After the ten words come the “judgments” — the case law that shows what the commandments look like in daily life: servants who go free in the seventh year, oxen that gore, fires that spread, pledges that must be returned by nightfall. Running through all of it is one refrain: ye were strangers in the land of Egypt, so protect the stranger, the widow, the orphan. The section ends with a promise of an Angel to go before them into Canaan, with God’s own name in Him.
A study in Exodus 21-23 · Arthur Baldwin · StandUp4Jesus.Org · 9 min read
Now These Are The Judgments
“Now these are the judgments which thou shalt set before them.”
Exodus 21:1
The Ten Commandments were spoken by God’s own voice to the whole nation; the judgments are given privately to Moses to pass on. They are not a second law but the first one worked out in cases — what “thou shalt not steal” means when an ox eats a neighbour’s field, what “thou shalt not kill” means when a fight turns fatal. Principle, then application.
“That the obligations of the Decalogue might be more fully understood and enforced, additional precepts were given, illustrating and applying the principles of the Ten Commandments.”
Ellen G. White · Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 310
I Love My Master… I Will Not Go Out Free
“And if the servant shall plainly say, I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free: then his master shall bring him unto the judges… and his master shall bore his ear through with an aul; and he shall serve him for ever.”
Exodus 21:5-6
The very first judgment limits slavery: a Hebrew servant goes free in the seventh year, “for nothing.” A people just released from Egypt must never become Egypt. But there is a servant who does not want to leave — who loves the household and chooses to stay — and his ear is marked at the doorpost as a sign of it. Psalm 40 and Hebrews 10 take that willing servant as a picture of Christ: “mine ears hast thou opened… Lo, I come.”
Ye Know The Heart Of A Stranger
“Thou shalt neither vex a stranger, nor oppress him: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt. Ye shall not afflict any widow, or fatherless child. If thou afflict them in any wise, and they cry at all unto me, I will surely hear their cry.”
Exodus 22:21-23
The law keeps coming back to the people with no one to defend them, and it keeps giving the same reason: ye were strangers in the land of Egypt — and God heard your cry. A nation redeemed by a God who hears the oppressed is not allowed to become an oppressor. Their own history is written into their statute book.
“The Israelites had lately been servants themselves, and now that they were to have servants under them, they were to beware of indulging the spirit of cruelty and exaction from which they had suffered under their Egyptian taskmasters.”
Ellen G. White · Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 310
Thou Shalt Not Follow A Multitude To Do Evil
“Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil; neither shalt thou speak in a cause to decline after many to wrest judgment… And thou shalt take no gift: for the gift blindeth the wise, and perverteth the words of the righteous.”
Exodus 23:2, 8
The courtroom rules cut in every direction: do not side with a crowd, do not take bribes, do not even “countenance a poor man in his cause” just because he is poor — and, two verses later, do not “wrest the judgment of thy poor.” Justice is not partial to the rich or the poor. And it reaches to an enemy’s stray ox, which you must return.
Three Times Thou Shalt Keep A Feast
“Three times thou shalt keep a feast unto me in the year. Thou shalt keep the feast of unleavened bread… and the feast of harvest… and the feast of ingathering, which is in the end of the year.”
Exodus 23:14-16
Three times a year the men come before God — at Passover, at the wheat harvest (Pentecost), and at the autumn ingathering (Tabernacles). The calendar itself is built to keep gratitude regular. The New Testament finds Christ in each: the Passover Lamb, the Spirit poured out at Pentecost, and the final harvest still to come.
My Name Is In Him
“Behold, I send an Angel before thee, to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared. Beware of him, and obey his voice, provoke him not; for he will not pardon your transgressions: for my name is in him.”
Exodus 23:20-21
This is no ordinary angel. He can pardon transgressions or refuse to; God’s own name is in him. He is the One in the pillar of cloud and fire, the same “Angel of the covenant” who wrestled Jacob and spoke from the bush — a present Saviour leading Israel in, centuries before Bethlehem. The conquest of Canaan will be “by little and little,” at God’s pace, not Israel’s.
“During all the wanderings of Israel, Christ, in the pillar of cloud and of fire, was their Leader. While there were types pointing to a Saviour to come, there was also a present Saviour, who gave commands to Moses for the people, and who was set forth before them as the only channel of blessing.”
Ellen G. White · Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 311
