Today’s passage: Exodus 23:10-33
Helpful thoughts:
- God gave Israel further definition to sabbath rest (The seventh day and the seventh year).
- It is thought that boiling a goat in it’s mother’s milk was a pagan practice, making this command a continuation of the command not to give any attention or worship to false gods. Obviously, a mother’s milk should be life giving to the kid, not the means of death or cooking.
- The Lord required all the males to come to the feasts. This was not because He thought less of women. The head of the household has a responsibility to lead his family to the Lord. If the men will be faithful and spiritually mature, everyone benefits.
- God instructs Israel on how they are to take the Promised Land, how He would go before them, how they were to conduct themselves and their worship.
- Israel did not succeed in obeying all the Lord’s commands and it is apparent they never saw how much blessing God had offered to them.
Questions to consider:
- For whom did God give Sabbath rest? Is it only for the individual? How does verse 12 expand our view on this principle of rest?
- How does this principle of obedience going farther than the individual (Benefiting more than the individual) get rightly applied to all the males appearing before the Lord in verse 17? Why is it right for men to pursue the Lord and be leaders in their homes intentionally? What does the carelessness and/or passivity of a husband/father lead to in the home? What does a godly man foster in the home?
- What is the sad irony of Israel’s failure to worship God alone? If the other gods of the land were supposed to offer rain, harvest, fertility, etc. – What had God promised to Israel? What could He alone truly provide? What did they miss out on because they went to other gods for the same provisions? Are the commands of the Lord burdensome or are they for our benefit?