Глава 23

1–9. Laws explaining the ninth commandment. 10–19. Laws on holidays and holidays. 20–33. The promise of protection to the people of Israel during the journey to the Promised Land, during its conquest and after settling in it. Ex.23:1. Do not listen to empty rumors, do not give your hand to the wicked to be a witness of untruth. The pronouncement of a fair verdict about the defendant is greatly hampered by the existence of various kinds of unreliable, false rumors about him. Therefore, in the name of justice, one should not spread anything bad about him, either invented by oneself or heard from others: one should not be a “carrier among the people” (Lev. 19:16, Proverbs 10:18, Ps. 100:5). Out of a desire to please the “great one” (Lev.19.15), who is striving to destroy an innocent defendant, one should not help him (“give a hand”) by false testimony against the accused. Such a witness will face the punishment established by law (Deut. 19:18–19, Proverbs 19:5, 9). Ex.23:2. Do not follow the majority out of evil, and do not resolve disputes by deviating from the truth for the majority; When testifying in court, one should not be guided by the opinion of the majority, but only by the truth. She does not need to change even in the case when the majority of witnesses show a deliberate lie in order to destroy the defendant (Prov. 18:5, Matt. 27:24–26, Mark 15:15, Luke 23:23, Acts 24:27, 25:9). Exodus 23:3. and do not condone the poor man's troubles. A lenient, compassionate attitude towards the poor (Ex. 22:22, 24, etc.) should not interfere with justice; if he is guilty, then he should be punished (Lev.19:15). Ex.23:4. If you find your enemy's ox or his donkey lost, bring it to him; Exodus 23:5. If you see your enemy’s donkey fallen under his burden, do not leave him; unload with him. Justice forces you to treat your enemy as a brother (Deut. 22:1–4). This idea is illustrated by two examples of helping the enemy in distress, and in the second case, help requires more selflessness, since it is much more difficult to work together with the enemy in his interests (“unburden with him”) than to help the enemy in his absence (Ex. 23:4). Ex.23:6. Do not misjudge the suit of your poor. Judging by the Hebrew "shafat", used to denote the activity of a judge, the requirement of this verse is no longer made to witnesses, but to judges. They pervert the case of the beggar when they take into account false testimony of witnesses and pronounce unjust sentences (Deut. 27:19, Isa. 10:1-2, Jer. 5:28). Although the rights of everyone, both rich and poor, should not be violated in court, the poor are spoken of because it is easier for the poor to suffer in court than for the rich. Exodus 23:7. Depart from unrighteousness and do not put to death the innocent and the righteous, for I will not justify the wicked. From the connection of the speech it is clear that untruth must be understood as a deliberately incorrect sentencing. It is the greater duty of the judge to avoid deliberately unjust sentences, since they lead the innocent to death, which does not go unpunished (Deut. 27:25, Proverbs 17:26, Jer. 7:6–7). Exodus 23:8. Do not accept gifts, for gifts make those who see blind and ruin the work of the righteous. A gift accepted from a litigant will involuntarily create such a disposition towards the defendant that the judge will lose the ability to correctly consider the case. Bribes make you not see untruth where it exists (Is. 33:15), and truth where it is undoubted. They blind the eyes of even the wise (Deut. 16:19, Sir. 20:29) and as a result they put an end to the work of the just - they take away the lawful from the right (Mic. 7:3). Exodus 23:9. Do not offend the stranger [or oppress him]: you know the soul of the stranger, because you yourself were strangers in the land of Egypt. The command: “thou shalt not offend the stranger” does not constitute a repetition of Ex. 22:21. There we were talking about relations between private individuals, here about legal proceedings. Aliens, as having submitted in a certain respect to the laws of the Jewish people, must be considered from the point of view of these laws: “there shall be one judgment for the Jew and for the alien” (Deut. 1:16, 24:17, 27:19). Ex.23:10. For six years you shall sow your land and gather in its produce, Exodus 23:11. and in the seventh, leave it alone, so that the poor of your people can eat, and the beasts of the field can eat the leftovers after them; You shall do likewise to your vineyard and to your olive tree. The continuation of the weekly Sabbath rest is the rest in the seventh Sabbath year. The land, uncultivated at this time, was regaining its natural strength, depleted by the previous six years of work. Everything that grew on it without the assistance of individuals (Lev.25:5) was a common property and therefore was the subject of free use by the poor. Ex.23:12. Six days you shall do your work, but on the seventh day you shall rest, so that your ox and your donkey may rest, and the son of your servant and the stranger may rest. The Sabbath rest law aims to restore the strength of slaves and livestock who were tired of six days' work. Exodus 23:13. Observe everything that I have told you, and do not mention the name of other gods; let it not be heard from your lips. Holiday times, which were a blessing for the Jews, were supposed to remind the people of the author of their establishment - God, and gratitude for the blessing naturally led to the exact fulfillment of His commands, excluding the possibility of thinking about other gods. Ex.23:14. Three times a year celebrate Me: Worship of the Most High should find its expression not only in one verbal confession of Him as the true God, but also in celebrating Him three times during the year. The three holidays listed below are closely related to the life of Jews as an agricultural people. Exodus 23:15. observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread: for seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, as I commanded you, at the appointed time of the month of Abib, for in it you came out of Egypt; and let them not come before Me empty-handed; The Feast of Unleavened Bread, the first day of which was the 15th of Abib (Lev.23:6), coincided with the beginning of the harvest (Exod.23:10, Deut.16:9), and therefore, in gratitude for the newly ripened bread and to gain the favor of God, on the second day of it, a sheaf of the firstfruits of the harvest was presented before the Lord (Lev.23:10, 11) and with At the same time, the eating of new bread was allowed (Lev.23:14). Exodus 23:16. Observe both the festival of harvesting the first fruits of your labor, which you sowed in the field, and the festival of gathering the fruits at the end of the year, when you harvest your work from the field. The holiday of the harvest of new fruits of the labor of the Jewish people (Lev. 23:16), the holiday of weeks (Ex. 23:15, Deut. 16:9), or Pentecost, was the holiday of “the firstfruits of the wheat harvest” (Ex. 34:22). The firstfruits of this latter, two sour loaves baked from the best new flour, were offered to the Lord as the first fruit (Lev. 23:16–17). The Feast of Gathering at the end of the year (Ex. 34:22), or the Feast of Tabernacles (Deut. 16:13), lasting seven days (Lev. 23:34, Num. 29:12), was a time of rejoicing and giving thanks to God for divine goodness, the visual manifestation of which the Jew saw in the collected fruits (Deut. 16:15). Exodus 23:17. Three times a year all your male sex shall appear before the presence of the Master, your Lord. Since the farmers saw in the listed holidays a manifestation of the beneficent hand of God, they gathered before “His face” to confess the Lord’s sovereignty (Deut. 16:16), i.e. to the tabernacle. Appeared to be male; the labor of cultivating the land lay on him, and therefore he had more grounds and incentives to glorify the one who gave the harvest; but his presence did not exclude the appearance of women on these holidays (1 Sam. 1:3–4, etc.). Ex.23:18. [When I drive out the heathen from before you and enlarge your borders], you shall not pour out the blood of My sacrifice on leaven, and the fat of My festival sacrifice shall not remain until the morning. Three special prescriptions relating to three annual holidays. The Greco-Slavic text at the beginning of verse 18 has an addition against the Hebrew text: ἐμπλατύνω τὰ ὅριά σου ", “When I will destroy the tongues from before you and enlarge your borders." This addition may have been transferred here from a parallel passage in Exodus 34:24–25 v. (it is not in some codes). “You shall not shed the blood of My sacrifice.” on (Hebrew "al") leavened." Since the Hebrew preposition “al” means not only “on”, but also “with”, the meaning of this prescription is that the Passover lamb, which was the sacrifice (see above interpretation of Article 3, Chapter 12), should not be eaten with leavened bread. “The fat of My festival sacrifice shall not remain until the morning”—the Passover sacrifice must not remain until the morning (Lev. 7:15, Exod. 12:10). Ex.23:19. You shall bring the firstfruits of your land to the house of the Lord your God. Do not boil a kid in its mother's milk. Since the general law regarding the dedication of the first fruits to God was previously announced (Ex. 22:29), the injunction of this verse cannot be considered a repetition of it. One might rather think that in the present case we are talking about bringing the firstfruits on the Feast of Weeks, or Pentecost. “Do not boil a kid in its mother’s milk.” The religious zeal of those who gathered for the great holidays could be expressed by the desire to use the best methods of preparing for food those parts of the sacrificial animals that were left for the use of both those who presented the animal as a sacrifice and the priests. The Jews themselves could learn by experience, and receive information from foreigners, that meat boiled in milk, especially the favorite meat of a kid (Gen. 27:9, Judges 6:19, 13:15, 1 Sam. 16:20), receives special tenderness. On a big holiday, at the sanctuary, there was enough motivation to cook meat in the most delicious way. The law does not prohibit boiling meat in milk: it only prohibits using the milk of a goat’s mother for this purpose, because natural feelings can be indignant at the use of mother’s milk for the most delicious preparation of her baby. Ex.23:20. Behold, I am sending [My] Angel before you to guard you on the way and to bring you to the place that I have prepared [for you]; Ex.23:21. watch yourself before His face and listen to His voice; do not persist against Him, for He will not forgive your sin, for My name is in Him. Exodus 23:22. [If you listen to My voice, and do everything that I tell you, and keep My covenant, then you will be My chosen people from all nations, for the whole earth is Mine; You will be to Me a royal priesthood and a holy nation. Speak these words to the children of Israel.] If you listen to His voice and do everything that I tell [you], then I will be an enemy of your enemies and an adversary of your adversaries. Exodus 23:23. When My angel goes before you and leads you to the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Canaanites, the [Girgashites,] the Hivites and the Jebusites, and I will destroy them [from before you], Ex.23:24. then do not worship their gods, and do not serve them, and do not imitate their deeds, but crush them and destroy their pillars: Ex.23:25. Serve the Lord your God, and He will bless your bread [and your wine] and your water; and I will turn away diseases from you. Ex.23:26. There will be no premature births or barren people in your land; I will make the number of your days complete. Exodus 23:27. I will send My terror before you, and I will confuse every nation to which you come, and I will turn the rear of all your enemies to you; Exodus 23:28. I will send hornets before you, and they will drive away from before you the [Amorites,] Hivites, [Jebusites,] Canaanites and Hittites; Ex.23:29. I will not drive them out from before you in one year, lest the land become desolate and the beasts of the field multiply against you: Ex.23:30. Little by little I will drive them away from you, until you multiply and take possession of this land. Ex.23:31. I will draw your borders from the Red Sea to the Philistine Sea and from the desert to the river [the great Euphrates], for I will deliver the inhabitants of this land into your hands, and you will drive them out from before you; Ex.23:32. [do not mix and] do not enter into an alliance with them or with their gods; Ex.23:33. They must not live in your land, lest they lead you into sin against Me; for if you serve their gods, it will be a snare for you. God's protection of the Jews will manifest itself in the embassy of an Angel, a guardian along the way (Exodus 23:20), the communication of new revelations (Exodus 23:21), based on obedience to God, the invincibility and well-being of the people (Exodus 23:22–26, Lev.26:9, Deut. 7:13, 28:11; Greek-Slavic text in Exodus 23 has an insertion borrowed from Exodus 19:5–6), in the conquest of the land of Canaan not so much by force of arms as by the power of divine assistance (Exodus 23:27–28, 15:14–16, Deut. 2:25, 7:19, Josh. 2:9, 24:13), in the gradual subjugation of the Canaanites ( Ex.23:29–30), as a means to ensure the development and strengthening of the Jews themselves, since with the rapid extermination of enemies the land would turn into a desert, and the Jews would have to suffer from wild animals (2 Kings 17:25, etc.), and, finally, in the granting of the land of Canaan as a lasting possession within the borders from the Red Sea to the Philistine Sea (Mediterranean) and from the desert (Arabia) to Euphrates River. 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