We now move from societal laws to God-mandated festivals in the Old-Covenant annual calendar.
Read Exodus 23:6-9
– Who is specifically singled out to help ensure justice is done? Why?
– What is mentioned about bribes?
– Why is a foreigner singled out for justice?
Laws about the Sabbath
Read Exodus 23:10-11
– Why is letting land lie fallow good practical advice?
– Beyond that, letting land lie fallow was God’s way to help do what?
– Because the land was to “rest” on the seventh year, what did this help inculcate in the mind of God’s people about Sabbath rest?
– If a farmer worked for six years to feed himself, who was fed on the seventh? What does this say about who was feeding whom on the Sabbath day worship services?
Read Exodus 23:12
– Who refreshes whom on the Sabbath?
– What are the implications for us when we come to worship?
Read Exodus 23:13
Here we find a plural meaning for the Hebrew word elohim, in this case referring to other gods. (Remember last week’s possible use of elohim referring to the rulers of Israel?) A literal translation of this verse reads:
Guard everything that I have said to you. Do not to remember the other gods [elohim], nor may their name be heard from your mouth.
– What does remembering have to do with God or other gods? Discuss.
Laws on Festivals for God’s Old-Covenant People
Earlier God just said that they were not to remember others gods. He now tells of three festivals His people are to have every year, which were God’s instituted rituals to help His people remember Him. These three festivals would form the core of Israel’s church-year calendar (Leviticus 23 and Deuteronomy 16).
Read Exodus 23:14-17
– What was the first festival mentioned to help remember?
– This is closely linked to what (eventually they even become synonyms for each other)?
– Appearing before God empty handed was not doing what?
The Feast of Harvest (Feast of Weeks) was celebrated 50 days after Passover.
– What was this also called? What did it become in the New Covenant?
Old-Covenant Pentecost and New-Covenant Pentecost
After a 50-day period of waiting and anticipation after Passover, believers presented the first-fruits of their wheat harvest to God.
In the New Covenant, after a 50-day period of waiting and anticipation by Christ’s Church, first-fruits were presented as well. However, these “fruits” were not our offering to God, like in the Old Covenant, but Christ’s promised gift to His Church. Instead of the fruits of earth being lifted up to heaven, the fruits of heaven are rained down on the people of earth. These first-fruits were the Holy Spirit.
– What was the third feast?
As Leviticus covers more in depth, this feast was celebrated in connection with the great Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) and was later also associated with the Feast of Tabernacles (Booths). This came at the time when the final gathering of the year’s produce of fruit, oil, and wine took place.
Removing Leaven
In the Old Covenant, the people were to remove all leaven from their houses. Then they were not to eat any bread with yeast in it for seven days, beginning the day of the Passover (Leviticus 23:6). Eating bread without yeast (leaven) reminded the people of the haste of their departure after the first Passover, a departure so swift that the Israelites had no time to leaven their dough (Exodus 12:39). The unleavened dough was the only food for the next seven days for those who left Egypt. There was no leftover lamb because it had to be eaten or burned (Exodus 12:9, 23:17). The only bread that could be eaten for the following week was the unleavened bread prepared for the earlier Passover meal.
– Discuss not offering “the blood of my sacrifice to anything unleavened.”
Empty Handed
Exodus 3:21: [Yahweh speaking to Moses from the burning bush,] “I will grant this people favor with the Egyptians, so, when you leave, you will not leave empty-handed.”
Exodus 23:15: [Yahweh speaking to His people through Moses,] “No one is to appear before me empty-handed.”
The Israelites left Egypt with many items the Egyptians gave them. “At the appointed time in the month of Abib (Nissan) … you came out of Egypt.” Now, during the Feast of Unleavened Bread, God told the people to come before Him, not with empty hands, but with something in their hands, just as they had left Egypt. This offering back to God then was part of the act of remembrance about how God had provided for them.
– In the New Covenant, how can we see our offerings as an act of remembrance?
– How does this returning back to God mirror our worship of God in general?
An excerpt from the “Introduction” of Lutheran Worship:
Our Lord speaks and we listen. His Word bestows what it says. Faith that is born from what is heard acknowledges the gifts received with eager thankfulness and praise…. Saying back to Him what He has said to us, we repeat what is most true and sure…. The rhythm of our worship is from Him to us, and then from us back to Him. He gives His gifts, and together we receive and extol them.
Yeast and Fat
Leviticus 3:16: The priest will burn [the fat parts of the sacrificial animal] on the altar as a food offering, a pleasing aroma. All the fat is Yahweh’s.
– Letting fat remain until morning meant what?
– Exodus 23:18 shows communal eating as being part of God’s people. Who participated (Exodus 12:47)? How did God participate?
– How is this communal eating replicated in a fuller way in the New Covenant?
– What does God reveal about the offerings the people were to bring to Him?
– What principle behind this law applies to us in the New Covenant?
Exodus 23:19b: According to an ancient Canaanite document called “The Birth of the Gods,” boiling a young goat in mother’s milk was a fertility rite in the Canaanite religion. The milk in which the goat had been cooked was sprinkled on fields or animals to improve fertility (see also Exodus 34:26; Deuteronomy 14:21). Because of the association in that cultural context, participating in such a practice confessed a belief in pagan gods.
Later, Jewish tradition extended the precept into a general prohibition against mixing meat with dairy products.
The next section segues into going into the land promised by God to His people. So this is a good place to end this lesson.
