🌿 [Exodus 23~24] While summarizing the core message, we begin to realize how far God’s concern reaches
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📍 Core Summary of Exodus 23
Laws concerning social justice and mercy (verses 1~9)
Do not spread false reports or give false testimony.
Do not follow the crowd in doing evil.
Do not treat the case of the poor carelessly.
If something happens to your enemy’s animal, do not ignore it, but help.
Do not accept bribes.
Care for foreigners and strangers.
In the seventh year, leave the produce of the land for the poor and for the wild animals.
On the seventh day, not only you, but also servants, foreigners, and animals must be allowed to rest.
📍 The record shows that God’s concern reaches the rich, the poor, servants, strangers, and even animals.
The command to keep the Sabbath and the three annual feasts
→ The Feast of Unleavened Bread, the Feast of Harvest, and the Feast of Ingathering (verses 10~19)
🔎 Perhaps through this instruction given during sacrificial feast times, we can glimpse the character of God Himself.
→ “You shall not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk.” (verse 19)
- A mother’s milk exists to nourish, protect, and give life to the young.
- Therefore, boiling a young goat in its own mother’s milk seems to carry the meaning of:
📍“Do not use what gives life as a tool of death.”
And through this, we come to realize that God even cares about the hearts and suffering of animals.
Why the inhabitants of Canaan could not remain (verses 20~33)
God explains why He would drive out the people living in the land of Canaan. (final verse)
“Lest they make you sin against Me by serving their gods.”
Here God Himself uses the expression of “fear.”
(But perhaps this is one of those passages that should be understood in reverse.)
Just as it is written:
“He who sacrifices to other gods shall be destroyed.” (Exodus 22:20)
this seems to mean that people should fear what God will do to those who continue in such sin.
In addition:
“I will not drive them out before you in one year, lest the land become desolate and the wild beasts multiply against you. Little by little I will drive them out before you...” (23:29~30)
📍 God did not drive them out immediately because He was concerned that the wild animals might increase and harm the people.
Since animals appear three separate times in this chapter, we can see through the record that God cares for both people and the beasts of the field.
📍 Core Summary of Exodus 24
Moses delivered all the laws and ordinances to the people,
and the people answered that they would obey them.
Then burnt offerings and peace offerings appear,
and Moses sprinkled blood on both the altar and the people.
→ For those who may not easily understand this:
Just as during Passover God passed over the places marked with blood...
the sprinkling of blood means that God no longer looks upon the people’s sins for the moment and allows them to remain.
It can also be understood that an animal died and shed blood in place of the person.
After this:
“Moses, Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and seventy elders of Israel went up and saw the God of Israel. Under His feet was something like a pavement made of sapphire, as clear as the sky itself. But God did not lay His hand on these leaders of Israel; they saw God, and they ate and drank.” (verses 9~11)
📍 Conclusion
In chapter 23, we see that God even cares about animals.
And in chapter 24, we see animals being sacrificed for people through the offerings.
Within this, we can realize that there is also “pain.”
The pain of blood being shed…
And the animals that became substitute offerings in place of people…
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