Day 25, Exodus 22-24

Today continued on with a few more laws and consequences for breaking them.

Laws About Social Justice
-If a man seduced a virgin, he must make her his wife. If her father refuses, he still must pay equal money for the bride-price of virgins.
-A sorceress is not permitted to live.
-Whoever lies with an animal is put to death.
-Can not sacrifice to any other god other than the Lord, or face destruction.
-Can not wrong a sojourner or mistreat any widow or fatherless child; if so, they would be killed and their wives shall become widows and your children fatherless.
-If you lend money to the poor, you may not receive interest on it.
-If you borrow your neighbor’s cloak you must return it before the sun goes down.
-Shall not revile God or curse a ruler of your people.
-Cannot delay to offer from the fullness of harvest.
-The firstborn son shall be given to God, as with oxen and sheep.
-Shall be consecrated to God and will not eat any beast that was torn apart in the fields, and must throw it away.
-Shall not spread a false report.
-Will not join hands with the wicked to be a malicious witness.
-Shall not fall with the evil or bear witness to a lawsuit and side with the group to pervert justice, or be partial to a poor man.
-Must bring enemy’s ox back to him if you see it astray.
-Must keep far from a false charge and not kill the innocent and righteous.
-Shall take no bribe.

Laws About the Sabbath and Festivals
-Seven years you shall sow the land and gather its yield. but the seventh year it shall rest so the poor and beasts can eat. Same for vineyards and olive orchards.
-Six days you shall work, but the seventh day is for rest. All people and things may rest, including donkeys and oxen.
-Listen to what God has said, and make no mention of names of other gods, nor let it be heard on your lips.
-Three times a year there shall be feasts to the Lord.
1. Feast of Unleavened Bread
2. Feast of Harvest: first fruits of your labor
3. Feast of Ingathering: end of the year when you gather from the field
-Shall not offer blood of sacrifice with anything unleavened, or let the fat of the feast remain until the morning.
-The best of the first fruits of your ground you shall bring to the house of the Lord your God.
-You shall not boil a young goat in it’s mother’s milk.

Then it went on to discuss the conquest of Canaan that the Lord had promised. God sent an angel before them to guard them as they went to the place that was prepared for them. They were told to pay careful attention to his voice and obey his commands, for the Lord’s name was in him. If they listened, then the Lord would be an enemy to their enemies and an adversary to their adversaries.

If they served the Lord, He would drive out the Hivites, the Canaanites, and the Hittites in a year’s time.

“Little by little I will drive them out from before you, until you have increased and possess the land.”

-Exodus 23:30

Moses came and told the people all the words of the Lord and his rules. All the people answered at once saying, “All the words that the Lord has spoken we will do.”

Moses rose early in the morning, and built an alter at the foot of the mountain, and twelve pillars for the twelve tribes of Israel. They offered burnt offerings and sacrificed peace offerings to the Lord.

Then he took the Book of the Covenant and read it to the people. He took the blood and threw it on the people saying, “Behold the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words.”

Then Moses, Aaron, and others (seventy elders of Israel) went up and saw the God of Israel.

“There was under his as it were a pavement of sapphire stone, like the very heaven for clearness. And he did not lay his hand on the chief men of the people of Israel; they beheld God, and ate and drank.”

-Exodus 24:10-11

As in they saw God? Like, literally looked at him, or looked up and saw heaven?

Then Moses went to the mountain, where the cloud was covering it. The glory of the Lord dwelt on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it for six days. On the seventh day, the Lord called Moses. “Moses entered the cloud and went up on the mountain. And Moses was on the mountain forty days and forty nights.