Exodus 22:21-28

New English Translation

Footnotes

1. Exodus 22:21 tn Or “oppress.”
2. Exodus 22:21 tn Or “alien,” both here and in 23:9. On the Hebrew גֵּר (ger) “resident foreigner” see notes at Exod 12:19 and Deut 29:11.sn In Mosaic Law the foreign resident, גֵּר (ger), was essentially a naturalized citizen and convert to worshiping the God of Israel (see 12:19, 48; Deut 29:10-13). Besides not oppressing the ger, Israel was told to love the ger (Lev 19:33-34). Several passages emphasize equal standing under Mosaic Law (Exod 12:49; 20:10; Lev 24:22; Num 9:14; 15:15, 16, 29). This equality is significant against the background of the ancient near east. The Code of Hammurapi, for example, distinguished different applications of law depending on social status.
3. Exodus 22:22 tn The verb “afflict” is a Piel imperfect from עָנָה (ʿanah); it has a wide range of meanings: “afflict, oppress, humiliate, rape.” These victims are at the mercy of the judges, businessmen, or villains. The righteous king and the righteous people will not mistreat them (see Isa 1:17; Job 31:16, 17, 21).
4. Exodus 22:23 tn The accusative here is the masculine singular pronoun, which leads S. R. Driver to conclude that this line is out of place, even though the masculine singular can be used in places like this (Exodus, 232). U. Cassuto says its use is to refer to certain classes (Exodus, 292).
5. Exodus 22:23 tn Here again and with “cry” the infinitive absolute functions with a diminished emphasis (GKC 342-43 §113.o).
6. Exodus 22:23 tn Here is the normal use of the infinitive absolute with the imperfect tense to emphasize the verb: “I will surely hear,” implying, “I will surely respond.”
7. Exodus 22:24 sn The punishment will follow the form of talionic justice, an eye for an eye, in which the punishment matches the crime. God will use invading armies (“sword” is a metonymy of adjunct here) to destroy them, making their wives widows and their children orphans.
8. Exodus 22:25 tn “any of” has been supplied.
9. Exodus 22:25 sn The moneylender will be demanding and exacting. In Ps 109:11 and 2 Kgs 4:1 the word is rendered as “extortioner.”
10. Exodus 22:25 tn Heb “set.”
11. Exodus 22:25 sn In ancient times money was lent primarily for poverty and not for commercial ventures (H. Gamoran, “The Biblical Law against Loans on Interest,” JNES 30 [1971]: 127-34). The lending to the poor was essentially a charity, and so not to be an opportunity to make money from another person’s misfortune. The word נֶשֶׁךְ (neshekh) may be derived from a verb that means “to bite,” and so the idea of usury or interest was that of putting out one’s money with a bite in it (See S. Stein, “The Laws on Interest in the Old Testament,” JTS 4 [1953]: 161-70; and E. Neufeld, “The Prohibition against Loans at Interest in the Old Testament,” HUCA 26 [1955]: 355-412).
12. Exodus 22:26 tn The construction again uses the infinitive absolute with the verb in the conditional clause to stress the condition.
13. Exodus 22:26 tn The clause uses the preposition, the infinitive construct, and the noun that is the subjective genitive—“at the going in of the sun.”
14. Exodus 22:27 tn Heb “his skin.”
15. Exodus 22:27 tn Literally the text reads, “In what can he lie down?” The cloak would be used for a covering at night to use when sleeping. The garment, then, was the property that could not be taken and not given back—it was the last possession. The modern idiom of “the shirt off his back” gets at the point being made here.
16. Exodus 22:27 tn Heb “and it will be.”
17. Exodus 22:28 tn The two verbs in this verse are synonyms: קָלַל (qalal) means “to treat lightly, curse,” and אָרַר (ʾarar) means “to curse.”
18. Exodus 22:28 tn The word אֱלֹהִים (ʾelohim) is “gods” or “God.” If taken as the simple plural, it could refer to the human judges, as it has in the section of laws; this would match the parallelism in the verse. If it was taken to refer to God, then the idea of cursing God would be more along the line of blasphemy. B. Jacob says that the word refers to functioning judges, and that would indirectly mean God, for they represented the religious authority, and the prince the civil authority (Exodus, 708).