Exodus 23

Do not spread a false report. Do not join hands with a wicked person by giving dishonest testimony.

1Thou shalt not raise a false report: put not thine hand with the wicked to be an unrighteous witness.

NoteThese opening rules are courtroom rules. In an Israelite town, cases were heard at the town gate by the elders, with no professional judges, police or prosecutors: a case was decided by the testimony of neighbors, so a false witness could kill a man. "Join hands with" translates a phrase for making common cause with someone, here, agreeing to back up his story.

2Do not follow a crowd in doing wrong. When you speak in a legal case, do not side with the crowd and twist what is right.

2Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil; neither shalt thou speak in a cause to decline after many to wrest judgment:

NoteThe Hebrew word rendered "crowd" can mean either "the many" (a majority) or "the great ones" (the powerful); either way the point is not letting numbers or weight of opinion decide a case. "Twist" is the standard Hebrew image for injustice: bending a verdict out of line, like bending a straight object.

3And do not show favor to a poor man in his legal case.

3Neither shalt thou countenance a poor man in his cause.

NoteThis is not about charity but about evidence. Ancient law codes routinely warned judges against favoring the rich; this warns against the opposite reflex, deciding for a poor man because he is poor rather than because he is right. Verse 6 forbids the more usual abuse.

4If you come across your enemy's ox or donkey wandering off, you must bring it back to him.

4If thou meet thine enemy’s ox or his ass going astray, thou shalt surely bring it back to him again.

5If you see the donkey of someone who hates you lying down under its load, and you would hold back from helping him, you must still help him with it.

5If thou see the ass of him that hateth thee lying under his burden, and wouldest forbear to help him, thou shalt surely help with him.

NoteThe Hebrew here is famously difficult. The verb translated "hold back from helping" and the verb translated "help" are the same word, azav, which normally means "leave, abandon", and which can also carry a sense of "loose, release", hence readings ranging from "do not abandon him, you must help him" to "you must certainly release it with him", i.e. unload the animal together. The sense of the law is not in doubt even where the wording is.

6Do not twist justice against the poor among you when they have a case.

6Thou shalt not wrest the judgment of thy poor in his cause.

7Stay far away from a false charge. Do not put to death the innocent and those in the right, because I will not declare a guilty person innocent.

7Keep thee far from a false matter; and the innocent and righteous slay thou not: for I will not justify the wicked.

Note"A false charge" means a fabricated accusation brought in court. The warning against putting the innocent to death follows directly: many offenses in this law carried the death penalty, so a false charge was a means of killing someone legally. The last clause is legal language, to "declare innocent" is what a judge does in acquitting someone.

8Do not take a bribe, because a bribe blinds those who can see and twists the words of those who are in the right.

8And thou shalt take no gift: for the gift blindeth the wise, and perverteth the words of the righteous.

NoteThe King James "gift" means a bribe; the Hebrew word covers any payment made to a judge. "Those who can see" translates a word for the clear-sighted or discerning, the very people a bribe most needs to blind.

9Also, do not mistreat a foreigner living among you. You know how a foreigner feels, because you were foreigners in the land of Egypt.

9Also thou shalt not oppress a stranger: for ye know the heart of a stranger, seeing ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.

NoteA "foreigner living among you" (Hebrew ger) is a specific legal category: someone resident long-term in Israel but outside the family and clan networks that owned land and defended a person's rights in court. Such a person had no kin to speak for him, which is why the law repeatedly singles him out for protection.

10For six years you are to plant your land and gather in what it produces.

10And six years thou shalt sow thy land, and shalt gather in the fruits thereof:

11But in the seventh year you are to let it rest and lie unused, so that the poor among your people may eat from it. What they leave, the wild animals may eat. Do the same with your vineyard and your olive grove.

11But the seventh year thou shalt let it rest and lie still; that the poor of thy people may eat: and what they leave the beasts of the field shall eat. In like manner thou shalt deal with thy vineyard, and with thy oliveyard.

NoteThis is the sabbatical or seventh year, applied to farmland. Leaving a field unsown for a year was a recognized way of restoring soil, but the law's stated reason is social: whatever grows of itself is left for the poor and then for wild animals, rather than being harvested by the owner.

12For six days you are to do your work, and on the seventh day you are to rest. Then your ox and your donkey may rest, and the son of your female servant, and the foreigner living among you, may be refreshed.

12Six days thou shalt do thy work, and on the seventh day thou shalt rest: that thine ox and thine ass may rest, and the son of thy handmaid, and the stranger, may be refreshed.

Note"Refreshed" translates a Hebrew verb meaning to catch one's breath. The people named (the draft animals, the household slave born in the house, and the resident foreigner) are precisely those with no power to claim a day off for themselves.

13Be careful about everything I have said to you. Do not speak the names of other gods; those names must not be heard from your mouth.

13And in all things that I have said unto you be circumspect: and make no mention of the name of other gods, neither let it be heard out of thy mouth.

Note"Speaking the name" of a god meant more than mentioning it: names of gods were invoked in oaths, contracts, curses and prayers, which was how one called on that god to act. The prohibition is on that use, not on the word itself.

14Three times a year you are to hold a feast in my honor.

14Three times thou shalt keep a feast unto me in the year.

NoteThese are pilgrimage festivals: three times a year the people were to travel to the sanctuary rather than mark the day at home. All three are tied to the farming year, spring barley, early summer wheat, and the autumn fruit harvest.

15You are to keep the Feast of Bread Without Yeast. For seven days you are to eat bread made without yeast, as I commanded you, at the set time in the month of Abib, because that was when you came out of Egypt. No one is to come before me empty-handed.

15Thou shalt keep the feast of unleavened bread: (thou shalt eat unleavened bread seven days, as I commanded thee, in the time appointed of the month Abib; for in it thou camest out from Egypt: and none shall appear before me empty:)

NoteBread without yeast is quick bread, made without waiting for dough to rise. Abib (later called Nisan) is the month of the barley harvest, roughly March–April. "Empty-handed" means without an offering: appearing before a superior, human or divine, without a gift in hand was an insult in the ancient world.

16You are to keep the Feast of Harvest, with the first crops that come from what you planted in your field. And you are to keep the Feast of Gathering In, at the end of the year, when you gather in from the field what your work produced.

16And the feast of harvest, the firstfruits of thy labours, which thou hast sown in the field: and the feast of ingathering, which is in the end of the year, when thou hast gathered in thy labours out of the field.

NoteThe Feast of Harvest, at the end of the wheat harvest, came to be called Weeks, and later Pentecost. "First crops" (firstfruits) are the opening portion of a harvest, handed over before the rest is used. The Feast of Gathering In, at the close of the fruit and olive harvest in autumn, came to be called Booths or Tabernacles. "The end of the year" reflects an agricultural year that turned over in the autumn, after everything was gathered.

17Three times a year all your males are to appear before the Lord GOD.

17Three times in the year all thy males shall appear before the LORD God.

Note"All your males" defines who was legally obliged to make the journey; it does not say others were excluded. "Appear before" is court language for presenting oneself to a king, here, at the sanctuary. In verse 19 and elsewhere, LORD printed in small capitals stands for the personal name of Israel's God, which the Hebrew text writes but tradition avoided pronouncing; "Lord GOD" here renders a doubled title, roughly "the Master, the LORD".

18Do not offer the blood of my sacrifice along with anything made with yeast, and do not let the fat of my sacrifice stay until morning.

18Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leavened bread; neither shall the fat of my sacrifice remain until the morning.

NoteIn a sacrifice the blood was thrown against the altar and the fat burned; both were treated as belonging to God and never eaten. This rule keeps yeast away from that offering and forbids leaving the fat overnight, meat kept until morning in that climate was spoiled, and offering it was treated as contempt.

19Bring the best of the first crops of your land into the house of the LORD your God. Do not boil a young goat in its mother's milk.

19The first of the firstfruits of thy land thou shalt bring into the house of the LORD thy God. Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother’s milk.

Note"The house of the LORD" is the sanctuary, at this stage the portable tent, later the temple. The rule about the young goat is stated without a reason; suggestions have ranged from a Canaanite ritual the law is rejecting to simple revulsion at cooking an animal in what fed it. Later Jewish practice took it as the basis for keeping meat and milk apart.

20Look, I am sending an angel ahead of you, to guard you on the way and to bring you to the place I have prepared.

20Behold, I send an Angel before thee, to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared.

NoteThe Hebrew word translated "angel" (mal'akh) means simply "messenger", one sent to speak and act for the sender. Whether the figure here is distinguishable from God himself is left unresolved by the text.

21Pay attention to him and obey his voice. Do not defy him, because he will not forgive your rebellion, for my name is in him.

21Beware of him, and obey his voice, provoke him not; for he will not pardon your transgressions: for my name is in him.

NoteIn the ancient Near East an envoy who carried his master's name carried his master's authority: to defy the envoy was to defy the king who sent him, and the envoy could not waive an offense against his master. That is the legal idiom being used.

22But if you truly obey his voice and do everything I say, then I will be an enemy to your enemies and a foe to your foes.

22But if thou shalt indeed obey his voice, and do all that I speak; then I will be an enemy unto thine enemies, and an adversary unto thine adversaries.

23For my angel will go ahead of you and bring you in to the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Canaanites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, and I will wipe them out.

23For mine Angel shall go before thee, and bring thee in unto the Amorites, and the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Canaanites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites: and I will cut them off.

NoteThese six peoples are the populations of Canaan as the Bible lists them; such lists were conventional and vary in length elsewhere. The Amorites and Hittites were also names of major powers known across the wider region, and the Jebusites were associated with the town later called Jerusalem.

24Do not bow down to their gods or serve them or copy what they do. Instead, you are to tear them down completely and smash their sacred stones to pieces.

24Thou shalt not bow down to their gods, nor serve them, nor do after their works: but thou shalt utterly overthrow them, and quite break down their images.

Note"Sacred stones" translates massebot: upright stone pillars set up at a place of worship to mark the presence of a god. They were a normal feature of Canaanite shrines, and archaeologists have found rows of them at sites across the region.

25You are to serve the LORD your God, and he will bless your bread and your water. And I will take sickness away from among you.

25And ye shall serve the LORD your God, and he shall bless thy bread, and thy water; and I will take sickness away from the midst of thee.

26In your land nothing will lose its young before birth, and nothing will be unable to bear young. I will give you the full number of your days.

26There shall nothing cast their young, nor be barren, in thy land: the number of thy days I will fulfil.

NoteThe Hebrew is unspecific about who or what is meant. The King James "cast their young" reads it of livestock miscarrying, other translations read it of women; the promise of full-term births and fertility covers flocks, herds and people alike. "The full number of your days" means a complete lifespan rather than a life cut short.

27I will send terror of me ahead of you, and I will throw into confusion all the people you come to, and I will make all your enemies turn their backs and run from you.

27I will send my fear before thee, and will destroy all the people to whom thou shalt come, and I will make all thine enemies turn their backs unto thee.

Note"Terror of me" is a set phrase for the panic that spreads ahead of an advancing army. "Turn their backs" is the Hebrew idiom for breaking and running in battle.

28And I will send hornets ahead of you, which will drive the Hivites, the Canaanites, and the Hittites out from in front of you.

28And I will send hornets before thee, which shall drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite, from before thee.

NoteThe Hebrew word tsir'ah occurs only here and in two related passages, and its meaning is uncertain. It is traditionally translated "hornet", but has also been read as a figure for panic or dread, or as a reference to Egyptian military campaigns, whose royal emblem was a bee.

29I will not drive them out from in front of you in a single year, or the land would become empty and the wild animals would grow too many for you.

29I will not drive them out from before thee in one year; lest the land become desolate, and the beast of the field multiply against thee.

30Little by little I will drive them out from in front of you, until you have grown in number and take the land as your own.

30By little and little I will drive them out from before thee, until thou be increased, and inherit the land.

31And I will set your borders from the Red Sea all the way to the Sea of the Philistines, and from the desert to the River. For I will hand the people living in the land over to you, and you will drive them out from in front of you.

31And I will set thy bounds from the Red sea even unto the sea of the Philistines, and from the desert unto the river: for I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hand; and thou shalt drive them out before thee.

NoteThese are the widest borders the Bible ever claims. "Red Sea" translates yam suph, literally "sea of reeds", used of the Gulf of Aqaba and its northern waters; the "Sea of the Philistines" is the Mediterranean, named for the people who occupied its southern coastal plain; "the desert" is the wilderness to the south; and "the River", with no other name attached, is the standard way of referring to the Euphrates.

32Do not make any agreement with them or with their gods.

32Thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor with their gods.

NoteA covenant here is a formal treaty between peoples, of the kind kings made across the ancient Near East. Such treaties were sworn in the names of the gods of both sides, who were called on as witnesses and enforcers, which is why making one "with them" also involved their gods.

33They are not to live in your land, or they will make you sin against me. For if you serve their gods, it will certainly become a trap for you.

33They shall not dwell in thy land, lest they make thee sin against me: for if thou serve their gods, it will surely be a snare unto thee.

Note"Snare" is a hunting term: the hidden trap or net a bird walks into without seeing it.