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| 1 Thou shalt not take up a false report: put not thy hand with the wicked to be an unrighteous witness. |
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| 2 Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil; neither shalt thou speak in a cause to turn aside after a multitude to wrest justice: |
Not follow a multitude – The difficulty is that the whole world is running on the depraved basis of selfishiness which is quite incongruous to love. D525; R2033:1
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| 3 neither shalt thou favor a poor man in his cause. |
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| 4 If thou meet thine enemy's ox or his ass going astray, thou shalt surely bring it back to him again. |
Thine enemy's ox – If such love was obligatory upon natural Israel, to what degree should spiritual Israel possess and manifest it. R5643:6
The Mosaic Law was far ahead of its time. A50
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| 5 If thou see the ass of him that hateth thee lying under his burden, thou shalt forbear to leave him, thou shalt surely release it with him. |
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| 6 Thou shalt not wrest the justice due to thy poor in his cause. |
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| 7 Keep thee far from a false matter; and the innocent and righteous slay thou not: for I will not justify the wicked. |
Justify the wicked – But he has provided a way in which he can be just, and yet justify. (Rom. 3:26) HG308:2
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| 8 And thou shalt take no bribe: for a bribe blindeth the eyes of them that have sight, and perverteth the words of the righteous. |
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| 9 And a sojourner shalt thou not oppress: for ye know the soul of a sojourner, seeing ye were sojourners in the land of Egypt. |
Oppress a stranger – The treatment of servants, strangers and the aged was the subject of special legislation, but there was none for the priesthood. A52
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| 10 And six years thou shalt sow thy land, and shalt gather in the increase thereof: |
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| 11 but the seventh year thou shalt let it rest and lie fallow, that the poor of thy people may eat: and what they leave the beast of the field shall eat. In like manner thou shalt deal with thy vineyard, and with thy oliveyard. |
The seventh year- Israel's year Sabbath typified a coming blessing to the world. OV250:5
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| 12 Six days thou shalt do thy work, and on the seventh day thou shalt rest; that thine ox and thine ass may have rest, and the son of thy handmaid, and the sojourner, may be refreshed. |
Thou shalt rest – The Mosaic Law was far ahead of its time. A50
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| 13 And in all things that I have said unto you take ye heed: and make no mention of the name of other gods, neither let it be heard out of thy mouth. |
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| 14 Three times thou shalt keep a feast unto me in the year. |
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| 15 The feast of unleavened bread shalt thou keep: seven days thou shalt eat unleavened bread, as I commanded thee, at the time appointed in the month Abib (for in it thou camest out from Egypt); and none shall appear before me empty: |
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| 16 and the feast of harvest, the firstfruits of thy labors, which thou sowest in the field: and the feast of ingathering, at the end of the year, when thou gatherest in thy labors out of the field. |
Feast of ingathering – The Feast of Tabernacles. R3509:1
The festival of the New Year and a thanksgiving occasion for the harvest. R3509:1
Instituted at the time Israel passed from the wilderness into the land of promise, commemorating the wilderness life and the entrance into Canaan. R3509:1
In the end of the year – There were two harvests: the first, of grain, in the spring, representing "Christ, and they that are Christ's at his coming"; (1 Cor. 15:23) the other, or great harvest, was at the end of the year. HG83:1
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| 17 Three times in the year all thy males shall appear before the Lord Jehovah. |
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| 18 Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leavened bread; neither shall the fat of my feast remain all night until the morning. |
With leavened bread – Leaven is corruption, an element of decay, hence a type of sin. R5192:4; F464; T98
Shall the fat – Symbol of loving zeal. T57
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| 19 The first of the firstfruits of thy ground thou shalt bring into the house of Jehovah thy God. Thou shalt not boil a kid in its mother's milk. |
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| 20 Behold, I send an angel before thee, to keep thee by the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared. |
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| 21 Take ye heed before him, and hearken unto his voice; provoke him not; for he will not pardon your transgression: for my name is in him. |
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| 22 But if thou shalt indeed hearken unto his voice, and do all that I speak; then I will be an enemy unto thine enemies, and an adversary unto thine adversaries. |
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| 23 For mine angel shall go before thee, and bring thee in unto the Amorite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, and the Canaanite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite: and I will cut them off. |
Cut them off – A depraved race, whose sins and iniquities had come to the full. Q779:5
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| 24 Thou shalt not bow down to their gods, nor serve them, nor do after their works; but thou shalt utterly overthrow them, and break in pieces their pillars. |
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| 25 And ye shall serve Jehovah your God, and he will bless thy bread, and thy water; and I will take sickness away from the midst of thee. |
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| 26 There shall none cast her young, nor be barren, in thy land: the number of thy days I will fulfil. |
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| 27 I will send my terror before thee, and will discomfit all the people to whom thou shalt come, and I will make all thine enemies turn their backs unto thee. |
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| 28 And I will send the hornet before thee, which shall drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite, from before thee. |
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| 29 I will not drive them out from before thee in one year, lest the land become desolate, and the beasts of the field multiply against thee. |
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| 30 By little and little I will drive them out from before thee, until thou be increased, and inherit the land. |
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| 31 And I will set thy border from the Red Sea even unto the sea of the Philistines, and from the wilderness unto the River: for I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hand; and thou shalt drive them out before thee. |
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| 32 Thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor with their gods. |
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| 33 They shall not dwell in thy land, lest they make thee sin against me; for if thou serve their gods, it will surely be a snare unto thee. |
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