Last week, we covered a large number of laws from within the Book of the Covenant, yet they all boiled down to the three big categories: regulations concerning slaves, statutes limiting retaliation in events of personal injury, and laws of restitution for the damage of property. As we noted, the principle at the center of these laws (eye for eye, tooth for tooth) was never about enforcing strict retaliation. Instead, it limited retaliation to only something similar to what was destroyed, but it also provided a guide to restitution. Indeed, the whole focus of the laws ought to be not how I can get even with someone who harmed me but how I can make things right whenever I have harmed someone else.

The laws before us today seem to be simply an assorted collection of laws regarding a variety of other topics. I do believe, however, that there is a connective goal to these rules, but we will attempt to make sense of that toward the end of this sermon. For the moment, we should keep this guiding principle in mind as we glance briefly at these Old Testament laws: these are good laws from a good God for a broken and sinful world. Though some of these laws are difficult for us to understand, they are each God’s Word for the Israelites then and for us today. Though these laws have been fulfilled in Christ, they have not been abolished entirely, we must, therefore, pray for the Spirit of wisdom to guide us into properly interpreting and applying these good rules from our heavenly Father.

OF SEDUCED VIRGINS & BRIDE-PRICES // VERSES 16-17

To be honest, these verses probably best belong with laws of restitution that we studied previously, for they fit better with the idea of restitution and, as we will note later, verse 18 begins a section that is both structurally and thematical different from the laws before it. Even so, let us consider these verses for a moment:

If a man seduces a virgin who is not betrothed and lies with her, he shall give the bride-price for her and make her his wife. If her father utterly refuses to give her to him, he shall pay money equal to the bride-price for virgins.

Let us begin with noting what this law is and is not discussing. This is not addressing a man who seduces someone else’s wife or a woman who is betrothed to another (which we would call being engaged). Both of those sins bore far greater consequences. Nor is this a case of rape. Notice that the man bears primary responsibility for the sin, but in this case, the woman participated willingly in the premarital sex. So, this is the case of a man who seduces a virgin into lying with him, and she does so freely. Of course, for our present day, we should make the further clarification that later regret does not retroactively make it rape.

Regarding the bride-price, the Hebrew term mohar is a bit difficult to fully define. Though it was paid to the bride’s father, we should not take this as the husband buying his wife from her father. Instead, the bride-price was a guarantee that the husband would protect and provide for his new wife, and if he didn’t and she needed to return to her father’s home, she would then live off of the bride-price that was given. As one commentary notes, “The original sum would eventually be turned over to the daughter. This practice seems to underlie the complaint of Laban’s two daughters in Genesis 31:15 that their father “had used up [the] purchase price,” that is, the original capital.”

Before moving on, I will cite at length some of Ryken’s comments on this law, which are worth reading in full:

A bride was not a commodity. In fact, rather than treating a woman as a piece of property, these laws were for her protection. There are always men around who would like to have the pleasures of sex without the responsibilities of marriage. Given the chance, they will take advantage of a young woman. But sex should never be separated from a covenant commitment. So in Israel a man couldn’t just sleep around. If he seduced a girl, he had to do the right thing, which was to marry her.

There was one exception. Even after a seduction, a father could refuse to allow a man to marry his daughter. By itself, the act of intercourse did not establish a marriage, as if the couple were “married in the sight of God.” No; if they were to be married at all, they had to be married properly, which included having the father’s blessing. In most cases he would probably consent, partly to protect his daughter’s reputation. But if he thought that the man was unsuitable, he had the right of refusal. This provided a strong incentive for a man who wanted to get married to conduct himself in an honorable way. If he went ahead and had sex with a girl, he was really pushing his luck! He still had to get her father’s permission, only now his character was in question.

Furthermore, if her father did refuse, then the man still had to pay the wedding-price! He had robbed the woman of her virginity, which would make it harder for her to get married. Some people would probably treat her as “damaged goods.” However, if she had her wedding-price, then at least she would have some means of support. This might also make it easier for another man to marry her, because he wouldn’t have to pay the wedding-price.

SORCERY, BESTIALITY, & IDOLATRY // VERSES 18-20

Verses 18-20 are three quick laws that call for the death penalty for three particularly vile sins. First is the sin of sorcery: you shall not permit a sorceress to live. By referring to a sorceress specifically, we are not to imply that a sorcerer was just fine. No, both men and women were forbidden from practicing sorcery, magic, or generally dealing with the occult (i.e., Leviticus 20:27). Although there have certainly been plenty of men who practiced magic, there is a unique appeal to witchcraft for women, probably because it offered power through something other than physical strength in a world that was so dangerous and hostile for women. However, rather like the command above, sorcery was a form of spiritual seduction that can only yield eternal regret. Consider God’s commands later in Deuteronomy 18:9-14:

When you come into the land that the LORD your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominable practices of those nations. There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens, or a sorcerer or a charmer or a medium or a necromancer or one who inquires of the dead, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the LORD. And because of these abominations the LORD your God is driving them out before you. You shall be blameless before the LORD your God, for these nations, which you are about to dispossess, listen to fortune-tellers and to diviners. But as for you, the LORD your God has not allowed you to do this.

Sadly, sorcery is not a thing of the past. A trip to a local bookstore a couple of months ago revealed the great hunger for the occult, which seemed to dominate half of the store. Of course, we should expect nothing less. As secularism continues to collapse, people today are desperate for some taste and glimpse of a worldview beyond materialism, and millions are finding that spirituality through the occult.

It is also worth noting that the Septuagint uses the word pharmakous for sorceress, which as in the New Testament, comes from the same root as our word pharmacy. This is because magic was fundamentally connected to drug use, for it is very often physical chemicals that provide gateways to spiritual experiences. Of course, we should not say that all drugs are inherently sinful just because some are used for magical purposes any more than we should say that all bricks are sinful because some were used for constructing the Tower of Babel. However, we should keep in mind that the purpose of magic is to assert control over the world; therefore, each time that we can a drug we should and consider why we are doing so. Do we use medicine as a good gift of God developed through mankind’s dominion over the earth, or do we use it prop ourselves up and to decrease our dependance upon the Lord?

Second, we read: Whoever lies with an animal shall be put to death. Thankfully, this is perhaps the only sexual deviancy that has yet to receive mainstream approval in our present day, and hopefully that will not change. Such a practice is, of course, danger in terms of diseases and infections. It is degenerate in the sense that the offender is quite literally acting like an animal. It is also blasphemous because it blatantly rebels against the created order and was often associated with idolatry. Indeed, lest we think that God was forbidding an act that no one would have ever thought of committing, consider what God says in Leviticus 18:23-25:

And you shall not lie with any animal and so make yourself unclean with it, neither shall any woman give herself to an animal to lie with it: it is perversion. Do not make yourselves unclean by any of these things, for by all these the nations I am driving out before you have become unclean, and the land became unclean, so that I punished its iniquity, and the land vomited out its inhabitants.

Thus, this was not a hypothetical sin; bestiality was an actual sin practiced by the Canaanites and a reason for their judgment from the LORD.

Third, we have idolatry: Whoever sacrifices to any god, other than the LORD alone, shall be devoted to destruction. The Hebrew word for destruction is charam, which essentially refers the destruction of something as a sacrifice to God. It is sometimes called being put under the Ban, and this was what God commanded Israel to do with the Canaanites to devote them and all their possession to destruction as an offering to Yahweh. The idea is that the destroyed person or city would be “by death devoted to the Lord, to whom he would not devote himself in life” (142). Deuteronomy 13:12-18 gives us an expanded explanation of this command:

If you hear in one of your cities, which the Lord your God is giving you to dwell there, that certain worthless fellows have gone out among you and have drawn away the inhabitants of their city, saying, ‘Let us go and serve other gods,’ which you have not known, then you shall inquire and make search and ask diligently. And behold, if it be true and certain that such an abomination has been done among you, you shall surely put the inhabitants of that city to the sword, devoting it to destruction, all who are in it and its cattle, with the edge of the sword. You shall gather all its spoil into the midst of its open square and burn the city and all its spoil with fire, as a whole burnt offering to the Lord your God. It shall be a heap forever. It shall not be built again. None of the devoted things shall stick to your hand, that the Lord may turn from the fierceness of his anger and show you mercy and have compassion on you and multiply you, as he swore to your fathers, if you obey the voice of the Lord your God, keeping all his commandments that I am commanding you today, and doing what is right in the sight of the Lord your God.

JUSTICE & MERCY // VERSES 21-27; 1-9

After those three commands, we find several commands that deal broadly with the concept of social justice. 22:21-24 and 23:9 form the bookends for this passage by addressing how the Israelites were to treat sojourners.

You shall not wrong a sojourner or oppress him, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt. You shall not mistreat any widow or fatherless child. If you do mistreat them, and they cry out to me, I will surely hear their cry, and my wrath will burn, and I will kill you with the sword, and your wives shall become widows and your children fatherless.

Sojourners, widows, and orphans were among the most vulnerable members of ancient society, and while they would often find themselves oppressed or taken advantage of, that was not to be the case among God’s people. As 23:9 makes clear, the Israelites knew the sorrow of being oppressed as sojourners within the land of Egypt, and once they took possession of Canaan, they were not to become Egyptians themselves by oppressing the sojourners that would inevitably dwell with them. Having just witnessed how Yahweh decimated Egypt in order to rescue them, it should not have surprised them that God would also do the same if they became like the Egyptians. Yet even beyond the consequences, God cares for the sojourners, widows, and orphans: “He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing” (Deuteronomy 10:18). And Israel was called to be like Him.

I should note, however, that these verses cannot be used to proof text open-border policies. The principle of these commands very much still stands for us to serve and aid the needy around us (for instance, Ryken points out the wonderful opportunity to ministry international students), but they do not forbid a government from limiting and controlling immigration. Governments certainly ought to do so with justice and equity, but they are still given the authority by God to enforce such laws. [read No Human Is Illegal for more on this topic]

If you lend money to any of my people with you who is poor, you shall not be like a moneylender to him, and you shall not exact interest from him. If ever you take your neighbor’s cloak in pledge, you shall return it to him before the sun goes down, for that is his only covering, and it is his cloak for his body; in what else shall he sleep? And if he cries to me, I will hear, for I am compassionate.

These verses address Israel’s need to compassionately with the poor among them. They were forbidden from charging interest on a loan made by any of the poor in Israel, and if a man needed to give his coat as a pledge, it was required to be given back to him before sundown. This was an instance of someone being so poor that his cloak also doubled as his blanket at night. This command was a reminder to the Israelites that matters of money should never be used to strip someone of their necessities.

You shall not spread a false report. You shall not join hands with a wicked man to be a malicious witness. You shall not fall in with the many to do evil, nor shall you bear witness in a lawsuit, siding with the many, so as to pervert justice, nor shall you be partial to a poor man in his lawsuit.

This command serves as a further explanation and elaboration on the Ninth Commandment. Notice the great wisdom here. Gossip was forbidden, as was a malicious witness in court. They were not to be intimidated by a multitude saying something that was false, nor were they to give partiality to the poor simply because of their poverty. Israel was to be a nation that valued the truth. 23:6-7 make similar commands, adding the corrupting effect of bribes upon justice:

You shall not pervert the justice due to your poor in his lawsuit. Keep far from a false charge, and do not kill the innocent and righteous, for I will not acquit the wicked. And you shall take no bribe, for a bribe blinds the clear-sighted and subverts the cause of those who are in the right.

Reading verses 4-5 we might mistaking believe that we have stumbled into the New Testament:

If you meet your enemy’s ox or his donkey going astray, you shall bring it back to him. If you see the donkey of one who hates you lying down under its burden, you shall refrain from leaving him with it; you shall rescue it with him.

It is all too common, even among Christians, for many to believe that the Old Testament contains nothing but wrath and judgment while the New Testament is concerned with only love and grace. The truth is that both Testaments teach us the wrath, judgment, love, and grace of God. Yahweh’s personality did not change between the Old and the New.

YOU SHALL GIVE TO ME // VERSES 28-31

I momentarily passed over these verses because 22:21-27 and 23:1-9 continue the warning against committing oppression and injustice and because these verses (as well as verses 18-20) point to the thematic unity in these very diverse and seemingly disjointed commands.

Verse 28 sets our focus upon God and civil authority: You shall not revile God, nor curse a ruler of your people. Ryken notes that “to ‘revile,’ as the word is used here, is not to curse God but to take him lightly. It is to dishonor his name by failing to acknowledge the full weight of his majesty. To treat God with such disrespect is a sin against the third commandment, a way of taking his name in vain” (700).

The second half of the verse forbids the cursing a ruler, which can refer to civil rulers as well as anyone with legitimate authority to govern. Respect is not commanded for every ruler, for not every ruler will be respectable (of course, due respect to the office ought to be shown). Nor indeed is obedience and compliance always required, for God alone is the King of kings whose will should always be obeyed even above the rulers of the earth. Even so, all authorities are instituted by God who possesses all authority; therefore, it is not right to curse rulers. David’s refusal to harm or even curse Saul, even while Saul was actively trying to kill David, is great example for further consideration.

You shall not delay to offer from the fullness of your harvest and from the outflow of your presses. The firstborn of your sons you shall give to me. You shall do the same with your oxen and with your sheep: seven days it shall be with its mother; on the eighth day you shall give it to me.

God commands His people to give their very best to Him, and that is not an unfair demand. As the Maker of heaven and earth, everything we have comes from His hand alone. We have never drunk a molecule of water nor breathed an atom of oxygen that was not graciously given to us by God. Indeed, Yahweh’s demand of giving from their harvest and winepresses was a constant reminder to the Israelites that their food and wine ultimately came from Him, and they were simply giving back a portion in thankfulness.

And since they themselves were redeemed by the LORD from their slavery in Egypt, they also owed Him themselves. As we saw back in Exodus 13, by requiring the giving of Israel’s firstborn to Him, Yahweh really was asserting His ownership over the entirety of the nation of Israel, both of man and beast. The slaughter of the firstborn within Egypt was a judgment upon the entire nation of Egypt. By striking dead each family’s representative, Yahweh was placing each family under the sentence of death, which means that the Egyptians were not being dramatic back in 12:33 when they said, “We shall all be dead.” It turns out that they very clearly understood the message that God had sent.

And God was now making that message clear to all of Israel as well, for consider verse 31: You shall be consecrated to me. Therefore you shall not eat any flesh that is torn by beasts in the field; you shall throw it to the dogs. This is the heart, the central point, the connective fiber behind all of these commands that we have been seeing. God was not simply consecrating the firstborn to Himself; rather, the firstborn were representatives of the whole nation. All of Israel was to be consecrated to Him. To consecrate means setting apart for sacred and holy use, that is, to the LORD, for He is the Holy One.

We should remind ourselves often that God alone is intrinsically holy. He is holy by virtue of who He is. He alone is uniquely God, the sole uncreated Creator of all things. Everything in the cosmos, therefore, shares at least one common trait: it is all created and has a beginning. Archangels, nebulas, mountains, humans, guinea pigs, sawdust, E. coli, and literally everything else all belong to the category of “created things.” God alone is within the category of the “uncreated.” He is, therefore, holy and other, unique from anyone or anything else.

Throughout Scripture, persons and things are then called holy only because of their relationship to the Holy One Himself. What God sets apart for Himself is deemed sacred or holy because it now belongs exclusively to the LORD. Our holiness, therefore, is secondhand. Israel was made into a holy nation only because they belonged to Yahweh; they were a people for His own treasure possession. And they were to be a kingdom of His priests, displaying the wonderful reality of true worship of the true God to the pagan nations all around them.

The command forbidding Israel from eating anything torn by beasts may seem as random and disjointed as the rest of these rules, but like the rest, it is all about teaching Israel how to be a holy people and how to be distinct from the nations around them. Their diets were distinct. Their sacrifices were distinct. Their monogamous sexuality was distinct. Their concern for the sojourners, widows, orphans, and poor was distinct. Their hatred of bribes and love of truth was distinct. If they actually followed these rules, Israel would have truly been unlike any other nation upon the earth. Indeed, by obeying these rules, Israel would have grown to look more and more like the Yahweh Himself, which was the great purpose God’s commandments. The child in school always looks out with envy at the children playing freely in the street, but the child being schooled was being prepared to one day receive his father’s estate, whereas the children playing in the street would always belong to the street. God’s commands are like that schooling. The very fact that God made such demands from Israel showed that they were His people, His legitimate offspring.

But, sadly, the story of the Old Testament is the story of Israel rebelling against each of these good laws from their good God as they chose to become like the other nations. That is why the New Testament was so desperately needed. Again, each of these laws is still good and still profitable for us as Christians today, but the giving of the law, as gracious as that was, could never make God’s people into the holy nation and kingdom of priests that God intended. They needed more than laws and regulations; they needed new hearts that were actually capable of obedience.

That, brothers and sisters, is the good news that we have in Christ Jesus our Lord. Viewed on their own these laws heap condemnation upon our heads. How often have we failed to promptly give to God the firstfruits of what we has given us? How often have we overlooked and neglected the plight of widows and orphans? How often have we been guilt of spread false reports? How often have we sided with many rather than the truth? How often have we let our sympathy for the poor cloud our judgment of right and wrong? How often do we take drugs in a spirit of sorcery? How often do fail to eat and drink and do all things to the glory of God? Yes, if we were to judge ourselves according to the standards of just these laws before us, we each stand worth of the Ban, of being devoted wholly to destruction.

As we come to the Table of our King, let us praise Yahweh that Christ suffered that destruction in our place. Hanging upon the cross, our Lord became the curse that we rightly earned for ourselves and now grants us His own righteousness. Therefore, we now come the God’s law, knowing that Christ has taken all of our rightful condemnation upon Himself and as freed us from being under the judgment of God’s law. But again, that does not mean that Christ has abolished the law. The grace of the gospel does not mean that we can toss these rules aside and live however we please. Instead, through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, which is the seal of the new covenant, God has given us new hearts and has written His law upon our hearts. Since we no longer fear the condemnation of the law, through the Spirit, we now come to God’s law as it was always intended as good rules from our good Father for living in a world broken and scarred by sin. And when we disobey, as we will continue to do, we are convicted rather than condemned, which leads us to repent and strive anew for obedience to our Father. Therefore, let us taste and see the goodness of our great God as we set our eyes upon our glorious Savior through this bread and cup.