Truth, Feasts & A Guardian (Exodus 23)

Should Israel always speak the truth? Should they keep three annual feast seasons? Would God send a guardian angel? Let’s look at Exodus 23.

Should Israel be involved in spreading false reports, vigilante mobs, or show special favors in judgment merely because they feel sorry for a poor man?

Thou shalt not raise a false report: put not thine hand with the wicked to be an unrighteous witness. Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil; neither shalt thou speak in a cause to decline [follow] after many to wrest judgment: Neither shalt thou countenance [show partiality to] a poor man in his cause. (Exodus 23:1-3 KJV)

Did Israel have a responsibility towards a neighbor’s property? Even if he’s a bad neighbor?

If you meet your enemy’s ox or his donkey wandering away, you shall surely return it to him. 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 with him. (Exodus 22:4-5 LSB)

Should Israel pervert justice for the needy or innocent? What about bribes? How should they treat strangers or foreigners?

You shall not pervert the justice due to your needy brother in his dispute. Keep far from a false charge, and do not kill the innocent or the righteous, for I will not acquit the guilty. You shall not take a bribe, for a bribe blinds the clear-sighted and subverts the cause of the just. You shall not oppress a stranger, since you yourselves know the feelings of a stranger, for you also were strangers in the land of Egypt. (Exodus 23:6-9 NASB)

Was there a land sabbath as well as a weekly sabbath?

For six years you are to sow your fields and harvest the crops, but during the seventh year let the land lie unplowed and unused. Then the poor among your people may get food from it, and the wild animals may eat what is left. Do the same with your vineyard and your olive grove. Six days do your work, but on the seventh day do not work, so that your ox and your donkey may rest, and so that the slave born in your household and the foreigner living among you may be refreshed. (Exodus 23:10-12 NIV)

How were they to relate to the pagan gods of other nations?

Pay close attention to all my instructions. You must not call on the name of any other gods. Do not even speak their names. (Exodus 23:13 NLT)

How many festival seasons were there annually? Is unleavened bread part of Passover season? Are the first fruits attached to Pentecost? Is ingathering another name for the feast of tabernacles?

You shall observe a feast to me three times a year. You 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. And 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. Three times in the year all your males shall appear before the Lord Yahweh. (Exodus 23:14-17 WEB)

With what kind of bread was the first festival season, Passover to be observed?

Don’t offer the blood of my sacrifice with anything leavened. Don’t let the fat of my festival offering be left over until the morning. (Exodus 23:18 CEB)

How were firstfruits to be given? Was there a pagan harvest ritual to be avoided, boiling a goat in its mother’s milk, or is this just a prohibition against a cruel practice?

Each year bring the best part of your first harvest to the place of worship. Don't boil a young goat in its mother's milk. (Exodus 23:19 CEV Exodus 34:26; Deuteronomy 14:21)

Would God send a guardian angel on their way? Would God also protect us?

Behold, I send an angel before you to guard you on the way and to bring you to the place that I have prepared. Pay careful attention to him and obey his voice; do not rebel against him, for he will not pardon your transgression, for my name is in him. But if you carefully obey his voice and do all that I say, then I will be an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your adversaries. (Exodus 23:20-22 ESV)

How would the angel protect them? Were they to avoid abominable practices of those nations like child sacrifice (2 Kings 16:3; Psalm 106:37-38; Isaiah 57:5; Jeremiah 7:31; 19:5; 32:35; Ezekiel 16:20-21)?

For My angel will go before you and bring you to the land of the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Canaanites, Hivites, and Jebusites, and I will wipe them out. You must not bow down to their gods or worship them. Do not imitate their practices. Instead, demolish them and smash their sacred pillars to pieces. Worship the Lord your God, and He will bless your bread and your water. I will remove illnesses from you. No woman will miscarry or be childless in your land. I will give you the full number of your days. (Exodus 23:23-26 HCSB)