Bible reading notes,  Exodus 20-24 (Book of the Covenant)

Working out our salvation I – a generous spirit (Exod 23:10-19)

February 22, 2021

Exod 23:10-19

A blogger I follow spent several years in foster care and heard the dismal statistics that the overwhelming majority of young people who leave the system at 18 end up on the street, in prostitution, and/or doing drugs. She was determined to be in the slender minority that made it and she managed to avoid the miserable fate that the statistics were predicting. Grateful and counting her blessings, she did voluntary work and advocacy for those in foster care while she also built up her blogging career. For all of us, there are defining moments in our lives that affect our actions and beliefs, whether traumatic experiences of hurt and loss or joyful ones that give us confidence and hope. For Israel, their defining moment was their release from oppressive slave labour (Exod 20:2). Our reading today reflects on how this experience was meant to affect their daily living and worship.

The application of the Sabbath (vv.10-13) teaches that God’s generosity calls for paying that generosity forward. The Sabbath principle is like a scarlet thread running through these laws, present in the Ten Commandments (Exod 20:8-10), in the release of the Hebrew slaves in the seventh year (Exod 21:2) and now in the extension of the principle to the land (Exod 23:10-11). The lack of harvesting also allows the destitute to benefit from what grows on the fallow land from seeds accidentally scattered in a previous harvest. Finally, the Sabbath day practice is repeated (Exod 23:12-13) and, given the focus of the section on working the land (v.10), it may point to the law’s application to agricultural labourers (people and animals).[1]

For God is the one who provides seed for the farmer and then bread to eat. In the same way, he will provide and increase your resources and then produce a great harvest of generosity in you. (2 Cor 9:10)

The assumption behind such rest is that God gives generously and Israel will have enough. Particularly at harvest, there might be a certain urgency to get the work done, but the Sabbath teaches Israel that there is time to do the work even with periods of rest and there is enough to sustain life and to allow even the destitute to benefit. The expression in v.12 ‘refresh themselves’ is derived from the same root as nefesh (‘breath’ and hence ‘life’ and ‘soul’). Thus, the sense of the Hebrew is to revive themselves or, as Propp translates it, ‘to catch [their] breath’).[2] In our modern context, Christian employers especially need to take heed, since work perceived as done ‘for the Lord’ may become a pretext to exploit people and their time and can lead to burnout in ministry. The care for land and animals resonates with contemporary concerns for the environment and is particularly poignant when human exploitation of the earth’s resources has brought about serious changes to the climate and adverse effects for plant and animal life.

While the Sabbath laws called Israel to be generous to others because God was generous to them, the festivals direct attention to the need to give back to God for all He has given (Exod 23:15, 19). The Feast of Unleavened Bread (Exod 23:14-15) is a week-long celebration of the exodus that starts with the Passover and reminds Israel of their deliverance from slavery pointing to God’s action in history. The other two feasts (Exod 23:16) focus on the harvest season and highlight God’s bountiful provision in the land. The Feast of the Harvest (also known as the Feast of Weeks) marks the beginning of the wheat harvest (Exod 34:22) around May-June, while the Feast of Ingathering is the end of the harvest season (around September-October). As Christians, we too experience God’s generous provision in the salvation He brought us and in the way He sustains our lives. May we be generous people in our giving to God, whether financially or in our service and in caring for the well-being of each other as God had cared for us.

[1] Moshe Weinfeld, Deuteronomy 1-11, AB 5 (New York: Doubleday, 1991), 305, cited in T. Desmond Alexander, Exodus, AOTC (London: Apollos; Downers Grove, IL: IVP), 521. It is unclear why the female slave’s son is mentioned here. If the assumption is correct that the emphasis is on agricultural work, then the stranger is probably a non-Israelite day labourer.

[2] William H.C. Propp, Exodus 19-40, AB 2A (New York: Doubleday, 2006), 281.

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