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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Exodus 23:1 - 23:1
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Lastly, no one was to violate another's rights. - Exo 23:1. “Thou shalt not raise (bring out) an empty report.” שָׁוְא שֵׁמַע, a report that has no foundation, and, as the context shows, does injury to another, charges him with wrongdoing, and involves him in legal proceedings. “Put not thine hand with a wicked man (do not offer him thy hand, or render him assistance), to be a witness of violence.” This clause is unquestionably connected with the preceding one, and implies that raising a false report furnishes the wicked man with a pretext for bringing the man, who is suspected of crime on account of this false report, before a court of law; in consequence of which the originator or propagator of the empty report becomes a witness of injustice and violence.
Exo 23:2-3
Just as little should a man follow a multitude to pervert justice. “Thou shalt not be behind many (follow the multitude) to evil things, nor answer concerning a dispute to incline thyself after many (i.e., thou shalt not give such testimony in connection with any dispute, in which thou takest part with the great majority), so as to pervert” (לְהַטֹּות), sc., justice. But, on the other hand, “neither shalt thou adorn the poor man in his dispute” (Exo 23:3), i.e., show partiality to the poor or weak man in an unjust cause, out of weak compassion for him. (Compare Lev 19:15, a passage which, notwithstanding the fact that הָדַר is applied to favour shown to the great or mighty, overthrows Knobel's conjecture, that גָּדֹל should be read for וְדָל, inasmuch as it prohibits the showing of favour to the one as much as to the other.)
Exo 23:4-5
Not only was their conduct not to be determined by public opinion, the direction taken by the multitude, or by weak compassion for a poor man; but personal antipathy, enmity, and hatred were not to lead them to injustice or churlish behaviour. On the contrary, if the Israelite saw his enemy's beast straying, he was to bring it back again; and if he saw it lying down under the weight of its burden, he was to help it up again (cf. Deu 22:1-4). The words וגו מֵעֲזֹב וְחָדַלְתָּ, “cease (desist) to leave it to him (thine enemy); thou shalt loosen it (let it loose) with him,” which have been so variously explained, cannot have any other signification than this: “beware of leaving an ass which has sunk down beneath its burden in a helpless condition, even to thine enemy, to try whether he can help it up alone; rather help him to set it loose from its burden, that it may get up again.” This is evident from Deu 22:4, where הִתְעַלַּמְתָּ לֹא, “withdraw not thyself,” is substituted for מֵעֲזֹב חָדַלְתָּ, and עִמֹּו תָּקִים הָקֵם, “set up with him,” for עִמֹּו תַּעֲזֹב עָזֹב. From this it is obvious that עָזַב is used in the first instance in the sense of leaving it alone, leaving it in a helpless condition, and immediately afterwards in the sense of undoing or letting loose. The peculiar turn given to the expression, “thou shalt cease from leaving,” is chosen because the ordinary course, which the natural man adopts, is to leave an enemy to take care of his own affairs, without troubling about either him or his difficulties. Such conduct as this the Israelite was to give up, if he ever found his enemy in need of help.
Exo 23:6-8
The warning against unkindness towards an enemy is followed by still further prohibitions of injustice in questions of right: viz., in Exo 23:6, a warning against perverting the right of the poor in his cause; in Exo 23:7, a general command to keep far away from a false matter, and not to slay the innocent and righteous, i.e., not to be guilty of judicial murder, together with the threat that God would not justify the sinner; and in Exo 23:8, the command not to accept presents, i.e., to be bribed by gifts, because “the gift makes seeing men (פִּקְחִים open eyes) blind, and perverts the causes of the just.” The rendering “words of the righteous” is not correct; for even if we are to understand the expression “seeing men” as referring to judges, the “righteous” can only refer to those who stand at the bar, and have right on their side, which judges who accept of bribes may turn into wrong.
Exo 23:9
The warning against oppressing the foreigner, which is repeated from Exo 22:20, is not tautological, as Bertheau affirms for the purpose of throwing suspicion upon this verse, but refers to the oppression of a stranger in judicial matters by the refusal of justice, or by harsh and unjust treatment in court (Deu 24:17; Deu 27:19). “For ye know the soul (animus, the soul as the seat of feeling) of the stranger,” i.e., ye know from your own experience in Egypt how a foreigner feels.
Exo 23:10-13
Here follow directions respecting the year of rest and day of rest, the first of which lays the foundation for the keeping of the sabbatical and jubilee years, which are afterwards instituted in Lev 25, whilst the latter gives prominence to the element of rest and refreshment involved in the Sabbath, which had been already instituted (Exo 20:9-11), and presses it in favour of beasts of burden, slaves, and foreigners. Neither of these instructions is to be regarded as laying down laws for the feasts; so that they are not to be included among the rights of Israel, which commence at Exo 23:14. On the contrary, as they are separated from these by Exo 23:13, they are to be reckoned as forming part of the laws relating to their mutual obligations one towards another. This is evident from the fact, that in both of them the care of the poor stands in the foreground. From this characteristic and design, which are common to both, we may explain the fact, that there is no allusion to the keeping of a Sabbath unto the Lord, as in Exo 20:10 and Lev 25:2, in connection with either the seventh year or seventh day: all that is mentioned being their sowing and reaping for six years, and working for six days, and then letting the land lie fallow in the seventh year, and their ceasing or resting from labour on the seventh day. “The seventh year thou shalt let (thy land) loose (שָׁמַט to leave unemployed), and let it lie; and the poor of thy people shall eat (the produce which grows of itself), and their remainder (what they leave) shall the beast of the field eat.” הִנָּפֵשׁ: lit., to breathe one's self, to draw breath, i.e., to refresh one's self (cf. Exo 31:17; 2Sa 16:14). - With Exo 23:13 the laws relating to the rights of the people, in their relations to one another, are concluded with the formula enforcing their observance, “And in all that I say to you, take heed,” viz., that ye carefully maintain all the rights which I have given you. There is then attached to this, in Exo 23:14, a warning, which forms the transition to the relation of Israel to Jehovah: “Make no mention of the name of other gods, neither let it be heard out of thy mouth.” This forms a very fitting boundary line between the two series of mishpatim, inasmuch as the observance and maintenance of both of them depended upon the attitude in which Israel stood towards Jehovah.