Exodus 22:29 Komentář

The laws of this chapter relate, I. To the eighth commandment, concerning theft (Exo 22:1-4), trespass by cattle (Exo 22:5), damage by fire (Exo 22:6), trusts (Exo 22:7-13), borrowing cattle (Exo 22:14, Exo 22:15), or money (Exo 22:25-27). II. To the seventh commandment. Against fornication (Exo 22:16, Exo 22:17), bestiality (Exo 22:19). III. To the first table, forbidding witchcraft (Exo 22:18), idolatry (Exo 22:20). Commanding to offer the firstfruits (Exo 22:29, Exo 22:30). IV. To the poor (Exo 22:21-24). V. To the civil government (Exo 22:28). VI. To the peculiarity of the Jewish nation (Exo 22:31).

INTRODUCTION TO EXODUS 22 This chapter contains various laws concerning theft, Exo 22:1, concerning damage done to fields and vineyards by beasts, and to corn in stacks or standing, by fire, Exo 22:5, concerning anything or creature deposited in the hands of a neighbour, and they be stolen or lost by one means or another, Exo 22:7, concerning anything borrowed, and it comes to any damage, Exo 22:14, concerning fornication, Exo 22:16 concerning witchcraft, bestiality, and idolatry, Exo 22:18 concerning oppression, and affliction of the stranger, fatherless, and widow, Exo 22:21 concerning taking usury and pledges, Exo 22:25, concerning irreverence to magistrates, Exo 22:28, concerning the offering of firstfruits to God, Exo 22:29 and the chapter is concluded with a prohibition of eating anything torn by beasts, Exo 22:31

And ye shall be holy men unto me,.... They were so by God's act of election, not special and particular, but general and national; choosing and separating them to be an holy people to him, above all the people on the face of the earth, and in a ceremonial sense they observing laws and appointments of God of this kind; which is the sense here intended, as appears by what follows: all men, and so these Israelites, ought to be holy in a moral sense, and some are holy in a spiritual and evangelical sense, being made holy by the Spirit of God; of these the Apostle Peter speaks, in allusion to this, and such like passages, Pe1 2:9. neither shall ye eat any flesh that is torn of beasts in the field; or in the house, as Jarchi notes; but the Scripture, as he observes, speaks of the place where it is more usual for beasts to tear, and so Aben Ezra; otherwise what is torn elsewhere, or by whatsoever accident it is bruised and maimed, was not to be eaten: ye shall cast it to the dogs: for even a stranger was not to eat of it, or if he did he was unclean, and was obliged to wash his clothes, and bathe himself, Lev 17:15 and yet Jarchi interprets this figuratively of such as are like dogs, meaning the Gentiles, whom the Jews used to call so, see Mat 15:26. An Heathen poet gives instructions perfectly agreeable to this law;"do not (says he) eat flesh fed upon by beasts, but leave the remains to the swift dogs (o).'' (o) &c. Phocylides, ver. 136, 137. Next: Exodus Chapter 23

Those emotions therefore which are morally good are the first fruits of our senses, whereas the others are of common and indifferent stock. This classification was used by Moses, following in that respect the language of the Jews, in his reference to the threshing floor of the law: “The tithes of your threshing floor and of your wine vat you shall not delay to pay: you shall give the firstborn of your sons to me.” All the morally good emotions of your senses are the first fruits of the threshing floor of the soul in such a manner as grain is separated in an actual barn floor.

The law says, “You shall not delay in offering your tithes and first fruits.” But grace says, “If you wish to be perfect, go, sell all that you have and give to the poor.”

Laws concerning theft, Exo 22:1-4; concerning trespass, Exo 22:5; concerning casualties, Exo 22:6. Laws concerning deposits, or goods left in custody of others, which may have been lost, stolen, or damaged, Exo 22:7-13. Laws concerning things borrowed or let out on hire, Exo 22:14, Exo 22:15. Laws concerning seduction, Exo 22:16, Exo 22:17. Laws concerning witchcraft, Exo 22:18; bestiality, Exo 22:19; idolatry, Exo 22:20. Laws concerning strangers, Exo 22:21; concerning widows, Exo 22:22-24; lending money to the poor, Exo 22:25; concerning pledges, Exo 22:26; concerning respect to magistrates, Exo 22:28; concerning the first ripe fruits, and the first-born of man and beast, Exo 22:29, Exo 22:30. Directions concerning carcasses found torn in the field, Exo 22:31.

The first of thy ripe fruits - This offering was a public acknowledgment of the bounty and goodness of God, who had given them their proper seed time, the first and the latter rain, and the appointed weeks of harvest. From the practice of the people of God the heathens borrowed a similar one, founded on the same reason. The following passage from Censorinus, De Die Natali, is beautiful, and worthy of the deepest attention: - Illi enim (majores nostri) qui alimenta, patriam, lucem, se denique ipsos deorum dono habebant, ex omnibus aliquid diis sacrabant, magis adeo, ut se gratos approbarent, quam quod deos arbitrarentur hoc indigere. Itaque cum perceperant fruges, antequam vescerentur, Diis libare instituerunt: et cum agros atque urbes, deorum munera, possiderent, partem quandam templis sacellisque, ubi eos colerent, dicavere. "Our ancestors, who held their food, their country, the light, and all that they possessed, from the bounty of the gods, consecrated to them a part of all their property, rather as a token of their gratitude, than from a conviction that the gods needed any thing. Therefore as soon as the harvest was got in, before they had tasted of the fruits, they appointed libations to be made to the gods. And as they held their fields and cities as gifts from their gods, they consecrated a certain part for temples and shrines, where they might worship them." Pliny is express on the same point, who attests that the Romans never tasted either their new corn or wine, till the priests had offered the First-Fruits to the gods. Acts ne degustabant quidem, novas fruges aut vina, antequam sacerdotes Primitias Libassent. Hist. Nat., lib. xviii., c. 2. Horace bears the same testimony, and shows that his countrymen offered, not only their first-fruits, but the choicest of all their fruits, to the Lares or household gods; and he shows also the wickedness of those who sent these as presents to the rich, before the gods had been thus honored: - Dulcia poma, Et quoscumque feret cultus tibi fundus honores, Ante Larem gustet venerabilior Lare dives. Sat., lib. ii., s. v., ver. 12. "What your garden yields, The choicest honors of your cultured fields, To him be sacrificed, and let him taste, Before your gods, the vegetable feast." Dunkin. And to the same purpose Tibullus, in one of the most beautiful of his elegies: - Et quodcumque mihi pomum novus educat annus, Libatum agricolae ponitur ante deo. Flava Ceres, tibi sit nostro de rure corona Spicea, quae templi pendeat ante fores. Eleg., lib. i., eleg. i. ver. 13. "My grateful fruits, the earliest of the year, Before the rural god shall daily wait. From Ceres' gifts I'll cull each browner ear, And hang a wheaten wreath before her gate." Grainger. The same subject he touches again in the fifth elegy of the same book, where he specifies the different offerings made for the produce of the fields, of the flocks, and of the vine, ver. 27: - Illa deo sciet agricolae pro vitibus uvam, Pro segete spicas, pro grege ferre dapem. "With pious care will load each rural shrine, For ripen'd crops a golden sheaf assign, Cates for my fold, rich clusters for my wine. Id. - See Calmet. These quotations will naturally recall to our memory the offerings of Cain and Abel, mentioned Gen 4:3, Gen 4:4. The rejoicings at our harvest-home are distorted remains of that gratitude which our ancestors, with all the primitive inhabitants of the earth, expressed to God with appropriate signs and ceremonies. Is it not possible to restore, in some goodly form, a custom so pure, so edifying, and so becoming? There is a laudable custom, observed by some pious people, of dedicating a new house to God by prayer, etc., which cannot be too highly commended.

LAWS CONCERNING THEFT. (Exo. 22:1-31) If a man shall steal an ox, or a sheep--The law respects the theft of cattle which constituted the chief part of their property. The penalty for the theft of a sheep which was slain or sold, was fourfold; for an ox fivefold, because of its greater utility in labor; but, should the stolen animal have been recovered alive, a double compensation was all that was required, because it was presumable he (the thief) was not a practised adept in dishonesty. A robber breaking into a house at midnight might, in self-defense, be slain with impunity; but if he was slain after sunrise, it would be considered murder, for it was not thought likely an assault would then be made upon the lives of the occupants. In every case where a thief could not make restitution, he was sold as a slave for the usual term.

"Thy fulness and thy flowing thou shalt not delay (to Me)." מלאה fulness, signifies the produce of corn (Deu 22:9); and דּמע (lit., tear, flowing, liquor stillans), which only occurs here, is a poetical epithet for the produce of the press, both wine and oil (cf. δάκρυον τῶν δένδρων, lxx; arborum lacrimae, Plin. 11:6). The meaning is correctly given by the lxx: ἀπαρχὰς ἅλωνος καὶ ληνοῦ σοῦ. That the command not to delay and not to withhold the fulness, etc., relates to the offering of the first-fruits of the field and vineyard, as is more fully defined in Exo 23:19 and Deu 26:2-11, is evident from what follows, in which the law given at the exodus from Egypt, with reference to the sanctification of the first-born of man and beast (Exo 13:2, Exo 13:12), is repeated and incorporated in the rights of Israel, inasmuch as the adoption of the first-born on the part of Jehovah was a perpetual guarantee to the whole nation of the right of covenant fellowship. (On the rule laid down in Exo 22:30, see Lev 22:27.)