Exodus 22:16-23:9 | “The Priorities of the King”

Preston Highlands Baptist Church

The Law in Local Churches

The laws in chapters 21-23 are specific examples for how the general principles of the Ten Commandments can be applied in everyday situations. They’re expositions of the Ten Commandments. In 22:16-23:9, most of the laws are focused on how God’s people treat one another, what’s commonly called “social justice.” These laws show us that we’re not free to treat people however we want.

The laws we’re looking at in Exodus 21-23 originally shaped a nation, but now they shape local churches. 22:31 says, “You shall be consecrated to me,” or as the NIV says, “You are to be my holy people.” Peter tells Christians that the Lord’s desire for his people hasn’t changed, “As he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, ‘You shall be holy, for I am holy’” (1 Pet. 1:15-16).

The people of God should reflect the character of God so that those who don’t know God can see God in the people of God. In other words, our life together as a local church is a fundamental part of our evangelism. Our congregational character is our witness to the world. What people see in us will shape how they think of God.

The Lord wants to reveal his holiness and love to the world. Since Jesus’ arrival this revelation no longer comes through a specific ethnic group, but through Jesus’ followers who’re made up of people from all ethnic groups and gathered into local churches.

The way we live together and treat one another in the church must reflect the character of God. To the degree that it doesn’t, we’re giving God a bad name in the world, saying false things about him. Our world desperately needs to see true justice and mercy, true love and compassion, and the place God wants them to see it is in local churches. God is redeeming the world through healthy local churches.

Another good way to think of these rules is as the priorities of our King. These are the things he wants done in his kingdom, the things that our King values.

Sexual Ethics

The first two verses in our section (22:16-17) are an application of the seventh commandment about sexual ethics (20:14). This “virgin,” as the ESV footnote says, is a “girl of marriageable age.” In this scenario, she has not consented to sexual relations with this man. Because he has taken what is not his, he must pay the “bride-price” and marry her. If her dad doesn’t want her to marry him, the man must still pay up. Laws like this show us that sexual morality is a matter of justice. All sexual activity outside of marriage between a man and a woman is an injustice because it’s taking what isn’t yours.

Capital Offenses

The next three verses (vv. 18-20) list three crimes punishable by death. These laws are an application of the first and second commandments because they’re all deviations away from the true worship of God.

Verse 18 isn’t just a prohibition against female magicians. Leviticus 20:27 says, “A man or woman who is a medium or a necromancer shall surely be put to death.” Sorcery and mediums are forbidden by God’s people because they seek to coerce God to do what you want him to do, which is an afront to his kingship. Christians shouldn’t have their palms read or go to fortune tellers. We are free, however, to disagree over what level of engagement we have with entertainment or literature that employs magic. To be fair, if you choose to boycott Harry Potter, you may also need to boycott The Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia.

The death penalty associated with “lying with an animal” in verse 19 is because the practice was associated with the animal cults and fertility worship in Canaan and because it’s a flagrant disregard of God’s ordering of his creation.

Verse 20 gives the death penalty to those who worship anyone but the Lord. In a nation ruled by God, a theocracy, people who didn’t worship God properly were committing treason against their King. Some want to apply this principle today in order to make our society more Christian, but they fail to understand that conversion comes by the Spirit, not the sword.

Protecting the Immigrant

Verses 21-27 are about protecting the vulnerable. There are four categories of defenseless and disadvantaged people here: immigrant, widow, orphan, and poor.

The Lord begins with the immigrant in verse 21. A “sojourner” is someone from another place who doesn’t possess citizenship in the place they currently live. They were liable to exploitation because they didn’t have connections in the community because they weren’t from the community. “Oppress” means to “squeeze,” referring to all forms of physical and psychological oppression, whether harsh actions or unkind attitudes.

How do you see immigrants? More importantly, how does the Lord see them? Later in the law, he says he loves them. Deuteronomy 10:18, “(The Lord) loves the sojourner.” The Lord loves immigrants. Do you? If you’re an immigrant in our church, we love and welcome you and we want to help you as best we can.

This command has a theological purpose behind it. Israel must not oppress immigrants because they were immigrants (v. 21b). They knew what it was like to be foreigners in a foreign place. 23:9 says, “You know the heart of a sojourner.” Israel understood the fear and uncertainty and total vulnerability of being immigrants, so they must treat immigrants with care and respect.

The apostles applied this law to Christians, with Paul telling us Gentiles that we were “alienated” from God’s people and “strangers” to the covenant (Eph. 2:12), but that in Christ we’ve been given a permanent home. And Peter says that, because Christians are “sojourners and exiles” in this world, we shouldn’t live like the world (1 Pet. 2:11).

This means that, even if you’re not an immigrant ethnically or socially, if you’re a Christian, you’re an immigrant spiritually. You were born outside of Christ and God brought you into him and therefore wants you to live like him. Christians know what it’s like to be on the outside looking in, so we love and show compassion to the immigrants around us.

Protecting the Widow and Orphan

Verses 22-24 move to laws protecting the widow and orphan. “Mistreat” means to “abuse or humiliate.” The widow and fatherless are economically vulnerable because their breadwinner and defender is dead, so they were more exposed to those who’d want to take advantage of them.

There’s a promise and a warning here. The promise is that in verse 23 it says that the Lord hears the cries of orphans and widows (cf. 2:23-25). The Lord is a “Father to the fatherless and protector of widows” (Ps. 68:5, cf. 10:14).

Maybe you’re not an orphan but you grew up with parents who were distant or cold. Maybe they put food on the table and put you through school, but they missed your heart. The Lord hears your cries too. As King David says, “My father and my mother have forsaken me, but the Lord will take me in” (Ps. 27:10).

The warning is that if you mistreat widows and orphans, God will judge you (v. 24). The mistreatment is individual in nature (v. 23), but the punishment is plural – the “you” in verse 24 is plural. The Lord’s response is against the community because mistreating orphans and widows is a matter of public concern. In other words, the whole community is responsible because they all know who the widows and orphans are and they choose to stand idly by while they were being mistreated.

When orphans and widows are mistreated, the Lord himself intervenes with righteous indignation. The Lord cares deeply for the vulnerable because no one else does.

Taking care of orphans and widows is high on God’s priority list. James, the half-brother of Jesus, understood this. He wrote, “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction” (Js. 1:27).

Not all of us are called to foster or adopt, or to take in a widow. But we’re all called to consider it, pray about it, seek counsel about it, and do whatever we can to help those who do.

Protecting the Poor

Verses 25-27 are laws to protect the poor. Verse 25 doesn’t mean the Israelites could never charge interest (cf. Deut. 23:20). The law is more about the attitude God’s people take toward those who’re struggling.

Verses 26-27 are about someone in extreme poverty, someone so poor that all they have to offer as security for a loan is their cloak. The principle here is that God’s people care more about the spirit of the law than the letter of the law. Even if the person hasn’t paid back their loan, you give them their cloak back so they can rest at night.

The reason why is because the Lord is compassionate (v. 27). This is unique to Israel’s law code. Other law codes just set the standard, but Israel’s King both set and embodied the standard. In other words, the Lord never asked his people to do or be what he wasn’t.

The Lord is compassionate, so his people must be compassionate, whether toward the immigrant, widow, orphan, or poor. The Lord cares about the vulnerable, so must his people.

Justice, Not Charity

That these laws are here means that helping the vulnerable isn’t just charity, it’s a matter of justice, or doing what’s right in God’s eyes. Justice isn’t just about punishing those who do wrong. It’s about doing what’s right for those in need. It’s about giving people what they’re due, whether that’s punishment or protection. Ignoring the needs of the most vulnerable among us isn’t only unloving, it’s unjust. It’s not right.

It’s not enough to know these laws and want to do something. We must actually do something. “What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Mic. 6:8) Desire and knowledge must lead to action.

Here are some specific ways that you could “do justice” to the vulnerable in our society. You could visit nursing homes to encourage and pray with those living there. You could volunteer at a hospital or be more intentional in caring for your parents or grandparents, especially if they’re widows or widowers. You could become a foster parent, adopt children, give money to adoption agencies, give money to or volunteer at a local food bank, build friendships with immigrants and refugees, ensure that they’re paid a fare wage, support businesses run by immigrants, give money to or volunteer at a local homeless shelter, buy groceries or a computer or a car or a house for a single mom you know, offer single parents free babysitting so that they can run errands or rest, offer your services free of charge to someone you know who struggles financially.

Honor Authority and Give Faithfully

Verses 28-31 are about honoring authority and giving faithfully. Verse 28 says that honor is owed to God and kings. Paul says that those in authority over us are “God’s servants” (Rom. 13:4), so we honor them and humbly submit to their leadership as long as they don’t ask us to disobey God.

Verse 29 says that a due portion of our goods goes to God. Giving from the “fullness” and “outflow” means giving from your best. This is referring to what later came to be known as giving God your “firstfruits,” which the last phrase of verse 29 confirms.

Giving the firstfruits means we give out of the heart of our income, not out of the leftovers. Giving out of the surplus is how we usually think, but it means putting ourselves first. Giving the firstfruits means putting God first. As you plan your budget, plan your giving first and then watch how the Lord provides.

False Witnesses

23:1-3 are laws applying the ninth commandment about false witnesses. The destructive use of language is still a problem among God’s people. James says the tongue is a “restless evil, full of deadly poison,” and “With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God…My brothers, these things ought not to be so” (3:8-9).

Whether it’s lying under oath in court or slandering someone in the church, we shouldn’t use our words to “spread a false report.” This applies to gossip or saying to others what you won’t say to the person, without the qualification of, “But it might be true.”

Verse 2 says that just because everyone is doing it doesn’t make it right. “Siding with the many,” or allowing your thoughts to be shaped by the crowd rather than the truth, is not how God’s people act.

Verse 3 says that the poor don’t receive special treatment in court just because they’re poor. Verses 3 and 6 together show us that the law is balanced, measured, and just.

Verses 4-5 say not to take advantage of someone’s misfortune, no matter who it is. This goes against our natural and sinful impulses. But as those who’ve been shown amazing mercy in Christ, we “love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us” (Mt. 5:44), and “Repay no one evil for evil…To the contrary, if our enemy is hungry, we feed him; if he is thirsty, we give him something to drink” (Rom. 12:17, 20).

These laws show us that it’s wrong not to do the right thing and that we pursue justice based on truth, not emotions. What’s right is more important than how we feel.

The Wicked Can Be Righteous

The end of verse 7 says that the standard of justice for God’s people is God himself. He doesn’t let the guilty go free, so neither should his people.

But this creates a huge problem for us because we’re guilty. None of us keep God’s law perfectly, not even close. Some groups are better at some things than others. Conservatives emphasize sexual ethics and the rights of the unborn and liberals emphasize the rights of ethnic minorities, immigrants, and the poor. But neither lives up to their standards, much less God’s.

We’re guilty and God says he doesn’t acquit guilty people, so we deserve his “burning wrath” (22:24), his justice, for breaking his laws.

Thankfully, in mercy, he hasn’t left us to ourselves or consigned us all to hell. In love, he sent Jesus to live the law-keeping life we could never live, die for our law-breaking, and rise again to prove that God accepted his death as a perfect payment for sins, so that anyone who trusts in him and turns away from their sins will have their guilt removed and will be declared righteous.

God doesn’t acquit the wicked, unless they’re in Christ. The penalty we deserve fell on Jesus so that God can declare the wicked righteous and not be unrighteous in doing so (Rom. 3:21-26).

The law tells us that the wicked will be punished. The gospel tells us that Jesus was punished for the wicked. Understanding this changes the way we interact with each other. It sets us free to do justice for others instead of living for self. It turns us into people who value what the king values.