---
title: "Exodus 23 - Study King James Bible with the biblical illustrator"
description: "Read Exodus 23 with the biblical illustrator commentary. 1 Thou shalt not raise a false report: put not thine hand with the wicked to be an unrighteous witness. 2 ¶ Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil;"
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url: "https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/the-biblical-illustrator/exodus/23"
---

[ Read](/kjv/exodus/23)[ Commentary](/study/exodus/23)[ Interlinear](/interlinear/exodus/23) Audio

 1 Thou shalt not raise a false report: put not thine hand with the wicked to be an unrighteous witness.*

 2 ¶ Thou shalt not follow a multitude to *do* evil; neither shalt thou speak in a cause to decline after many to wrest *judgment:**

 3 ¶ Neither shalt thou countenance a poor man in his cause.

 4 ¶ If thou meet thine enemy’s ox or his ass going astray, thou shalt surely bring it back to him again.

 5 If thou see the ass of him that hateth thee lying under his burden, and wouldest forbear to help him, thou shalt surely help with him.*

 6 Thou shalt not wrest the judgment of thy poor in his cause.

 7 Keep thee far from a false matter; and the innocent and righteous slay thou not: for I will not justify the wicked.

 8 ¶ And thou shalt take no gift: for the gift blindeth the wise, and perverteth the words of the righteous.*

 9 ¶ Also thou shalt not oppress a stranger: for ye know the heart of a stranger, seeing ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.*

 10 And six years thou shalt sow thy land, and shalt gather in the fruits thereof:

 11 But the seventh *year* thou shalt let it rest and lie still; that the poor of thy people may eat: and what they leave the beasts of the field shall eat. In like manner thou shalt deal with thy vineyard, *and* with thy oliveyard.*

 12 Six days thou shalt do thy work, and on the seventh day thou shalt rest: that thine ox and thine ass may rest, and the son of thy handmaid, and the stranger, may be refreshed.

 13 And in all *things* that I have said unto you be circumspect: and make no mention of the name of other gods, neither let it be heard out of thy mouth.

 14 ¶ Three times thou shalt keep a feast unto me in the year.

 15 Thou shalt keep the feast of unleavened bread: (thou shalt eat unleavened bread seven days, as I commanded thee, in the time appointed of the month Abib; for in it thou camest out from Egypt: and none shall appear before me empty:)

 16 And the feast of harvest, the firstfruits of thy labours, which thou hast sown in the field: and the feast of ingathering, *which is* in the end of the year, when thou hast gathered in thy labours out of the field.

 17 Three times in the year all thy males shall appear before the Lord GOD.

 18 Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leavened bread; neither shall the fat of my sacrifice remain until the morning.*

 19 The first of the firstfruits of thy land thou shalt bring into the house of the LORD thy God. Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother’s milk.

 20 ¶ Behold, I send an Angel before thee, to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared.

 21 Beware of him, and obey his voice, provoke him not; for he will not pardon your transgressions: for my name *is* in him.

 22 But if thou shalt indeed obey his voice, and do all that I speak; then I will be an enemy unto thine enemies, and an adversary unto thine adversaries.*

 23 For mine Angel shall go before thee, and bring thee in unto the Amorites, and the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Canaanites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites: and I will cut them off.

 24 Thou shalt not bow down to their gods, nor serve them, nor do after their works: but thou shalt utterly overthrow them, and quite break down their images.

 25 And ye shall serve the LORD your God, and he shall bless thy bread, and thy water; and I will take sickness away from the midst of thee.

 26 ¶ There shall nothing cast their young, nor be barren, in thy land: the number of thy days I will fulfil.

 27 I will send my fear before thee, and will destroy all the people to whom thou shalt come, and I will make all thine enemies turn their backs unto thee.*

 28 And I will send hornets before thee, which shall drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite, from before thee.

 29 I will not drive them out from before thee in one year; lest the land become desolate, and the beast of the field multiply against thee.

 30 By little and little I will drive them out from before thee, until thou be increased, and inherit the land.

 31 And I will set thy bounds from the Red sea even unto the sea of the Philistines, and from the desert unto the river: for I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hand; and thou shalt drive them out before thee.

 32 Thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor with their gods.

 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.
 
[Exodus 22](/study/exodus/22) [Exodus 24](/study/exodus/24)

## Commentary

 To verse 1
 
[Exodus 23:1](/kjv/exodus/23/1) 

*Thou shalt not raise a false report.* 

**Slander characterized, prohibited, and punished** 

**
I*****.***Slander is characterized. 

**1.**Originating a false report. It may be from-- 

**(1)** Envy. 

**(2)** Carelessness. 

**(3)** Hasty conclusions. 

**2.**Listening to false reports. 

**3.**Circulating a false report. 

**
II.**Slander is prohibited. 

**1.**Affecting antecedents. 

**2.**Affecting character. 

**3.**Affecting family or social relations. 

**4.**Affecting goods. 

**
III.**Slander is punished. The slanderer is-- 

**1.**Excluded from religious fellowship ([Psalms 15:3](/kjv/psalms/15/3)). 

**2.**Exposed to contempt of mankind ([Proverbs 10:18](/kjv/proverbs/10/18)). 

**3.**Object of Divine vengeance ([Psalms 10:5](/kjv/psalms/10/5)). 

**4.**Excluded from kingdom of heaven ([Revelation 22:15](/kjv/revelation/22/15)). (*J. W. Burn.*) 

**Description of slander** 

The tongue of the slanderer is a devouring fire, which tarnishes whatever it touches; which exercises its fury on the good grain equally as on the chaff, on the profane as on the sacred: which, wherever it passes, leaves only desolation and ruin; digs even into the bowels of the earth, and fixes itself on things the most hidden; turns into vile ashes what only a moment before had appeared to us so precious and brilliant; acts with more violence and danger than ever in the time when it was apparently smothered up and almost extinct; which blackens what it cannot consume, and sometimes sparkles and delights before it destroys. (*Massillon.*) 

**Envious slander** 

The worthiest persons are frequently attacked by slanders, as we generally find that to be the best fruit which the birds have been pecking at. (*Bacon.*) 

**How to avoid slander** 

The celebrated Boerhaave, who had many enemies, used to say that he never thought it necessary to repeat their calumnies. “They are sparks,” said he, “which, if you do not blow them, will go out of themselves. The surest method against scandal is to live it down by perseverance in well-doing, and by prayer to God, that He would cure the distempered minds of those who traduce and injure us.” It was a good remark of another, that “the malice of ill tongues cast upon a good man is only like a mouthful of smoke blown upon a diamond, which, though it clouds its beauty for the present, yet it is easily rubbed off, and the gem restored, with little trouble to its owner.” 

**Slander reproved** 

When any one was speaking ill of another in the presence of Peter the Great, he would shortly interrupt him, and say, “Well now; but has he not a bright side? Come, tell me what have you noticed as excellent in him! It is easy to splash mud; but I would rather help a man to keep his coat clean.” 

**Listening to slander** 

Calumny would soon starve and die of itself, if nobody took it in, and gave it lodging. (*Leighton.*) 

There would not be so many open mouths if there were not so many open ears. (*Bishop Hall.*) 

**The progress of slander** 

It is AElian’s observation, how that men being in danger to be stung by scorpions, use to place their beds in water, yet the politic serpents have a device to reach them: they get up to the top of the house, where one takes hold, the next hangs at the end of him, a third upon the second, a fourth upon the third, and so making a kind of serpentine rope, they at last wound the man. And thus it is, that amongst scandalizers and slanderers, one begins to whisper, another makes it a report, a third enlargeth it to a dangerous calumny, a fourth divulgeth it for a truth. So the innocent man’s good name, which, like a merchant’s wealth, got in many years, and lost in an hour, is maimed, and so secretly traduced, that it is somewhat hard to find out the villain that did it. (*J. Spencer.*) 

**False reports** 

The**Rev. C.H. Spurgeon has given publicity to the following letter: “Dear Mr. Spurgeon,--As I see that you are still occasionally put to the trouble of answering inquiries as to the truth of various anecdotes, etc., concerning yourself, I thought the following brief statement might interest you, or some of your numerous readers, if you think it well to publish it. About seventeen years ago I was for some time at a well-known health resort on the south coast. At the *table d’hote*I sat next to a young married lady, who was, alas! consumptive, and of that temperament which is so common in such cases, *tres spirituelle,*and very learned and accomplished. You may be sure she never lacked auditors for her lively conversation. At dessert one day she was ‘telling stories’ (in the literal and juvenile sense of the phrase) about yourself. I let her go on for some time, until I thought the fun was getting a little too fast; and then I said, ‘I hope Mrs., you do not believe the stories you are detailing, because I assure you, I heard nearly all of them in my boyhood, before Mr. Spurgeon was born, and that most of them were then attributed to Rowland Hill--doubtless with equal lack of authenticity.’ She looked me calmly in the face, with a comical expression, and replied, ‘Oh, Mr. 

, we never ask whether such stories are true; it is quite sufficient if we find them amusing.’ ‘Well,’ I said, ‘so long as that is understood all round, by all means keep on.’ The poor, brilliant, thoughtless woman and her husband also have many years since passed away; but she has many, many successors, who are without her wit, and not quite so goodhumouredly candid as to their practice. If only you can get it ‘understood all round ‘ that such folk really do not consider whether their ‘anecdotes‘ are true or not, it might save you some trouble. Yours faithfully.” Mr. Spurgeon himself adds: “This is quite true, but it is a pity that people should lie in jest. The lady was let off very easily. Our friend has touched the root of the matter, It is not malice, but the passion for amusement, which creates the trade in falsehood, which never seems to decline.” 

**Description of calumny** 

Apelles painted her thus: There sits a man with great and open ears, inviting Calumny, with his hand held out, to come to him; and two women, Ignorance and Suspicion, stand near him. Calumny breaks out in a fury; her countenance is comely and beautiful, her eyes sparkle like fire, and her face is inflamed with anger; she holds a lighted torch in her left hand, and with her right twists a young man’s neck, who holds up his hands in prayer to the gods. Before her goes Envy, pale and nasty; on her side are Fraud and Conspiracy; behind her follows Repentance, clad in mourning, and her clothes torn, with her head turned backwards, as if she looked for Truth, who comes slowly after. (*A. Tooke.*) 

**False insinuations** 

Often**are the most painful wrongs inflicted through the medium of covert inuendoes and malignant insinuations. Half of a fact is a whole falsehood. He who gives the truth a false colouring by a false manner of telling it is the worst of liars. Such was Doeg in his testimony against the priests. He stated the facts in the case, but gave them such an artful interpretation as to impart to them the aspect and influence of the most flagrant falsehoods. It was through the same mode of procedure that our Lord was condemned. 

**An unrighteous witness.--** 

**The duties of witnesses** 

**
I.**Not to co-operate in an unrighteous cause (verse 1). This “commandment is exceeding broad,” and conveys a lesson-- 

**1.**To judicial witnesses. 

**(1)** Personal friendships. 

**(2)** The guilt of the accused on some other point. 

**(3)** A show of justice must not influence us. 

**2.**To all partisans, controversialists, politicians. 

**3.**To trades unionists, etc. 

**
II.**Not to co-operate in any unrighteous cause because it is popular (verse 2). 

**1.**Because majorities are no test of truth. Multitudes may be roused by passion, prejudice, or self-interest. 

**2.**Because men should be weighed as well as counted. 

**3.**Because righteousness, from the constitution of human nature, is often unpopular and in the minority. 

**
III.**Not to co-operate in an unrighteous cause Because it is apparently benevolent (verse 3; [Leviticus 19:15](/kjv/leviticus/19/15)). 

**1.**Because we may be putting a premium on vice which is the source of all misery. 

**(1)** By endeavouring to conceal the crime. 

**(2)** By extolling other virtues, so as to minimize the enormity of guilt. But to what purpose is it if we extol a man’s honesty, if he is lazy, or a drunkard; or his sobriety, if a thief? 

**2.**Because justice is above mere sentiment, and for the well-being of the whole community, and not for the exclusive benefit of a class. 

**3.**Because of its influence on the object himself. Let a man feel that you do this or that for him simply because he is poor, and he will see no advantage in helping himself. 

Learn then-- 

**1.**To entertain none but righteous considerations. 

**2.**To pursue them at all cost. (*J. W. Burn.*)

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