Right Are Your Rules | Exodus 20:22-23:19

The West Wing was a popular political drama TV show that aired in the early 2000s. In one episode, President Josiah Bartlett verbally spars with a conservative talk radio host, Dr. Jenna Jacobs.

The President says to Dr. Jacobs, “I like your show. I like how you call homosexuality an abomination.”

“I don't say homosexuality is an abomination, Mr. President. The Bible does,” responds Dr. Jacobs.

“Yes, it does. Leviticus,” says the President.

“18:22,” adds Jacobs.

“Chapter and verse,” notes the President. He continues, “I wanted to ask you a couple of questions while I had you here. I'm interested in selling my youngest daughter into slavery as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. She's a Georgetown sophomore, speaks fluent Italian, always cleared the table when it was her turn. What would a good price for her be? While thinking about that, can I ask another? My Chief of Staff Leo McGarry insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly says he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself, or is it okay to call the police? Here's one that's really important 'cause we've got a lot of sports fans in this town: Touching the skin of a dead pig makes one unclean. Leviticus 11:7. If they promise to wear gloves, can the Washington Redskins still play football? Can Notre Dame? Can West Point? Does the whole town really have to be together to stone my brother John for planting different crops side by side? Can I burn my mother in a small family gathering for wearing garments made from two different threads? Think about those questions, would you?”

President Bartlett’s barrage against the Bible sounds impressive and intimidating because he sounds like he knows the Old Testament, but he’s both mistaken and misleading. For one, Scripture does not require the death penalty for mixing crops or fabrics. But the writers of The West Wing use this scene to cleverly package a popular argument against the Bible for prime time TV. How can the Bible be a source of absolute moral authority when so many of its commands are obviously embarrassing, outdated, regressive, oppressive, and even immoral?

In his challenge, President Bartlett refers to Old Testament commands that sound strange and even offensive to modern ears. One of those is found in our text today from Exodus. We are going to cover three chapters of Exodus this morning: Exodus 20:22–23:19. Along with the Ten Commandments—where we left off—these detailed instructions comprise what Exodus 24:7 calls “the Book of the Covenant.” Let’s read the beginning of Exodus 21, which gives a sense of the content of this section.

“Now these are the rules that you shall set before them. When you buy a Hebrew slave, he shall serve six years, and in the seventh he shall go out free, for nothing. If he comes in single, he shall go out single; if he comes in married, then his wife shall go out with him. If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master’s, and he shall go out alone. But if the slave plainly says, ‘I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free,’ then his master shall bring him to God, and he shall bring him to the door or the doorpost. And his master shall bore his ear through with an awl, and he shall be his slave forever. When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she shall not go out as the male slaves do. If she does not please her master, who has designated her for himself, then he shall let her be redeemed. He shall have no right to sell her to a foreign people, since he has broken faith with her. If he designates her for his son, he shall deal with her as with a daughter. If he takes another wife to himself, he shall not diminish her food, her clothing, or her marital rights. And if he does not do these three things for her, she shall go out for nothing, without payment of money.”

—Exodus 21:1–11

Right Are Your Rules

Because we don’t live in Ancient Israel, we are not under the jurisdiction of Moses. These rules don’t all apply to us in a wooden, one-to-one way, as we will see. However, we must not fall into the ditch on the other side of the road and assume that these laws are irrelevant to us. They come from God, so they reveal something of God to us. It’s crucial to consider the nature of God’s Law and our attitude toward it.

Psalm 119, the longest of all the psalms, is an acrostic poem that celebrates God’s Law. The Serpent and his offspring have always been questioning God’s Word: “Did God really say?” (Gen 3:1). But David marvels at God’s law: “Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law.” (Psalm 119:18). David delights in God’s law: “Oh how I love your law! It is my meditation all the day” (Psalm 119:97).

Keep in mind that David said this, not about the Ten Commandments, but about the entirety of God’s Law, including Exodus 21–23. Exodus 21:1 begins, “Now these are the rules that you shall set before them.” And 24:3 provides the bookend: “Moses came and told the people all the words of the LORD and all the rules” (Exodus 24:3). That same Hebrew word for rules appears 23 times in Psalm 119!

These rules offend enlightened, modern thinkers, but David declares: “Righteous are you, O LORD, and right are your rules. You have appointed your testimonies in righteousness and in all faithfulness.” (Psalm 119:137–138). And, “The sum of your word is truth, and every one of your righteous rules endures forever.” (Psalm 119:160).

That’s my aim in this survey of Exodus 20–23: to convince you that all of God’s rules are right, that all of his ways are wise, that all of his judgments are just. You do not need to be intimidated by unbelievers who reject God’s Word. You need not fear that God’s Word is outdated, regressive, or embarrassing. You can be sure God’s Word is the trustworthy source of divine revelation.

I want to show that all God’s rules are right by showing the rightness of four aspects of God’s Law: its source, its form, its content, and its aim.

The Source of God’s Law

First, God’s rules are right because they come from God himself. This is the emphatic claim in Exodus, that God personally gave the law to his people at Mount Sinai. Exodus 20:1 began, “And God spoke all these words.” Then we had the Ten Commandments, afterwhich Exodus 20:22 says, “And the LORD said to Moses, ‘Thus you shall say to the people of Israel: “You have seen for yourselves that I have talked with you from heaven.”’”

The Word of God has the very authority of God because God spoke it. Whatever you do to God’s Word, you do to God. If you ignore his Word, you ignore God. If you disobey his Word, you disobey God.

Throughout Exodus 20–23, God frequently reminds his people that He is personally involved in upholding his law, executing justice, and enforcing penalties. “If you do mistreat them [speaking of widows and orphans], and they cry out to me, I will surely hear their cry, and my wrath will burn, and I will kill you with the sword” (Exodus 22:23–24). “And if he [i.e., your poor neighbor] cries to me, I will hear, for I am compassionate.” (Exodus 22:27). “Keep far from a false charge, and do not kill the innocent and righteous, for I will not acquit the wicked.” (Exodus 23:7).

Because God’s Word comes from God himself, it expresses God’s moral will, it reveals God’s righteous ways, it communicates God’s holy character. This is why David can use the very attributes of God to describe God’s Law in Psalm 119. Do you remember the transitive property from math and geometry? If A = B and B = C, then A = C. God is holy, righteous, and good. God’s law comes from God, communicates God’s will, and reflects God himself. Therefore, God’s law is also holy, righteous, and good (Romans 7:12). God’s laws are not oppressive or regressive or immoral. 

When God describes himself as compassionate in Exodus 22:27, you can be sure that his law perfectly expresses his compassion. When God says he opposes false charges and that he will not acquit the wicked in Exodus 23:7, you can be sure that his law is concerned with truth and justice. Whatever is true of the character of God is true of the Law of God as well.

God’s rules are right because they come from God, and God is right. God’s Law is anchored in God’s supreme authority. And this means it’s not enough for critics to cite a verse from the Old Testament and then laugh dismissively, like the command is obviously immoral or wrong. Wrong according to whom? By what standard?

You can only reject God’s Law by appealing to a better law from a higher authority. If you reject the law of God given at Sinai, you must tell us the name of your God. Who is he and where has he spoken, that we might know him and obey him?

Atheistic evolutionists can laugh all they want at Old Testament laws. When they’re done laughing and they catch their breath, they have to provide a moral system by which they know for sure that the laws in Exodus are immoral. They can’t do it. In their story there’s no such thing as right and wrong.  So they might not personally like the laws of Exodus, but they can’t claim that they’re wrong without appealing to some authority over all of us.

So all God’s rules are right because they are grounded in the transcendent, universal authority of God himself.

The Form of God’s Law

Second, the wisdom of God is on display in the form of God’s Law—the way God communicates his law to man. Exodus 21:1 introduces this section of laws: “Now these are the rules that you shall set before them.” The word “rules” could also be translated rulings or judgments. So what we have here is not simply a list of statutes or regulations, but a collection of sample cases along with the answer key, which contains God’s own judgment. These judgments reveal how God’s law applies in concrete cases and they establish legal precedence for future cases.

Today, we call this type of legal system a “case law system.” One of the strengths of case law is that it uses the concrete facts of a case to communicate principles, whereas statutes or regulations are more abstract and try to anticipate all the possible scenarios in advance.

If you’re a parent, you can appreciate this. Before you had kids, could you have anticipated all the ways your kids were going to misbehave and written down rules and regulations covering every possible misdeed? Did you ever imagine you’d hear yourself say things like, “No taping candy to the wall,” or, “No painting the dog,” or, “Don’t pull down your pants when you’re eating”?

Deuteronomy 22:8 is a go-to example of biblical case law: “When you build a new house, you shall make a parapet for your roof, that you may not bring the guilt of blood upon your house, if anyone should fall from it.” If you treat the Mosaic law like regulatory law and try to apply everything in a rigid, one-to-one way, you would literally build a railing around your roof. Do you have a parapet on your roof? Ah ha! You hypocrite! How can you say homosexuality is sin when you yourself don’t obey the laws of Scripture?

But biblical case law communicates moral principles, or what the Westminster Confession of Faith calls the “general equity” of the law, which still applies but looks different. What is the general equity required in the law about parapets on the roof? Property owners are responsible for the safety of people on their property. In fact, the City of Sioux Falls affirms the rightness of God’s rules. We have city ordinances that require railings on our decks, fences around backyard pools, and repairs to sidewalks that pose a tripping hazard.

Because case law deals with concrete cases, it reminds us that sin and righteousness are not abstract concepts, but concrete matters. Love is not a positive vibe. It’s not a mood or force or energy. In Scripture, love is practical. Love is an action. Love is treating others lawfully. So Exodus 21–23 deals with earthy situations, like whether or not you ignore your enemy’s stray donkey when you see it (Ex 23:4–5).

Case law is also brilliantly suited for redemptive history and progressive revelation. How can the infinite God communicate himself to finite people in a specific place and time in history so as to reveal himself to all people in all places and all times? Just as an acorn carries the DNA of the oak tree it will become, God’s Law encapsulates God’s unchanging righteousness, which grows and expands until it is ultimately fulfilled in Jesus Christ.

The very form of God’s Law displays God’s wisdom.

The Content of God’s Law

Third, the wisdom of God’s ways is evident in the content of God’s Law. I wish we had time to explore all the rules here, but I want to consider three laws to demonstrate the wisdom of God’s ways.

Slavery

Verse 2 says, “When you buy a Hebrew slave ….” 

When you buy a slave? Why didn’t God simply forbid slavery? Why did he permit it and regulate it?

It’s true: Scripture never condemns slavery as sinful. God does, however, give laws that govern slavery, and violating those laws is sin. God’s Law regulates how slaves were acquired, how slaves were treated, and how slaves were set free.

Exodus 21:16 is unambiguous: “Whoever steals a man and sells him, and anyone found in possession of him, shall be put to death.” (Exodus 21:16). Kidnapping and human trafficking is a capital offense. So that condemns the entire Transatlantic Slave Trade.

However, the Bible does permit slavery, most commonly to pay off debts due to extreme poverty or as a punishment for theft.

God sets clear parameters to protect slaves from abuse. Exodus 22:25–27 forbids exploiting the poor to profit off of their need. If a master caused permanent physical damage to a slave, the slave was to be set free (Ex 21:26–27). If a master killed a slave, he was to be executed (Ex 21:20).

Exodus 21 also sets time limits on slavery. After six years, a slave was to be released (Ex 21:2). Deuteronomy 15 goes into even more detail.

“And when you let him go free from you, you shall not let him go empty-handed. You shall furnish him liberally out of your flock, out of your threshing floor, and out of your winepress. As the LORD your God has blessed you, you shall give to him. You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God redeemed you; therefore I command you this today.”

—Deuteronomy 15:13–15

So a Hebrew in extreme poverty could become a slave, live with a productive household, work for a faithful Israelite believer, learn a trade, and get back on his feet. After that, he was sent out with a generous starter kit for life: his own livestock, along with food and wine. Exodus 21:5–6 even anticipates conditions for slaves that were so good, a man might even choose to remain with his master forever.

Contrast that to welfare in our country, where we subsidize homelessness and drug addiction and perpetuate personal irresponsibility and dehumanizing dependence. The city of San Francisco gives $620 per month to people who are homeless by choice, plus $200 a month in food stamps. I heard an interview last year with one man who moved to San Francisco to be homeless. “Why would I want to pay rent?” he asked. He enjoys Netflix and Amazon Prime on his smartphone.

Indeed, the mercy of the wicked is cruel (Prov 12:10).

Exploitation of Women

But what about Exodus 21:7? “When a man sells his daughter as a slave ….” 

Fathers, can you imagine ever selling your daughter as a slave?

First, let’s clarify what this is not talking about. It’s tragically common today to hear of parents who traffick their daughters for drug money. But God strictly forbids prostitution: “Do not profane your daughter by making her a prostitute, lest the land fall into prostitution and the land become full of depravity” (Leviticus 19:29).

These laws in Exodus 21:7–11 most likely deal with a situation where a family in an extreme financial crisis could receive early financial compensation for a marriage arrangement. These rules protected vulnerable girls in impoverished families from exploitation. In verse 8, if the marriage was called off, the girl was not to be sold into slavery to foreigners, but redeemed by her family. Verse 9 gives her a privileged status and calls for her to be treated like a daughter if she marries the other man’s son. And in verse 10, she was guaranteed permanent protection and provision as a wife.

I want to suggest that all this is not as strange as it first sounds. At weddings, we still ask, “Who gives this woman to be married to this man.” Not only does the father of the bride gives his daughter away, but in our culture, who traditionally pays for the wedding? The bride and her parents do! That tradition comes from the European dowry, where the parents of the bride gave a sum of money to the man who married their daughter. Over time, that led to the view that daughters were less desirable, even dreaded.

But in the Bible, the bride-price was paid by the man. (See Ex 22:16–17, or Genesis 29, where Jacob worked seven years to marry Rachel.)

So think about this again. The average wedding in South Dakota costs $20,000. Dads, would you rather pay for a $20,000 wedding, or give your daughter in marriage to a man you approve of, who has 3 years worth of income saved up to give her?

God’s Law did not sanction abuse or exploitation. It provided compassionate protections for the most vulnerable.

Restitution

One more. Exodus 21:33–22:17 deals with just punishments for theft. In a word, justice requires restitution—returning what was taken, plus some. Depending on the type of property stolen or damaged, God requires paying back anywhere from 2 to 5 times the value.

Restitution is a critical but missing aspect of repentance today. When you sin, you typically sin against God and against man. Making things right with anyone you have wronged is the outworking of being made right with God.

To see the superiority of God’s ways, consider two alternatives. The Quran gives the Muslim penal code: “As for male and female thieves, cut off their hands for what they have done—a deterrent from Allah. And Allah is Almighty, All-Wise” (Quran 5:38). 

That directly contradicts a key principle of God’s justice found in Exodus 21:23–25: “But if there is harm, then you shall pay life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.” God says the punishment must fit the crime (cf. Eph 4:28). 

Or consider how we handle theft in America with prison time. We already have a mass incarceration problem, with nearly 2 million people locked up. (That’s up from 360,000 in the early 1970s.) We cage people like animals and send taxpayers the bill. Meanwhile, victims of theft have to rely on insurance to cover their losses. And that’s funded by your monthly premiums. I know someone whose car was stolen in Chicago. He said the police know who did it, but it’s not worth their time to go after juveniles who would only face something like 3 weeks in juvenile detention.

God’s ways are truly higher than ours.

The Aim of God’s Law

Finally, God’s rules are right because they aim at fellowship with God. The purpose of God’s Law is to prepare God’s people to dwell with God. The first topic God deals with after the Ten Commandments is laws about altars. There he says, “In every place where I cause my name to be remembered I will come to you and bless you” (Exodus 20:24). The end of the Book of the Covenant gives instructions about feasts, or worship gatherings, where the entire nation was to “appear before the Lord GOD” (Ex 23:17).

But how can a holy God dwell in the midst of sinful people? Remember the repeated warnings in Exodus 19? If anyone touched the mountain, he would die.

So God gave his rules to his people, not to burden and restrict them, but to make it possible for them to enjoy his presence. It’s like when the car manufacturer says to change the oil every 3,000 miles. The aim is not to ruin your life, but to maximize the life of your vehicle. 

God told Israel in Exodus 19:5–6, “Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” Remember, Israel did not become the people of God by their obedience. But they were to obey God because they were his people.

The problem with the Old Covenant was not that it contained some embarrassing, primitive morality that had to be upgraded. The problem was that it required perfect righteousness but couldn’t change unrighteous hearts to fulfill the Law. The gospel is not the good news that God has lowered his standard so as to make it easier for you to clear the bar. The gospel is the good news that God lowered himself, became a man who lived under the law, perfectly fulfilled the righteous requirements of the law, and raises you to new life. So Jesus came to do what the law could not do. He fulfilled all its righteous demands. He perfectly obeyed. And yet he also paid in full the penalty the law requires of lawbreakers.

Jesus came, not to overthrow and reject the Law, but to fulfill it. Jesus came, as Paul says in Romans 8:4, “in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.” The New Covenant promise is that God now does through the gospel what the Law could not do. 

“For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” 

—Jeremiah 31:33

“And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.” 

—Ezekiel 36:27

By His Spirit, God writes his laws on your heart so that you can enjoy the blessing of walking in the wisdom of ways and the rightness of his rules, that you might live and enjoy God forever.