Exodus 23:1-33

23:1-8 | To act with integrity and to show mercy and humanity – even to one’s enemy – was essential to the Law. These verses anticipate the “Golden Rule” (Matt. 7:12; Rom. 12:20).

23:10-12 | The command to let the poor eat from the resting land in the seventh year is one of many passages in the Law that charged the wealthy to make provision for the impoverished (Lev. 19:9-10; 23:22; 25:25-38).

23:14-19 | Three annual feasts were appointed for Israel (Lev. 23), (1) the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which includes Passover; (2) Feast of Harvest, also known as the Feast of Weeks, or Pentecost; (3) Feast of Ingathering, or the Feast of Tabernacles (Sukkoth). You shall not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk (Deut. 14:21) prohibited the types of cruelty committed in ancient Canaanite sacrifices. Jewish authorities later interpreted this verse to mean that one must not eat dairy products with meat products – a standard law among observant Jewish people today.

23:20-23 | This Angel that the Lord sent to keep Israel on the right path may have been a special guardian angle (perhaps Michael; Dan. 12:1), but quite possibly, it was the Lord Himself or the preincarnate Christ (Gen. 24:7).

23:23-33 | The Lord had already announced the ban on the people of Canaan in His covenant with Abram (Gen. 15:16-21). The reasons for His judgment are given as well: their gods, their works. The Canaanites had polluted the Promised Land with their debased practices and would corrupt the people of Israel if allowed to remain in the land. God promised to not only deliver the enemy into Israel’s hands but bless Israel’s obedience.