Exodus 23 - Justice, Sabbath, Feasts, and the Angel

Exodus 23 completes the Book of the Covenant, the unit running from Exodus 20:22 to 23:33. The people delivered from Egypt must learn how freedom becomes a shared life: truthful courts, mercy toward an enemy, rest for the weak, feasts of thanksgiving, and obedience on the way to the promised land. The Lord who goes before them also governs how they treat the person standing beside them.

Truth before the crowd (Exodus 23:1-3)

Scripture (Brenton LXX)

1: Thou shalt not receive a vain report: thou shalt not agree with the unjust man to become an unjust witness. 2: Thou shalt not associate with the multitude for evil; thou shalt not join thyself with a multitude to turn aside with the majority so as to shut out judgment. 3: And thou shalt not spare a poor man in judgment.

A report can become an injustice before anyone reaches a court. Verse 1 forbids receiving a vain report and joining an unjust witness. Listening is already a moral act when we welcome an accusation because it confirms what we wanted to believe. The covenant requires a person to resist becoming the next link in a chain of falsehood.

Verse 2 then names the pressure of numbers. The multitude can turn aside judgment until a lie feels safe because many people repeat it. A majority cannot make an unjust witness truthful. The law protects the conscience that must stand apart from a crowd, whether the pressure comes from a family, a workplace, a political faction, or a circle of religious friends. Refusing to spread an unverified allegation may cost approval, but another person’s good name is not ours to spend.

Verse 3 is equally searching: poverty must not itself decide the verdict. Compassion belongs in the treatment of the poor; it cannot authorize false evidence. Later, verse 6 forbids depriving the poor of justice. These commands belong together. A truthful court must neither favor someone merely for being poor nor defeat someone because poverty makes resistance difficult. Mercy and impartial judgment protect one another when both stand before God.

The enemy’s animal and the beginning of love (Exodus 23:4-5)

Scripture (Brenton LXX)

4: And if thou meet thine enemy’s ox or his ass going astray, thou shalt turn them back and restore them to him. 5: And if thou see thine enemy’s ass fallen under its burden, thou shalt not pass by it, but shalt help to raise it with him.

The law moves from public testimony to a meeting on the road. The wandering ox belongs to an enemy, and the fallen ass carries an enemy’s burden. Hostility does not suspend responsibility. You must restore the animal and help to raise it with its owner. The phrase “with him” is particularly demanding: the person you resent becomes someone beside whom you must work.

Here mercy has weight and movement. It takes the time needed to bring an animal back; it bends down beneath a burden. You may still have a real grievance against the owner, but you cannot make his distress your private reward. The animal’s suffering also matters. A quarrel between people gives no permission to neglect a creature dependent on their care.

Proverbs 25:21 directs us to feed a hungry enemy and give drink to one who thirsts. Christ’s command to love enemies in Matthew 5:44 brings this concrete mercy into the whole disposition of the heart. Romans 12:20-21 takes up the feeding of an enemy and directs us to overcome evil with good. Exodus already refuses the claim that hostility excuses indifference. In Christ, the act of helping becomes part of learning the Father’s generous love. Forgiveness can begin with an honest, limited act of good before affection has returned.

This command does not require unsafe contact with an abuser or the abandonment of legal protection. Aid can be arranged through others. Love seeks the person’s good while preserving truthful boundaries; it never asks a victim to become available for renewed harm.

Justice that remembers the stranger (Exodus 23:6-9)

Scripture (Brenton LXX)

6: Thou shalt not wrest the sentence of the poor in his judgment. 7: Thou shalt abstain from every unjust thing: thou shalt not slay the innocent and just, and thou shalt not justify the wicked for gifts. 8: And thou shalt not receive gifts; for gifts blind the eyes of the seeing, and corrupt just words. 9: And ye shall not afflict a stranger, for ye know the heart of a stranger; for ye were yourselves strangers in the land of Egypt.

The court must defend the poor person’s right to a fair judgment. Verse 7 sets the innocent person’s life before the judge, and verse 8 exposes what a gift can do to judgment. A bribe need not make the judge feel wicked. It can make a distorted account look reasonable. Gifts “blind the eyes of the seeing”: even someone who possesses insight can lose the ability to use it honestly when advantage enters the case.

The chapter therefore warns against both elite corruption and crowd pressure. Wealth can buy a verdict; numbers can intimidate a witness. Neither changes what happened. The person with influence, the person whose cause is popular, and the person whose poverty attracts sympathy must all answer to truth. A parish also needs this discipline when loyalties make it tempting to excuse a respected member or treat an unpopular person as already guilty.

Verse 9 reaches deeper than a rule of procedure: “ye know the heart of a stranger.” Israel knows vulnerability from within, having lived as strangers in Egypt. Remembered suffering should become understanding rather than an entitlement to dominate someone else. A newcomer may lack language, connections, or the confidence to question unfair treatment. The redeemed people must remember what that fear felt like.

Justice as worship begins here. The same mouth that praises God cannot willingly corrupt a witness, and the same hand that brings an offering cannot purchase an innocent person’s condemnation. For the reader, repentance may mean correcting a rumor, returning an improper gift, making room for a newcomer to speak, or refusing to protect a wrongdoer simply because he belongs to our group.

Rest is social mercy (Exodus 23:10-13)

Scripture (Brenton LXX)

10: Six years thou shalt sow thy land, and gather in the fruits of it. 11: But in the seventh year thou shalt let it rest, and leave it, and the poor of thy nation shall feed; and the wild beasts of the field shall eat that which remains: thus shalt thou do to thy vineyard and to thine oliveyard. 12: Six days shalt thou do thy works, and on the seventh day there shall be rest, that thine ox and thine ass may rest, and that the son of thy maid-servant and the stranger may be refreshed. 13: Observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you; and ye shall make no mention of the name of other gods, neither shall they be heard out of your mouth.

The seventh year interrupts the owner’s claim to gather everything the land produces. Fields, vineyards, and oliveyards are left so that the poor may eat, and the wild animals receive what remains. The land’s rest and the poor person’s food are joined. An economy governed by the Lord leaves room for life that the owner cannot turn into private gain.

The seventh day has the same outward reach. The ox and ass rest; the child of the maid-servant and the stranger are refreshed. The command addresses someone able to determine other people’s labor. Rest is social mercy. If my rest is purchased by unnecessary demands on someone who cannot refuse me, the freedom of the covenant has not yet reached my household or workplace.

Egypt made the people serve without relief. Here God places a limit on labor and teaches the owner to trust Him with time that cannot be harvested. This trust is demanding because an idle field or an unfinished task can feel like danger. Yet the Sabbath makes visible that people and animals are creatures under God’s care, not instruments whose worth consists in uninterrupted production.

Verse 13 places these rhythms inside exclusive worship of the Lord. Israel must attend to all His commands and refuse the invocation of rival gods. The rest is not simply an efficient method for increasing next week’s output. It acknowledges who owns time and who deserves obedience. For Christians, Hebrews 4:9-11 opens the promise of rest toward life with God while retaining the call to faithful perseverance. Prayer and worship can train us to lay down anxious control, and that surrender should give those under our care genuine relief.

Three feasts and the offering of memory (Exodus 23:14-19)

Scripture (Brenton LXX)

14: Keep ye a feast to me three times in the year. 15: Take heed to keep the feast of unleavened bread: seven days ye shall eat unleavened bread, as I charged thee at the season of the month of new corn, for in it thou camest out of Egypt: thou shalt not appear before me empty. 16: And thou shalt keep the feast of the harvest of first-fruits of thy labours, whatsoever thou shalt have sown in thy field, and the feast of completion at the end of the year in the gathering in of thy fruits out of thy field. 17: Three times in the year shall all thy males appear before the Lord thy God. 18: For when I shall have cast out the nations from before thee, and shall have widened thy borders, thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leaven, neither must the fat of my feast abide till the morning. 19: Thou shalt bring the first-offerings of the first-fruits of thy land into the house of the Lord thy God. Thou shalt not seethe a lamb in its mother’s milk.

The year receives three appointments with God. Unleavened Bread remembers departure from Egypt. The harvest feast brings the first-fruits of labor, and the feast of completion gives thanks when the year’s produce has been gathered. Salvation, beginning, and completion are all received as gifts. The farmer must remember the Lord before treating the harvest as proof of self-sufficiency.

The harvest feast is the Feast of Weeks, later called Pentecost. Exodus 34:22 identifies Weeks with the first-fruits of the wheat harvest, and Deuteronomy 16:9-10 gives its seven-week reckoning. Acts 2:1-13 places the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. The Christian feast receives its fullness from Christ’s saving work and the Spirit’s gift, while the biblical calendar helps us hear that gift within Israel’s worship.

The feast of completion corresponds to Ingathering or Tabernacles. Deuteronomy 16:13 names Tabernacles after the gathering of corn and wine; John 7:2 expressly names that feast as the setting of Christ’s visit to Jerusalem. On its great last day, John 7:37-39 presents His call to the thirsty and explains the promised living water in relation to the Holy Spirit. The harvested abundance leads the Christian reader toward the greater gift of life received from Christ.

The command that the males appear three times is an obligation of Israel’s covenant worship, not a declaration that women and children are outside God’s care. Deuteronomy 16:11, 14 explicitly includes daughters, servants, strangers, widows, and orphans in rejoicing. The feast must not become the privilege of those who control the harvest while the vulnerable remain hungry outside it.

“Thou shalt not appear before me empty” summons thankful offering, not payment for admission to God’s presence. Deuteronomy 16:17 measures the gift according to the blessing received. Verse 18 gives boundaries to sacrificial practice, including the exclusion of leaven from the blood offering and the prohibition on keeping the feast’s fat until morning. Worship follows God’s command rather than the worshipper’s convenience. In Brenton, the verse also expressly anticipates the widening of Israel’s borders, setting these ordinances within the life still to be received.

Verse 19 requires the first of the first-fruits, not whatever remains after every private claim has been satisfied. Its final command forbids boiling a lamb in its mother’s milk. The text states the prohibition without explaining its origin; guesses about a particular pagan ceremony should not take the place of that silence. The plain requirement is that even preparing food falls under the Lord’s command. Gratitude shapes the calendar, the offering, and the table.

The Church’s feasts likewise school memory: the saving acts of Christ become occasions of prayer, thanksgiving, and shared joy. A feast kept with resentment toward a neighbor or indifference toward someone in need contradicts the mercy already commanded in this chapter. Worship receives God’s gifts and opens our hands.

The Angel who bears the Name (Exodus 23:20-23)

Scripture (Brenton LXX)

20: And, behold, I send my angel before thy face, that he may keep thee in the way, that he may bring thee into the land which I have prepared for thee. 21: Take heed to thyself and hearken to him, and disobey him not; for he will not give way to thee, for my name is on him. 22: If ye will indeed hear my voice, and if thou wilt do all the things I shall charge thee with, and keep my covenant, ye shall be to me a peculiar people above all nations, for the whole earth is mine; and ye shall be to me a royal priesthood, and a holy nation: these words shall ye speak to the children of Israel, If ye shall indeed hear my voice, and do all the things I shall tell thee, I will be an enemy to thine enemies, and an adversary to thine adversaries. 23: For my angel shall go as thy leader, and shall bring thee to the Amorite, and Chettite, and Pherezite, and Chananite, and Gergesite, and Evite, and Jebusite, and I will destroy them.

The people are given a guide before they are given possession of the land. God’s angel will guard the way and bring them to the prepared place. Promise is therefore accompanied by a command to listen. The warning in verse 21 removes the fantasy of protection without obedience: the people cannot presume that the guide will simply accommodate rebellion.

“My name is on him” marks an extraordinary authority. The messenger bears the Name of the One who sends him; to resist his guidance is to resist the Lord’s claim. Christian contemplation of this passage concerns God’s saving presence with His people, rather than curiosity about an anonymous heavenly being. The promise strengthens obedience precisely because God has not left the people to find their inheritance alone.

Translation insight: “a royal priesthood, and a holy nation”

Brenton’s verse 22 includes the covenant calling to be “a peculiar people,” “a royal priesthood,” and “a holy nation,” repeating language from Exodus 19:5-6. The Hebrew-based King James Version at Exodus 23:22 instead proceeds from obedience directly to the promise that God will oppose Israel’s enemies; it does not include that priestly calling here. The difference matters: Brenton places Israel’s vocation beside the Angel’s guidance. The journey concerns becoming a people belonging to God, not merely acquiring territory. In this older English usage, “peculiar” means belonging specially to Him, not strange or eccentric. 1 Peter 2:9 receives the royal-priesthood language for the people called to proclaim God’s praises.

The opening messenger language also helps illuminate Mark 1:2 and Matthew 11:10. Their wording combines the sending before the face found in Exodus 23:20 with the preparation of the way in Malachi 3:1. It is a composite scriptural formulation, not a word-for-word quotation of Exodus alone. In the Gospels it concerns John the Baptist preparing the way of Jesus. This convergence lets us hear the coming of Christ as God’s saving approach to His people, while keeping the Baptist’s preparatory service distinct from the name-bearing guide of Exodus.

Gems from the Fathers 💎

St. Justin Martyr develops this connection in Dialogue with Trypho, chapter 75. He quotes Exodus 23:20-21, then joins the divine Name to Joshua’s changed name, rendered “Jesus” in his Greek scriptural setting. His argument passes through the human leader Joshua toward the divine Son’s revelation and birth from the Virgin. It is more particular than the bare claim that every biblical angel is Christ.

Justin, continuing his own reply to Trypho, says: “For if you shall understand this, you shall likewise perceive that the name of Him who said to Moses, ‘for My name is in Him,’ was Jesus.”¹ These are Justin’s interpretive words, not Trypho’s objection and not a second quotation from Exodus. His point is that the God who guided and revealed Himself to the fathers can truly come among us in the Incarnation. The name-bearing guide therefore prepares Christian recognition of the Son who brings God’s people to their inheritance. Calling Him a messenger concerns His saving mission, not a claim that the divine Son belongs to the created angels.

Blessed provision and a measured inheritance (Exodus 23:24-30)

Scripture (Brenton LXX)

24: Thou shalt not worship their gods, nor serve them: thou shalt not do according to their works, but shalt utterly destroy them, and break to pieces their pillars. 25: And thou shalt serve the Lord thy God, and I will bless thy bread and thy wine and thy water, and I will turn away sickness from you. 26: There shall not be on thy land one that is impotent or barren. I will surely fulfil the number of thy days. 27: And I will send terror before thee, and I will strike with amazement all the nations to which thou shalt come, and I will make all thine enemies to flee. 28: And I will send hornets before thee, and thou shalt cast out the Amorites and the Evites, and the Chananites and the Chettites from thee. 29: I will not cast them out in one year, lest the land become desolate, and the beasts of the field multiply against thee. 30: By little and little I will cast them out from before thee, until thou shalt be increased and inherit the earth.

The promise of guidance leads immediately to the refusal of idolatry. Israel must neither worship the gods of the nations nor copy their works. The commanded destruction of their pillars concerns the removal of rival worship within this ancient covenant setting. Receiving the land while keeping its gods would make the outward journey a failure of the heart. The people would have changed location without changing their allegiance.

Verse 25 turns from forbidden service to the service of the Lord and His blessing of ordinary sustenance. Brenton names bread, wine, and water; the Hebrew-based King James Version at this point names bread and water, without wine. The blessing reaches the food and drink by which life is sustained. For a Christian, thanksgiving at the table and the offering of bread and wine in the Eucharist can resonate with this confession that creation is God’s gift. Exodus 23:25 is not an institution narrative of the Eucharist, and the three items do not by themselves establish a sacramental interpretation.

The promises of health, fruitfulness, and length of days belong to the covenant’s picture of life in the land. They must never become a verdict against someone who is ill, infertile, or bereaved. We cannot infer a person’s disobedience from suffering. The Christian receives bodily life thankfully while trusting Christ through suffering as well as relief; the Church owes those who suffer care, prayer, and companionship rather than accusation.

Verses 27-28 describe the Lord going before Israel through terror, bewilderment, and hornets. The text presents His action as decisive; Israel cannot make inheritance a monument to its own strength. Yet the conquest is not to happen in one year. Verse 29 supplies a practical reason: unoccupied land would become desolate, and wild animals would multiply. The people must increase sufficiently to inhabit and care for what is given. “By little and little” first describes a measured occupation of the land, not an explicit theory of psychological development.

That historical sense supports a careful ascetical resonance. Sanctification, our growth in holiness through communion with God, also requires patient obedience. A confessed sin may require an immediate break, while the truthful habits that replace it grow through repeated choices. God gives grace; we must learn to inhabit the freedom He gives. Philippians 2:12-13 holds our real obedience together with God’s action in us. The land’s gradual inheritance can help us resist both despair at slow healing and the pride that demands instant perfection.

Patience must never become permission to postpone stopping abuse, fraud, or another grave harm. “Little by little” concerns the timing God names here; it is no excuse to continue injuring a neighbor. In spiritual application, the enemies to be resisted are sins and disordered passions, not human beings whom we may label obstacles to holiness.

Covenant boundaries without hatred (Exodus 23:31-33)

Scripture (Brenton LXX)

31: And I will set thy borders from the Red Sea, to the sea of the Phylistines, and from the wilderness to the great river Euphrates; and I will give into your hand those that dwell in the land, and will cast them out from thee. 32: Thou shalt make no covenant with them and their gods. 33: And they shall not dwell in thy land, lest they cause thee to sin against me; for if thou shouldest serve their gods, these will be an offence to thee.

The promised boundaries stretch from the Red Sea to the sea of the Philistines, the Mediterranean coast, and from the wilderness to the Euphrates. Brenton names the Euphrates explicitly. The promise has a geographical scope, and the prohibition of covenant with the inhabitants and their gods serves the warning that closes the chapter: their worship would become an occasion of sin. Israel’s allegiance must remain with the Lord who delivered it.

These verses contain grave language of dispossession and exclusion. They belong to ancient Israel’s covenant history and do not authorize the Church to enact a territorial conquest. No Christian may use them to justify contemporary land violence, ethnic cleansing, or dehumanizing a people. Nor may a Christological reading turn them into anti-Jewish contempt: Israel’s Scriptures bear the promise on which this reading depends. Jewish people and every present-day neighbor retain their human dignity and must never be treated as a population to remove.

The chapter itself forbids neglecting an enemy’s animal and oppressing a stranger. Its final warning cannot be detached from that concern and made a general permission to hate. Christ’s command to love enemies governs the Church’s conduct. The Christian application of “no covenant” is a refusal to make peace with idolatry and sin, not a refusal of truthful friendship, civic peace, or protection for people of another faith.

The danger in verse 33 is that rival worship will lead the people to sin against God. For us, a compromise can become so familiar that we cease to notice what it asks of the conscience. Loyalty to Christ may require relinquishing a profitable deception, an accepted cruelty, or a practice that feeds resentment. Such renunciation should make us more faithful in loving people, never less concerned for their lives.

Glossary

• Book of the Covenant: the laws in Exodus 20:22-23:33, preparing for the covenant’s sealing in Exodus 24.
• First-fruits: the first portion of produce offered to God in acknowledgment of His gift.
• Feast of Weeks / Pentecost: the harvest feast reckoned after seven weeks; Acts 2 names Pentecost as the occasion of the Spirit’s outpouring.
• Ingathering / Tabernacles: the feast at the gathering of the year’s produce, named Tabernacles in Deuteronomy 16 and John 7.
• Name-bearing Angel: the messenger who bears God’s Name and authority in Exodus 23:20-21; “angel” names a messenger and must be interpreted in context.
• Ascetical: concerned with disciplined Christian practice, such as prayer, fasting, watchfulness, and repentance.
• Sanctification: growth in holiness through God’s grace and our responsive obedience, rather than self-made moral perfection.
• Idolatry: giving worship or ultimate allegiance to what is not God.

Spiritual Fruit 🍇

Let truth cost you something. Before repeating an accusation, separate what you know from what you merely heard. If you helped a rumor travel, correct it where you spread it. Resisting the majority in verse 2 becomes a concrete service to the person who otherwise stands alone.

Do one good act that resentment would withhold. The fallen animal in verses 4-5 leaves no room for enjoying another person’s difficulty. Pray for the person you dislike, protect what belongs to him, or arrange a needed kindness through a safe intermediary. You need not pretend that the grievance was imaginary to refuse revenge.

Give rest as well as receiving it. Review one demand you place on a child, employee, family member, or volunteer. Remove an unnecessary burden so that someone else can be refreshed. Verse 12 brings the Sabbath into the exercise of power; holy rest becomes visible in how you use another person’s time.

Receive gifts without surrendering allegiance. Thank God for food, drink, work, and the Church’s feasts. Offer the first portion of your care and resources rather than the leftovers of an exhausted week. When repentance seems slow, obey the clear command before you today and trust God’s grace for the next step. His guidance calls you onward without asking you to manufacture your own healing.

The enemy’s burden lies beside the road, and the command is already plain. Set down the argument you have been rehearsing and do the good that can safely be done. The Lord who guards the way also sees the stranger and the creature that needs relief. Ask Him for a heart that can receive His rest and give mercy without bargaining for gratitude.

Teaching Notes

General Notes

Read historically, then canonically, then Christologically. Establish what these commands regulate in Israel before developing their fulfillment and spiritual application. Linger over the pairing of verses 3 and 6, the phrase “with him” in verse 5, and the stated reason for gradual conquest in verse 29. Keep the ancient civil setting distinct from Christian conduct, and let the difficult ending remain under the chapter’s truth, mercy, and Christ’s enemy-love. A class can spend one meeting on verses 1-19 and a second on verses 20-33 without rushing the Angel or the pastoral safeguards.

Truth before the crowd (Exodus 23:1-3)

• Ask: When does agreement with friends become complicity in an unverified accusation?
• Watch for: Treating either poverty or popularity as evidence that decides a case.

The enemy’s animal (Exodus 23:4-5)

• Ask: What safe, concrete good can be done before affectionate feelings return?
• Watch for: Using forgiveness to require unsafe contact or suppress truthful protection.

Justice and the stranger (Exodus 23:6-9)

• Ask: How should remembered vulnerability change the way a newcomer is heard?
• Watch for: Discussing crowd pressure while ignoring bribery and influential insiders, or the reverse.

Rest is social mercy (Exodus 23:10-13)

• Ask: Whose rest depends on a limit I am willing to place on my demands?
• Watch for: Reducing Sabbath to private leisure or productivity advice and overlooking the land, poor, animals, servant, and stranger.

Three feasts (Exodus 23:14-19)

• Ask: How do remembering salvation and offering first-fruits correct possessiveness?
• Watch for: Confusing Exodus’s harvest feast with the fullness of Christian Pentecost, or inventing a historical explanation for the mother’s-milk prohibition.

The Angel and the Name (Exodus 23:20-23)

• Ask: Why does the promise of protection make listening more urgent rather than optional?
• Watch for: Treating Justin’s Joshua-and-Name argument as a generic identification of every angel with Christ; calling the Gospel messenger wording an exact quotation of Exodus alone.

Provision and measured inheritance (Exodus 23:24-30)

• Ask: What is the historical reason for “little by little,” and what limited spiritual analogy does it support?
• Watch for: Blaming illness or infertility on personal sin, turning verse 25 into a Eucharistic institution, or allowing patience to excuse continued harm.

Covenant boundaries (Exodus 23:31-33)

• Ask: How can refusing compromise with sin deepen love for people of another faith?
• Watch for: Anti-Jewish readings, ethnic dehumanization, contemporary claims to land violence, or treating spiritual enemies as human populations.

Sources

Embedded Scripture is from Brenton’s English Septuagint (LXX).

1. Exodus 23, Brenton’s English Septuagint, with Exodus 19:5-6 and 34:22 for the chapter’s covenant and feast connections, and Proverbs 25:21-22 for mercy toward an enemy.

2. Exodus 23:20-33, Malachi 3:1, Mark 1:2, and Matthew 11:10, KJV, used for the Hebrew-based comparison and Gospel messenger wording.

3. Acts 2:1-4, John 7:37-39, and Deuteronomy 16:9-17, KJV; John 7:1-9, Matthew 5:43-48, and Romans 12:17-21, KJV.

4. Exodus 34:22, 1 Peter 2:9, Philippians 2:12-13, and Hebrews 4:9-11, KJV.

5. St. Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, chapter 75, read with chapter 74 to identify the speaker; translated by Marcus Dods and George Reith in Ante-Nicene Fathers, volume 1. The translation’s introductory notice identifies Dods and Reith.

6. Coptic Orthodox lectionary references: the ordinary date readings, reverse passage references, Holy Pascha day-and-hour readings and service text, Bright Saturday order, and special-service reading tables consulted for this study did not establish an appointment for Exodus 23. This is a limited statement about the references consulted, not a claim that the chapter has no place in the Church’s worship. The feast connections above are scriptural and thematic, not an assertion that Exodus 23 is read at Christian Pentecost.

Footnotes

1. St. Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, chapter 75, continuing Justin’s reply begun in chapter 74; Marcus Dods and George Reith, translators, Ante-Nicene Fathers, volume 1. Direct text. ↩