Exodus 22:18-31 - Arthur Peake's Commentary on the Bible

Exodus 22:18-31 E. Various Ordinances. From this point up to Exodus 23:9 we have to do with miscellaneous laws, differing in the main both in form and substance from the Judgments, and therefore here regarded as belonging to the Book of the Covenant. But they may have come independently of either code. The death penalty for a sorceress (Exodus 22:18) sounds unduly severe, and this law may be taken as a classical instance of the progressive nature of revelation. Conditions change, and conscience gains light: hence Hebrew laws must not, it is at last perceived, bind Christian men, unless ratified afresh by the conscience. For lack of this perception witches were executed up to Exodus 17:16. But it is proper to note the tremendous power of magic in the ancient world and among heathen races to-day (cf. the eight types in Deuteronomy 18:10 f.), and its deadly nature as a negation of true religion. Magic proudly claims, by non-moral means, to master the powers of the unseen world: religion humbly seeks, through prayer, sacrifice, and service, to win effective fellowship with an unseen person (p. 174). And the modern application is, Thou shalt not suffer the magical idea or temper to live in the worship or institutions of religion. Unnatural forms of vice were rife in Canaan, and were made capital offences (Exodus 22:19, cf. H and D). Sacrifice to another god, as involving treason to the nation and its Divine Lord, was (Exodus 22:20) to be visited with the ban (i.e. devotion to Yahweh, the jealous God, by destruction, see pp. 99, 114). Consideration for the stranger or resident alien, to whom custom gave no legal status, as well as for the widow and orphan (Exodus 22:21-24), is a marked feature in the Hebrew laws: the clauses with plural ye are added notes. Legislators and prophets were perpetually alert to protect the weak against corrupt judges and the power of the purse generally. Here is one of the notes of a living religion. So, too, in times when commercial loans were unknown, and the only loans were of the nature of charity, it was natural that interest (usury in its old sense) should be prohibited (Exodus 22:25, see p. 112, Deuteronomy 23:19 f., Leviticus 25:36 f.*). But usury, in its present meaning of excessive interest, is still condemned by the spirit of this law. Loans on pledge were allowed, but a pledged mantle must be returned for use at night (Exodus 22:26 f., cf. Deuteronomy 24:6; Deuteronomy 24:10-13; Deuteronomy 23:19 f.). Special bedclothes are still strange to the poor of Palestine. In Exodus 22:28-31 we have a group more closely connected with religion. Irreverence (cf. Leviticus 24:15 H) and disrespect to rulers are condemned (Exodus 22:28). Firstfruits, firstborn, and firstlings were all due to God (Exodus 22:29 ff., see pp. 99, 102). Firstfruits are concisely specified (Exodus 22:29) as the full share (i.e. from the threshing-floor) and the tear-like trickling (i.e. from the winepress). It is not said here (Exodus 22:29 b) how the offering of firstborn boys was to be made (cf. Exodus 13:12 f.* J), but the obvious analogy of the firstlings (Exodus 22:30, give me, as Exodus 22:29 b) suggests that the form at least of the law goes back to the time when children were actually sacrificed (cf. Genesis 22*). In all three cases we have the survival of a primitive belief that life is sacred, and that the first, fresh products of fertilising power are specially fit for sacramental and sacrificial use (Numbers 3:11-13 *). It is a symbolical recognition of the need to consecrate the beginnings of enterprise, if real blessing is to follow. Observe that the sacrifice on the eighth day could only be at some near local shrine, not, as in D, at the central sanctuary; and that E says nothing of unclean animals like the ass, unless LXX rightly adds and thine ass (see Exodus 13:13 a J). This group closes with a law against eating any flesh that is torn of beasts in the field (Exodus 22:31), no doubt because the blood could not be properly drained from it (Genesis 9:4 *). The reason given, that they were to be holy men (Exodus 22:13 a), illustrates the process by which the word holy (i.e. devoted to or associated with God's life and being) was first practised upon the outward (what is ritually holy) and then applied to the moral and spiritual realm.