출애굽기 Chapter 23

Translation: ESV

1

You shall not spread a false report. You shall not join hands with a wicked man to be a malicious witness.

Key Message

Social justice is built on truthful testimony, and spreading false information or participating in perjury is an act that destroys the justice of the entire community.

▸The chapter begins with a regulation protecting the truthfulness of testimony, which is the heart of judicial justice.

The chapter begins with a regulation protecting the truthfulness of testimony, which is the heart of judicial justice. Two things are prohibited: spreading false rumors and colluding with wicked people to give false testimony. It declares the principle that if the reliability of testimony, the foundation of the judicial system, collapses, the justice of the entire society collapses.

Related Verses

A false witness will not go unpunished, and he who breathes out lies will perish.
2

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,

Key Message

Truth and justice must be based on facts rather than majority vote, and yielding to crowd pressure to participate in injustice is an act that destroys justice itself.

▸This is an important principle declaring that the majority opinion is not necessarily right.

4

If you meet your enemy's ox or his donkey going astray, you shall bring it back to him.

Key Message

Personal animosity does not exempt one from social obligations to the community, and acting honestly and well even toward enemies is what God requires.

▸This remarkable command requires returning even an enemy's livestock found going astray.

8

And you shall take no bribe, for a bribe blinds the clear-sighted and subverts the cause of those who are in the right.

Key Message

Bribery corrupts even the wisest person's judgment, and a just judicial system must be completely free from bribery.

▸The prohibition of bribery is a core regulation of judicial justice.

9

You shall not oppress a sojourner. You know the heart of a sojourner, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.

Key Message

One's own experience of suffering enables understanding of others' hearts, and that empathy becomes the strongest motivation for just and compassionate action.

▸The command to protect sojourners is repeated, this time with the additional language of empathy: 'you know the heart of a sojourner.

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.

Key Message

The sabbatical year is both a rest for the land and a realization of social equality, and God's will is that people and animals together enjoy the abundance of creation.

▸The natural produce of uncultivated land in the sabbatical year is allowed to be eaten by the poor and wild animals.

20

Behold, I send an angel before you to guard you on the way and to bring you to the place that I have prepared.

Key Message

God guides and protects His people throughout their journey, and is a faithful guide who prepares the destination in advance.

▸God promises to send an angel (messenger) to guide Israel on the journey to Canaan.