Jamieson, Fausset & Brown

On Exodus 23:10-11

six years thou shalt sow thy land - intermitting the cultivation of the land every seventh year. But it appears that even then there was a spontaneous produce which the poor were permitted freely to gather for their use, and the beasts driven out fed on the remainder, the owners of fields not being allowed to reap or collect the fruits of the vineyard or oliveyard during the course of this sabbatical year. This was a regulation subservient to many excellent purposes; for, besides inculcating the general lesson of dependence on Providence, and of confidence in His faithfulness to His promise respecting the triple increase on the sixth year (Lev 25:20-21), it gave the Israelites a practical proof that they held their properties of the Lord as His tenants, and must conform to His rules on pain of forfeiting the lease of them.

John Gill

On Exodus 23:10

And six years thou shall sow thy land, The land of Canaan, given to their ancestors and to them, and which they were now going to inherit; and when they came into it they were to plant it with vines and olives; or rather, these being ready planted, they were to prune and dress them; and they were to till their land, and plough it, and sow it with various sorts of grain, for six years running, from the time of their possession of it:

and shall gather in the fruits thereof; corn and wine, and oil, into their own garners, treasuries, and cellars, as their own property, to dispose of as they pleased for their own use and profit.

Keil & Delitzsch

On Exodus 23:1-13

Lastly, no one was to violate another's rights. - Exo 23:1. "Thou shalt not raise (bring out) an empty report." שׁוא שׁמע, 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" (להטּות), 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 הדר is applied to favour shown to the great or mighty, overthrows Knobel's conjecture, that גּדל should be read for ודל, 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 מעזב וחדלתּ, "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 התעלּמתּ לא, "withdraw not thyself," is substituted for מעזב חדלתּ, and עמּו תּקים הקם, "set up with him," for עמּו תּעזב עזב. From this it is obvious that עזב 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 (פּקחים 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 (שׁמט 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." הנּפשׁ: lit., to breathe one's self, to draw breath, i.e., to refresh one's self (cf. Exo 31:17; Sa2 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.

Matthew Henry

On Exodus 23:10-19

Here is, I. The institution of the sabbatical year, Exo 23:10, Exo 23:11. Every seventh year the land was to rest; they must not plough nor sow it at the beginning of the year, and then they could not expect any great harvest at the end of the year: but what the earth did produce of itself should be eaten from hand to mouth, and not laid up. Now this was designed, 1. To show what a plentiful land that was into which God was bringing them - that so numerous a people could have rich maintenance out of the produce of so small a country, without foreign trade, and yet could spare the increase of every seventh year. 2. To remind them of their dependence upon God their great landlord, and their obligation to use the fruit of their land as he should direct. Thus he would try their obedience in a matter that nearly touched their interest. Afterwards we find that their disobedience to this command was a forfeiture of the promises, Ch2 36:21. 3. To teach them a confidence in the divine Providence, while they did their duty - that, as the sixth day's manna served for two day's meat, so the sixth year's increase should serve for two years' subsistence. Thus they must learn not to take thought for their life, Mat 6:25. If we are prudent and diligent in our affairs, we may trust Providence to furnish us with the bread of the day in its day.

II. The repetition of the law of the fourth commandment concerning the weekly sabbath, Exo 23:12. Even in the year of rest they must not think that the sabbath day was laid in common with the other days, but, even that year, it must be religiously observed; yet thus some have endeavoured to take away the observance of the sabbath, by pretending that every day must be a sabbath day.

III. All manner of respect to the gods of the heathen is here strictly forbidden, Exo 23:13. A general caution is prefixed to this, which has reference to all these precepts: In all things that I have said unto you, be circumspect. We are in danger of missing our way on the right hand and on the left, and it is at our peril if we do; therefore we have need to look about us. A man may ruin himself through mere carelessness, but he cannot save himself without great care and circumspection: particularly, since idolatry was a sin which they were much addicted to, and would be greatly tempted to, they must endeavour to blot out the remembrance of the gods of the heathen, and must disuse and forget all their superstitious forms of speech, and never mention them but with detestation. In Christian schools and academies (for it is in vain to think of reforming the play-houses), it were to be wished that the names and stories of the heathen deities, or demons rather, were not so commonly and familiarly used as they are, even with intimations of respect, and sometimes with forms of invocation. Surely we have not so learned Christ.

IV. Their solemn religious attendance on God in the place which he should choose is here strictly required, Exo 23:14-17. 1. Thrice a year all their males must come together in a holy convocation, that they might the better know and love one another, and keep up their communion as a dignified and peculiar people. 2. They must come together before the Lord (Exo 23:17) to present themselves before him, looking towards the place where his honour dwelt, and to pay their homage to him as their great Lord, from and under whom they held all their enjoyments. 3. They must feast together before the Lord, eating and drinking together, in token of their joy in God and their grateful sense of his goodness to them; for a feast is made for laughter, Ecc 10:19. O what a good Master do we serve, who has made it our duty to rejoice before him, who feasts his servants when they are in waiting! Never let religion be called a melancholy thing, when its solemn services are solemn feasts. 4. They must not appear before God empty, Exo 23:15. Some free-will offering or other they must bring, in token of their respect and gratitude to their great benefactor; and, as they were not allowed to come empty-handed, so we must not come to worship God empty-hearted; our souls must be filled with grace, with pious and devout affections, holy desires towards him, and dedications of ourselves to him, for with such sacrifices God is well-pleased. 5. The passover, pentecost, and feast of tabernacles, in spring, summer, and autumn, were the three times appointed for their attendance: not in winter, because travelling was then uncomfortable; not in the midst of their harvest, because then they were otherwise employed; so that they had no reason to say that he made them to serve with an offering, or wearied them with incense.

V. Some particular directions are here given about the three feasts, though not so fully as afterwards. 1. As to the passover, it was not to be offered with leavened bread, for at that feast all leaven was to be cast out, nor was the fat of it to remain until the morning, lest it should become offensive, Exo 23:18. 2. At the feast of pentecost, when they were to begin their harvest, they must bring the first of their first-fruits to God, by the pious presenting of which the whole harvest was sanctified, Exo 23:19. 3. At the feast of ingathering, as it is called (Exo 23:16), they must give God thanks for the harvest-mercies they had received, and must depend upon him for the next harvest, and must not think to receive benefit by that superstitious usage of some of the Gentiles, who, it is said, at the end of their harvest, seethed a kid in its dam's milk, and sprinkled that milk-pottage, in a magical way, upon their gardens and fields, to make them more fruitful next year. But Israel must abhor such foolish customs.

Tyndale Study Notes

On Exodus 23:10-13

23:10-12 Renewal, rest (23:12), and refreshment are important. Just as humans and animals are to enjoy these in the weekly Sabbath, so the land is to be given rest every seven years (23:10-11; see study note on 20:8-11).

Tyndale Open Study Notes · CC BY-SA 4.0