Exodus23chapter 23

The chapter turns from case law to the conduct of a court, and then to the year and its feasts. Rashi reads the opening warning against a false report as two rules in one. It forbids a man to take up a slander. It also forbids a judge "that he should not hear the pleadings of one party to a suit before the other appears" (Rashi on Exodus 23:1:1, citing Sanhedrin 7b). On following a crowd he reports the rulings of the Sages on majorities in a capital case. He then says plainly that the wording of the verse sits awkwardly with them (Rashi on Exodus 23:2:1). Favour toward a poor man in judgment is ruled out in his own words. A judge may not find for him while "saying, He is a poor man; I will find in his favour" (Rashi on Exodus 23:3:1). The bribe of the eighth verse is forbidden even where the judge means to give a true judgment (Rashi on Exodus 23:8:1, citing Ketubot 105a). On the stranger he reports the count of the warnings. The Torah cautions about his ill treatment in thirty six passages (Rashi on Exodus 23:9:1, citing Bava Metzia 59b). The seventh year and the seventh day are held apart. The weekly Sabbath stands through the sabbatical year, and the three feasts keep their order in it (Rashi on Exodus 23:12:1 and 23:17:1). He names the feast of harvest as the Feast of Weeks (Rashi on Exodus 23:16:1). He reads the law about leaven as a rule of time. The Passover lamb is killed on the fourteenth of Nisan after the leaven has gone from the house (Rashi on Exodus 23:18:1). On the first fruits he describes the act itself. A man walks his field, sees the first fig to ripen, and ties a reed round it to mark it (Rashi on Exodus 23:19:1). Rashi is quoted from the Rosenbaum and Silbermann edition of 1929 to 1934, public domain. Ibn Ezra comments at Exodus 23:4:1 and 23:23:1 under a licence that keeps his text off this page, and stands as a citation.