Exodus 23:10-19--Laws About the Sabbath and Festivals

Laws About the Sabbath and Festivals​
10 “For six years you shall sow your land and gather in its yield, 11 but the seventh year you shall let it rest and lie fallow, that the poor of your people may eat; and what they leave the beasts of the field may eat. You shall do likewise with your vineyard, and with your olive orchard.

12 “Six days you shall do your work, but on the seventh day you shall rest; that your ox and your donkey may have rest, and the son of your servant woman, and the alien, may be refreshed.

13 “Pay attention to all that I have said to you, and make no mention of the names of other gods, nor let it be heard on your lips.

14 “Three times in the year you shall keep a feast to me. 15 You shall keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread. As I commanded you, you shall eat unleavened bread for seven days at the appointed time in the month of Abib, for in it you came out of Egypt. None shall appear before me empty-handed. 16 You shall keep the Feast of Harvest, of the firstfruits of your labor, of what you sow in the field. You shall keep the Feast of Ingathering at the end of the year, when you gather in from the field the fruit of your labor. 17 Three times in the year shall all your males appear before the Lord God.

18 “You shall not offer the blood of my sacrifice with anything leavened, or let the fat of my feast remain until the morning.

19 “The best of the firstfruits of your ground you shall bring into the house of the Lord your God.

“You shall not boil a young goat in its mother's milk.

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We end this exposition on the Law with a return to the idea that even our days of rest and celebration are holy to the LORD and our worship should be unique and different because we serve a the one true and living God.

Remember how every seven years the slaves were to be set free?  That was also a year (the Sabbath Year) that no planting or harvesting was to be done, but that fields were to lay fallow and let them "rest."  We have since learned that God knew what He was doing here and that letting the land lay fallow restored some of the nutrients to the soil.  This command is the one God cites when He gives His reason for sending the kingdom of Judah into the Babylonian captivity.  The people never obeyed this commandment for 490 years, so they missed 70 rest periods, so God sent them out of their land so that the land could lay fallow for 70 years (see Jeremiah 25:1-11, Jeremiah 29:1-10, and Daniel 9:1-2).  So, we see that God even cares about the land and commands His people in a way that they should be good stewards of it.

He again commands His people to rest on the seventh day (the Sabbath Day).  Instead of once again quoting the pattern for us that we should simply do it because we are following His model after creation, God gives justification to say that the animals of labor, the slaves, and the aliens all need a day of rest.  Jesus would return to this idea in the New Testament to say that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.  (See Mark 2:27)  In doing so, Jesus also declared Himself to be Lord of the Sabbath  (Matthew 12:8, Mark 2:28, and Luke 6:5).  We've already seen many times in the New Testament as we are studying the miracles of Christ in The Gospel Project where Jesus intentionally heals someone on the Sabbath to make this point that it's okay to do good on the Sabbath as this command is talking about the "common" work of man and not the works of God and it would be pointed out later that the priests and the others sons of Levi work on the Sabbath as they minister in the temple that day.

We are then told not only to not worship other gods, but to not even let their names cross our lips--they don't even deserve to be acknowledged.  There should be no other God than the LORD mentioned in all of Israel.

God then ordains three special feast days (there will be some special days of fasting that will be ordained later).  First is the Feast of Unleavened Bread right before the Passover to celebrate the LORD bringing His people out of Egypt.  Second is the Feast of the Harvest which is similar to our celebration of Thanksgiving here in the United States and some other countries around the world where there is a "harvest" holiday in which we give thanks to the bounty that He has provided and giving us enough to make it through another year and trusting that He will again provide enough for us to make it through the next year.  This is a time of offering the first part of the harvest as an offering of faith that there was more to come.  The last feast that was ordained by the LORD is Feast of Ingathering at the end of the year when they would harvest their fruits (the Feast of the Harvest is when they would gather their grains).  Similarly in this Feast, they would offer their firstfruits and their new wine as a sacrifice to the LORD as a show of faith that they believed that there was more where that came from and that the LORD would provide enough for them all year if they gave Him his part first.  These were three of the days in which no man was to work and every man was to appear before the LORD for celebration and worship--a "holy day" that was later shortened to the word "holiday."

Only unleavened bread was supposed to be offered as a grain offering to the LORD as there should never be any leaven mixed with the blood sacrifices as we'll see later that leaven is an image of sin and that would taint the purity of the sacrifice.

Next is the command to always give the firstfruits to the LORD, and to always give the best of the firstfruits.  This is the sin of Cain that while Abel gave the best of his flock, Cain only gave some of his fruits and vegetables as a sacrifice, but did not give God his best.  He had a small view of God and therefore did not give God the best that He deserved.  God will later in the prophets reprimand His people for bringing offerings and sacrifices that would not be fit for their earthly kings and yet they bring them to Him as if He is to be pleased.  (See Malachi 1:8).

Finally a command that doesn't make much sense to us today and which Orthodox Jews seem to have taken out of context as they take this command to mean that they cannot eat meat and dairy on the same plate and could never eat something like a cheeseburger where the meat and dairy (especially of the same animal) are served together.  That's not what this is talking about.  Boiling a baby goat in its mother's milk seemed to be a pagan practice of the Canaanites and God didn't even want them picking up things like this and saying, "Yeah, but it tastes good and we know we're not worshiping their gods."  It would be confusing to people on the outside to borrow pagan traditions and try to say that their origins didn't matter.  The best argument I can make for us here as Christians is one that comes up for us every year and that is how many believe that the dates we use for Christmas and Easter and many of the traditional ways we celebrate those holidays are more closely associated with pagan traditions than with anything in the Bible.  I'm not condemning anyone for celebrating Christmas or Easter, but notice how "Christianizing" pagan holidays has only served to confuse the world and made them say "they are just like everyone else" and wondering what has been made new about us.  Let's be careful even in how we celebrate our feasts and festivals to make it very clear Who we are celebrating and why we are celebrating--and it's not Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny and it's not about Christmas Trees, Easter Eggs, or candy.  Nor is about the Winter Solstice or the Spring Equinox.  Anything we do that confuses people to think that we're okay with their pagan traditions and that they are not called to repent and be born again or that Christ hasn't come to make all things new is a disservice to who and what God has called us to be as His people that "holy to the LORD."