Exodus 22.18-31-The Lord Gives Moses Social And Purity Laws
Wenstrom Bible Ministries
Pastor-Teacher Bill Wenstrom
Sunday February 26, 2012
Journey Through The Bible Series: Exodus 22:18-31-The Lord Gives Moses Social And Purity Laws
Lesson # 24
Please turn in your Bibles to Exodus 22:18.
Exodus chapter 22 records the Lord giving to the Israelites property, social and purity laws on Mount Sinai.
In Exodus 22:1-17, the Lord gives the Israelites property laws.
This morning, we will complete our study of Exodus chapter 22 by noting verses 18-31, which contain social and purity laws.
Exodus 22:18 “You shall not allow a sorceress to live. 19 Whoever lies with an animal shall surely be put to death. 20 He who sacrifices to any god, other than to the Lord alone, shall be utterly destroyed. 21 You shall not wrong a stranger or oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. 22 You shall not afflict any widow or orphan. 23 If you afflict him at all, and if he does cry out to Me, I will surely hear his cry; 24 and My anger will be kindled, and I will kill you with the sword, and your wives shall become widows and your children fatherless. 25 If you lend money to My people, to the poor among you, you are not to act as a creditor to him; you shall not charge him interest. 26 If you ever take your neighbor’s cloak as a pledge, you are to return it to him before the sun sets, 27 for that is his only covering; it is his cloak for his body. What else shall he sleep in? And it shall come about that when he cries out to Me, I will hear him, for I am gracious. 28 You shall not curse God, nor curse a ruler of your people. 29 You shall not delay the offering from your harvest and your vintage. The firstborn of your sons you shall give to Me. 30 You shall do the same with your oxen and with your sheep. It shall be with its mother seven days; on the eighth day you shall give it to Me. 31 You shall be holy men to Me, therefore you shall not eat any flesh torn to pieces in the field; you shall throw it to the dogs.” (NASB95)
In verses 18-20, the Lord lists three sins that demanded the death penalty.
The first deals with prohibition of the practice of witchcraft.
The second prohibits bestiality (cf. Leviticus 20:16; Deuteronomy 27:21), which was prominent in the worship of Baal by the Canaanites (Leviticus 18:23-24).
The third prohibits sacrifices to any god other than the Lord (cf. Exodus 20:3-5).
Each of these forbidden practices, witchcraft, bestiality and polytheism led people away from faith in Yahweh.
In verse 18, “a sorceress” is the verb kā∙šǎp̄, which refers to an individual who practices witchcraft or sorcery in other words is involved with the black magic arts.
It refers to an individual who practices magic by using occult formulas, incantations and mystic utterings.
Witchcraft was outlawed in Israel (Exodus 22:18; Deuteronomy 18:10-12).
Therefore, verse 18 condemns witchcraft, which is condemned throughout the Old Testament (Leviticus 19:25; Deuteronomy 18:8-14; 2 Kings 9:21-26; 17:17; Jeremiah 27:8-11; Micah 5:10-15; Nahum 3:1-4; Malachi 3:5) as well as the New Testament (Acts 8:9ff; 13:6-8; 19:19).
In verse 19, “lies” is the verb šā∙ḵǎḇ (שָׁכַב) (shaw-kab´), which refers to “sexual intercourse” and in this verse it is used in a prohibition that forbids any Israelite having sex with an animal.
Thus, this verse forbids bestiality.
Verse 20 forbids polytheism, which recalls Exodus 20:3-5.
This verse makes clear that Yahweh tolerated no rivals.
The Lord teaches the Israelites in verses 21-27 that He is deeply concerned about the welfare of the disadvantage and unprotected.
The terms “stranger,” “widows,” and “orphans” is not an exhaustive list but rather presents a wide range of individuals in ancient times who were mistreated.
These verses made clear that it was the personal responsibility of the Israelites to care for these people and protect and provide for them.
No governmental welfare system existed in Israel because of this requirement.
In verse 21, the Lord teaches the Israelites to not discriminate against foreigners or aliens because they too were aliens or strangers in Egypt for over four hundred years.
A resident alien was a person who moved into an area where he had neither land nor clan ties and would be without traditional tribal legal support and protection and would be vulnerable to abuse and exploitation.
Thus, the Israelites were prohibited by God for taking advantage of resident aliens, which was common in the ancient world.
Thus, God does not want the Israelites to engage in a practice of discriminating against aliens when they were themselves at one time aliens or foreigners residing in Egypt for over four hundred years.
Then, in verses 22-24, He instructs them to not take advantage or abuse widows and orphans since He will take up their cause and punish those who are guilty of this crime.
The Old Testament teaches the Israelites to have a compassionate concern for widows, which of course reflects the Lord’s concern for them (Exodus 22:22; Deuteronomy 10:18; 14:29; 24:17; Psalm 94:6; Isaiah 1:17; Malachi 3:5) and was adopted by the first century apostolic church (Acts 6:1; James 1:27).
In fact, the office of deacon in the first century apostolic church came into existence to deal with the problem of the caring of widows in the Christian community (Acts 6:1-10).
In the Old Testament, widows along with orphans, strangers and the poor helped to compose a group of disadvantaged people in Israel (Exodus 22:21-22; Isaiah 1:23; 10:2; Jeremiah 5:28).
God in His grace made special provisions for the protection of this group (Leviticus 22:13; Deuteronomy 10:18).
For instance, during the harvest, field gleanings were to be left for the widow and the orphan (Deuteronomy 24:19-22).
Also, the levirate marriage was put into effect when a widow was also without a male child (Deuteronomy 25:5-10).
The Lord promised that He would personally uphold and defend the rights of the widow (Deuteronomy 10:18; Proverbs 15:25).
However, despite these provisions for the protection and maintaining the rights of the widow in Israel, the Old Testament reveals that the widow had a difficult time of it.
They were exploited and abused (Isaiah 1:23; Ezekiel 22:7).
Thus, widowhood was considered by many to be a reproach (Isaiah 4:1).
In verse 24, the Lord says that if the Israelites abuse and exploit widows and orphans then He will punish them severely by making their wives widows and their children orphans.
This would be accomplished by defeat on the battlefield, which is denoted by the term “sword,” which is often used in the Old Testament and New Testament as metonymy for “war” (cf. Exodus 17:13; Leviticus 26:6; Deuteronomy 32:24; 2 Samuel 1:12; 2:26).
Thus, one of the reasons for the defeat of Israel on the battlefield at the hands of the Assyrians, Babylonians and Romans was their terrible abuse and exploitation of orphans and widows in their communities.
The Lord is warning the Israelites that if they do not practice social justice then He would allow Israel’s enemies to kill them.
The Lord instructs the Israelites in verses 25-27 that borrowing and lending are acceptable practices.
However, charging interest was forbidden and any other exploitive practice (cf. Leviticus 25:36-37; Deuteronomy 23:19-20).
Therefore, in Israel, loans were to be interest free (Deuteronomy 15:7-11; 23:19-20).
In verse 25, the Israelites are prohibited from acting as a creditor to a fellow poor Israelite and charging them interest.
In verse 26, they are told to return their fellow poor Israelite’s cloak before the sun sets, which was given as a pledge.
The reason is that this cloak is their only means of protecting themselves from the elements.
The Lord promises in verse 27 to take up the cause of the poor if they cry out to Him for justice.
In the ancient world, people would use things like a cloak as “collateral” for a loan to assure the lender that they will repay.
Now, this law in verses 25-27 presumes that most people have property that is not essential to maintain human life.
However, this is not the case with the poor who would have to put up an item as collateral which is essential for their survival.
Thus, the Lord does not want the poor to be put in danger by putting up their cloaks or any other item for collateral to a lender.
So in verses 25-27, the Lord prohibits the Israelites charging interest for a loan to their follow citizens.
The pagan nations around Israel charged very high interest rates.
Some were as high as fifty percent or more.
In the case of borrowing food, it was common to charge thirty-three and one-third percent.
If it was a loan of money, the rate would be twenty percent.
Thus, for the Jews to not charge interest for loans was totally unique in the ancient world.
However, the Israelites were guilty of charging interest to their fellow citizens and were judged for it (cf. Ezekiel 18:8, 13, 17; 22:12; Nehemiah 5:6-13).
Exodus 22:21-27 teaches the Israelites that they are to be compassionate and kind to others especially to the disadvantage and helpless.
God’s love is “compassionate” meaning that God intensely desires and will act to alleviate the pain and suffering of another or remove its cause (1 John 3:16-17).
Thus, the Israelites as His representatives to the world, were to reflect His love by being compassionate to the disadvantage and non-citizens.
In Exodus 22:28, the Lord prohibits the Israelites from cursing Him or their leaders.
The prohibition of not cursing the Lord is designed to produce reverence for Him among the Israelites.
The Lord prohibits the Israelites from cursing their governmental leaders in order to instill in them a respect for authority that He has delegated to human leaders.
Romans 13:1-7 teaches that all governmental leaders whether in Israel or the Gentile nations are servants of God.
Thus, for an Israelite citizen to disrespect the governmental leader of his country was to disrespect God.
The Bible does teach that there are certain circumstances in which the Christian is justified in disobeying the governmental authorities.
This is called “civil disobedience,” which is the performance of an intentional act that is prohibited by the civil authorities or a refusal to perform an act that is required by the civil authority (The Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, Second Edition, page 263).
Christians are commanded to obey the Lord their God (Deuteronomy 13:4; Jeremiah 7:23; John 14:15) and they are also called upon to obey the governing authorities (Romans 13:1-7; 1 Peter 2:13-17; Titus 3:1).
However, civil disobedience becomes an issue for the Christian when these two claims upon the Christian come into conflict meaning when God commands us to do something like proclaim the gospel and teach the Word of God and the civil authorities prohibit this.
The solution to this conflict is that the Christian is to obey God.
This is illustrated in Acts 5:27-32 when the apostles were commanded by the Jewish authorities to not proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ and Peter told them “we must obey God rather than men.”
In Exodus 1, the Egyptian midwives disobeyed Pharaoh of Egypt’s command to murder infant boys who were born to the Israelite women since murder is against the law of God (Genesis 9:5-6).
There was a similar situation in contemporary history where German Christians under Hitler’s Nazi regime rightly refused to hand over Jews to be murdered for the same reason why the Egyptian midwives refused to murder Jewish boys since murder is against the law of God.
Jude 5-9 reveals that even Michael the elect angel respects the authority of Satan who exercises temporary authority over the earth.
Now, if Michael the elect angel respects the authority of the author of evil, Satan himself, how much more should Christians obey the governmental authorities in their own nation, no matter how corrupt or evil?
Exodus 22:29 requires that the Israelites not withhold their harvest or vintage, which reflects an act of defiance against the Lord.
It was an open refusal to cooperate with the Lord’s covenant by keeping from Him those things which originate from Him and belong to Him.
The commands “the firstborn of your sons you shall give to Me” and “You shall do the same with your oxen and with your sheep” in Exodus 22:29-30 recall Exodus 13:2, 12-13.
Since the Lord spared the firstborn children of the Israelites and the firstborn of their flocks in Egypt, the Israelites were obligated to dedicate to the Lord their firstborn children and those from their flocks.
The Israelites were to dedicate to the Lord their firstborn sons as well as the firstborn male of every beast they own when they enter the land of Canaan.
The animals are included since they benefited from the deliverance in Egypt and were spared because of the blood of the Passover lamb that was spread on the doorpost and lintel of every Israelite home.
Not only were the firstborns in Israel required to be dedicated to the Lord as well as the animals but the firstborn males were to be redeemed at eight days old according to Exodus 13:13.
Numbers 18:15-16 teaches that the firstborn of man was to be redeemed by their fathers and the redemption price was five shekels in silver.
In verse 31, the Israelites are told by God to be holy men to Him meaning they were to reflect His standards and practices rather than the standards and practices of the heathen peoples around them.
Thus, this verse says that the Israelites were prohibited from eating the meat of animals killed by other animals, which would still contain some of the blood.
There was a health concern with this prohibition since scavenged meet that had been dead for some time was subject to contamination.
Leviticus 7:24, 17:15 and 22:8 contains similar laws to the one presented here in Exodus 22:31.
The repetition of this prohibition in the Law emphasizes the seriousness of this law to the Israelites, which must be conscientiously practiced by them.