Exodus 23:1 - Meaning and Application

Here are some cautions about court cases. It was not enough for Israel to have good laws, better than any other nation had. They also had to make sure justice was carried out rightly under those laws. First, witnesses are warned not to bring an innocent person into court by spreading a false report, or by joining in the case against someone they do not know is guilty (Exodus 23:1). To bear false witness in a case that can affect a person’s life brings together lying, perjury, hatred, theft, and murder, while pretending to act fairly. Few acts of wickedness are as full of evil as this one.

This warning also reaches beyond the courtroom into daily speech. Slandering and speaking badly behind someone’s back are forms of false witness. A person’s good name is as much at the mercy of a crowd as his property or even his life is at the mercy of a judge or jury. So if someone starts or knowingly spreads a false story about his neighbor, especially before people whose respect matters, he sins against truth, justice, and love. He also makes it harder for the injured person to clear his name.

The words can also be read as, “You must not receive a false report.” Sometimes the listener is as guilty as the speaker. A backbiting tongue would do far less harm if people did not give it support. We may not be able to avoid hearing false reports, but we must not welcome them. We must not enjoy them, as people who take pleasure in evil, or believe them while there is still reason to doubt them. That is one way of loving our neighbor’s good name and doing to others as we would want done to us.

Judges are also warned not to twist justice. They must not be pushed by power or by numbers to go against what they know is right (Exodus 23:2). In Jewish courts, cases were decided by a group of judges, and the verdict followed the majority. But each judge had to vote according to truth, as he saw it after careful and fair examination, even if the crowd or the older judges went the other way. That is why the younger judges voted first, so they would not be pressured by the older ones. Judges must not favor either party, or even let the opinion of other judges sway them.

This verse also gives a broad rule for everyone, not just judges: do not follow a crowd into evil. A common habit does not become right just because many people do it. The broad road is not safer just because it is crowded. We should ask what is right, not what most people are doing. We will answer to our Master, not to our fellow servants, and it is foolish to go to ruin just for company.

Judges must also not bend justice in favor of a poor man, not even out of pity (verse 3). Right must stand, and wrong must still be punished. Mercy is not kind if it excuses evil. If a poor man is guilty of a wrong, it is foolish kindness to let him go free because he is poor (Deuteronomy 1:16-17). Poor people must not be favored in a way that hides their sins.

At the same time, judges must not bend justice against a poor man, and let him be wronged because he has no way to defend himself. In such cases, the judge should act as a defender for the poor person, as far as his case is honest and right (Exodus 23:6). The poor are still your poor, your neighbors, your brothers. Do not let them suffer just because they lack money or influence.

They must also stay far away from any false case or dishonest matter (Exodus 23:7). It is not enough to say, “I am not involved.” They must keep away from it as from a dangerous trap. No one would want to kill an innocent and righteous person with his own hands, so he should stay far from anything that might end that way. God will not leave such evil unpunished: “I will not justify the wicked.” That means God will condemn the person who wrongly condemns others. Even judges must remember that they answer to the great Judge.

They must not take bribes, either (verse 8). A judge must not only refuse a gift that would plainly push him into injustice. He must not even take a gift at all, because gifts have a strange power to blind people who otherwise mean to do right. Bribes can quietly turn a person from the truth and make him do harm against his own intentions.

They must not oppress a foreigner, or stranger, either (verse 9). Even though strangers could not inherit land among Israel, they were still to receive justice and peaceable protection for what was theirs. If they were wronged, they were to be defended, even though they were not part of the nation of Israel. Our own law shows similar fairness, since an alien on trial, except in treason cases, may ask for half the jury to be foreigners. It is a wise provision, so strangers are not oppressed.

The reason given is the same as in Exodus 22:21, “You were strangers.” Here it is put in a moving way: you know the heart of a stranger. You know something of the fears and hurts of being a stranger from your own painful experience. Since you have been delivered from that condition, you should be able to put yourselves in their place more easily.

Then come commands about neighborly kindness. We should be ready to do all the good we can, whenever the need comes up, even for people who have done us harm (Exodus 23:4-5). The command to love our enemies and do good to those who hate us is not only new, but old as well (Proverbs 25:21-22). From this we learn that if we must show kindness even to an enemy, we should be even more ready to show it to a friend. An enemy is named here because a person is unlikely to act badly toward anyone unless he has a special grudge. If it is wrong not to keep our enemy from loss or harm, how much worse it is to cause him harm ourselves.

If we must bring back our neighbor’s cattle when they wander off, how much more should we try to bring our neighbors back when they stray into sin by wise warning and instruction, see (James 5:19, 20). And if we must help a fallen donkey get back on its feet, how much more should we try, by comfort and encouragement, to lift up a discouraged spirit and say to those who are fearful, “Be strong.”

We should seek other people’s relief and good as carefully as our own (Philippians 2:4). If we say, “Look, we did not know,” does not God, who weighs the heart, see through that excuse? See (Proverbs 24:11, 12).