cities and towns.
29 I will not drive them out from before you in one year, lest the land become desolate and the beasts of the field become too numerous for you. 30 Little by little I will drive them out from before you, until you have increased, and you inherit the land.
God’s purpose in the delay is stated. It is so that the land will not revert to wilderness and so that wild animals might not take over.
All this reminds us that the promises of God are dependent on the obedience of His people. They will, of course, finally be achieved in ways far beyond our imagining, with a new heaven and a new earth. But man’s disobedience would cause these purposes partially to fail on earth just as Adam’s had previously. In the end mankind’s only hope would be in divine intervention of an unprecedented kind when the great Man of Sorrows called a people to Himself to take over the vision. But even they have failed. In the end He must do it all Himself.
31 And I will set your bounds from the Red Sea to the sea, Philistia, and from the desert to the River. For I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hand, and you shall drive them out before you.
The future boundaries of the Promised Land are set out and they are natural boundaries. The wilderness was the land of the South north of Egypt, and the River was the Euphrates. The sea of the Philistines was the Mediterranean, and the Sea here represents the Gulf of Aqabah, the tongue of the Red Sea leading up to the rift valley containing the Jordan and the Dead Sea. Thus the Promised Land reached from the Euphrates to Egypt, and from the Mediterranean to the Rift Valley. This was the land promised by Yahweh in the covenant on condition that the covenant conditions were fulfilled. But they never were. God’s terms were rejected and partial obedience could only result in partial fulfillment.
32 You shall make no covenant with them, nor 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.”
So the Book of the Covenant ends as it begins, with the reminder that He was Yahweh their God (20.2; 23.25) Who would act on their behalf (23.25-31) as He had already acted in Egypt (20.2), and the reminder also that He would have no rivals (20.3-6; 23.32-33). Thus the land must be rid of all evil influences. Neither they nor their gods must be allowed any place in ‘the land’. There must be no treaties made with them. They must be totally driven out. The land and the people must be holy to Yahweh.
Those who are His are those who genuinely see themselves as under His Kingly Rule and bound by all His requirements, not in order to be saved, but because they have been saved. And they gladly seek to do His will.
It may be asked, are we required to keep the feasts as laid down in this chapter? And again the answer is clear. We do not keep the feasts because we do not possess the land. We owe no ‘rent’. We do not offer the sacrifices because they have been superseded in the one Sacrifice made for all for all time. But we should and do give thanks for our harvests and bring to Him of our blessings in gratitude for all His goodness.
