Sundry Regulations Connected With the Feasts (Exodus 23:18-19).
These verses are almost paralleled in Exodus 34:25-26, which confirms that the four parts are all firmly connected together.
They can be analysed as follows:
a The blood of His sacrifice not to be offered with leavened bread (Exodus 23:18 a).
b The fat of His feast not to be left until the morning (Exodus 23:18 b).
b The first of the firstfruits of the ground to be brought to the house of ‘Yahweh Eloheyca' (Exodus 23:19 a).
a A kid not to be seethed in its mother's milk (Exodus 23:19 b).
The parallel of the first with the fourth where something stated is not to be connected with something unsuitable, together with the fact that the first three all refer to offerings to Yahweh, may suggest that the fourth item is also connected with a possible offering to Yahweh, and that to offer it in this way would be unsuitable and was forbidden.
“You shall not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leavened bread, nor shall the fat of my feast remain all night until the morning.”
The parallel passage in Exodus 34:25 has, ‘You shall not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leavened bread, nor shall the sacrifice of the feast of the Passover be left until the morning.' Thus ‘the fat of My feast' is paralleled by ‘the sacrifice of the feast of the Passover.
In all sacrifices the blood and the fat was offered to Yahweh. The eating of blood was forbidden. And when the blood of the sacrifice was offered to Yahweh only unleavened cakes were to be offered. This emphasised that leavening was seen as corrupting, and nothing corrupted was to be brought to Yahweh. This was speaking of the festal sacrifices. But the words ‘My sacrifice' and the connection with nothing ‘remaining until the morning' (compare Exodus 12:10) may be seen as signifying that the Passover is in mind here, especially in the light of Exodus 34:25.
Either way we too when we offer our sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving must ensure that all corruption in our lives has been removed by cleansing.
A rare exception to the rule of unleavened bread is found in Leviticus 7:13 with reference to a peace offering for thanksgiving, otherwise leavened bread is regularly forbidden. The regulations for freewill offerings were not quite so strict (Leviticus 22:23) for they were partaken of by the people. They were not as holy.
The fat was always offered immediately without delay, for it was specifically Yahweh's without exception, and to delay offering it would be insulting, and might also allow it to spoil and not be worthy of Yahweh. So corruption must not affect the sacrifices in any way.
“The fat of my feast.” This parallels ‘the blood of my sacrifice' in the first part of the verse and refers to the particular ‘feast to me' (Exodus 23:14-16) at which the offering was made. Thus it may be that we are to see ‘the fat of my feast' as signifying, not the fat of the sacrifice, but the abundance, the fullness, of what the Passover sacrifice signified. Nothing of the abundance of what He provided at this feast was to be left until the morning. This is confirmed by Exodus 34:25.
Others have seen ‘the fat of My feast' as referring to ‘the fat of the land' (Genesis 45:18), and as connecting with all the feasts, when what is offered must be properly enjoyed and not wasted. But there are good grounds for rather connecting it with the Passover for in Exodus 34:25 a parallel phrase speaks of ‘the sacrifice of the feast of the Passover'. There it is the whole sacrifice that must not be left until the morning (compare Exodus 12:10).
Thus this whole verse seems to have specific reference to the Passover sacrifice, called ‘My sacrifice' and My feast', demonstrating its special significance to God.
“The first of the firstfruits of your ground you shall bring to the house of Yahweh your God.”
Compare 34:26a. Wherever God revealed Himself could be called ‘the house of God' (Genesis 28:17), for it meant a dwelling-place, where God had revealed Himself. Here it therefore meant the place where God was approached, the Tent of Meeting and later the Tabernacle (Exodus 34:26). The first of the firstfruits may mean the choicest of the firstfruits or literally what ripened first. The point was that Yahweh would receive His portion before His people received theirs as an acknowledgement that what they received came from Him and belonged to Him. This may have special reference to the Feast of Harvest or Sevens (Weeks) where the firstfruits were especially offered (Exodus 23:16).
On the other hand the first of the firstfruits was offered on the first day of unleavened bread in the presentation of the first ripe sheaf (Leviticus 23:10-11). This might serve to confirm that Passover and Unleavened Bread are again in mind.
“You shall not seethe a kid in its mother's milk.”
Compare Exodus 34:26 b which demonstrates (as does the chiasmus here) that this is to be seen as an integral part of the series. If the connection of the other three items is with the Passover feasting it may suggest that this was also connected with the Passover feasting. Just as it was unseemly that the Passover be eaten with leavened bread, so was it unseemly that a kid eaten at the feast of Passover and Unleavened Bread be seethed in its mother's milk. The seething of kids in milk was certainly practised among the Arabs later, and there seems no reason why that should be condemned, the condemnation would therefore seem to be of its being in the milk of its mother.
But some have connected it with the Feast of Ingathering on the grounds that both Unleavened Bread and Harvest have been in mind in verses 18-19a, and it may be so. Either way the contrast is specifically with not offering the blood of the Passover lamb with unleavened bread. In the end the thought is that no kid that is seethed at any feast should be seethed in its mother's milk, because that would be an abomination to Yahweh.
It is thought by some that elsewhere among the nations kids were boiled in their mother's milk so that the resulting magical mixture could be sprinkled on the fields hoping to produce fertility. (It has been suggested that it is witnessed to, for example, in The Birth of the Gods, a Ugaritic text, but this suggested reference is now seen as misread). It may have been that this was so. But the more probable reason would seem to be that it was seen as unseemly that a calf should be boiled in what should rather have been seen as maintaining its life, that is, that it was seen as a contradiction in Creation that was unacceptable. It made the mother destroy her kid rather than sustaining it. It was an attack on the conception of motherhood that could not be allowed.
Compare Leviticus 20:12 where a man lies with both a mother and her daughter, and Exodus 18:23 where sexual relations with a beast is in mind, of both of which it is said, ‘it is confusion'. They were relationships which were not to be. Similarly this could be seen as ‘confusion'. A mother's role was to be seen as strictly that of life providing, and anything else a distortion of reality (compare the milder thought in Isaiah 49:15). Compare also how in Deuteronomy 14:21 the practise is connected with that of an Israelite eating something that ‘dies of itself'. Israelites and such dead meat were to be seen as incompatible. By this time it may be that the phrase ‘you shall not seethe a kid in its mother's milk' had become proverbial of any incompatible situation. But whatever the explanation it was a practise forbidden to Israel.
For us the lesson is clear. We are to have a regard to what is seemly and what is not. If we cannot see that to seethe a kid in its mother's milk could be seen as unseemly then there is little to be said for us. It would demonstrate a lack of appreciation of motherhood, and a lack of the sensitivity that all God's people should have, that could only condemn us. For this example stresses proper consideration of relationships, and that all distortions of motherhood are an abomination to God.