Explanation: The paintings above depict the three main subjects of chapter 23: Justice, Festivals, and Conquest. As the paintings intimate, justice is often denied; festivals are designed for enjoyment and sharing; and even strong enemies can be overcome. All of these were lessons the LORD sought to inculcate into the hearts and minds of the Israelites.
     Exodus 23 begins with a prohibition against spreading a false report and against aiding a malicious witness in his crime. The precept then broadens to include siding with a majority who are perverting justice in a lawsuit; and the converse -- being partial to the poor -- is also prohibited (1-3). The precept broadens yet again to include kindness to your enemy, specifically the command to help your enemy's straying or overburdened ox or donkey (4-5). The precept again focuses on injustice, forbidding oppression of the poor in lawsuits, forbidding false charges, and commanding that bribes must not be taken (6-8). As the poor must not be oppressed, so the sojourner must not be oppressed (9). As a practical means of avoiding oppression, fields must lie fallow in the seventh year of planting so that the poor and the beasts of the field may have something to eat; the same must be done with vineyards and olive orchards (10-11). Rest and refreshment must also be taken on a weekly basis -- on the Sabbath; and servants and aliens must also be allowed to rest weekly (12).
     They must pay attention only to the LORD, and other gods must not even be mentioned (13). In addition to a spirit of being attentive only to God at all times, they must also pay special attention to God three times a year -- at the Feast of Unleavened Bread; The Feast of the Harvest of the Firstfruits; and The Feast of Ingathering or (Final) Harvest; at those times all the males should appear before the Lord God (14-17). In those and other times blood sacrifices must not be offered with anything leavened; and no fat should remain till the morning (18). When Firstfruit offerings are made they should be from the best of the produce; and the pagan sacrifice of boiling a young goat in its mother's milk (perhaps to assure fertility of animals or crops), should not be made (19).
     Again they are told to pay attention -- this time to the Angel whom the LORD was sending before them into the land of their inheritance -- because the LORD's name was in him, and he would not pardon their iniquity (20-21). But if they were careful to obey his voice, then he would fight against their enemies (22). The Angel was going to bring them among the nations which were living in the land; and the Angel would blot them out; so they must not worship foreign gods; rather, they should destroy their items of worship; and the LORD would bless their bread and water and would remove sickness from them; they would be fertile and long-lived; and the LORD would drive out their enemies gradually so that the land would not become desolate and the beasts of the field would not multiply against them. And he would give them vast borders; so they should make no covenant with their enemies or their gods; the enemies must be removed from the land lest they be a snare to them (23-33).

     ²³ "When my angel goes before you and brings you to the Amorites and the Hittites and the Perizzites and the Canaanites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, and I blot them out, ²⁴ you shall not bow down to their gods nor serve them, nor do as they do, but you shall utterly overthrow them and break their pillars in pieces. ²⁵ You shall serve the LORD your God, and he will bless your bread and your water, and I will take sickness away from among you. ²⁶ None shall miscarry or be barren in your land; I will fulfill the number of your days. ²⁷ I will send my terror before you and will throw into confusion all the people against whom you shall come, and I will make all your enemies turn their backs to you. ²⁸ And I will send hornets before you, which shall drive out the Hivites, the Canaanites, and the Hittites from before you. ²⁹ I will not drive them out from before you in one year, lest the land become desolate and the wild beasts multiply against you. ³⁰ Little by little I will drive them out from before you, until you have increased and possess the land. ³¹ And I will set your border from the Red Sea to the Sea of the Philistines, and from the wilderness to the Euphrates, for I will give the inhabitants of the land into your hand, and you shall drive them out before you. ³² You shall make no covenant with them and their gods. ³³ They shall not dwell in your land, lest they make you sin against me; for if you serve their gods, it will surely be a snare to you."

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