Exodus 23:1-33

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The Draft Charter of Human Responsibilities

N.B. As in the previous chapter, with all of these legal ordinances, I have attempted to translate the words into phrasing that makes sense to a modern reader, and not necessarily taken the idioms of the day literally; the primary goal in these chapters being to understand the intention of the laws.

23:1 LO TISA SHEMA SHAV AL TASET YADCHA IM RASHA LIHEYOT ED CHAMAS

לֹא תִשָּׂא שֵׁמַע שָׁוְא אַל תָּשֶׁת יָדְךָ עִם־רָשָׁע לִהְיֹת עֵד חָמָס

KJ (King James translation): Thou shalt not raise a false report: put not thine hand with the wicked to be an unrighteous witness.

BN (BibleNet translation): Do not tell lies about other people. Do not raise your hand as the wicked do, to perjure yourself as a witness.

TASET YADCHA: I am assuming that "raise your hand" here is the same as we do today in a Court of Law, or that moment when the President swears the Oath of Allegiance. Anthropologically, it's the same as shaking hands - in one the hand is held high and open to show it is not concealing a weapon; in the other, the act of shaking provides the same proof, but also requires physical contact, which enemies might find difficult. What the other hand may be doing behind the back is not relevant to this short essay.

In terms of style, this appears to be a third different set of laws; starting with the Ten Commandments, then the laws we read in chapter 21 and 22, and now these one-liners.

SHAV: The root is Sheen-Vav-Aleph, probably pronounced SHO rather than SHAV, and it always has negative connotations, whether of making an unruly noise, or actual destruction - the word SHO'AH, for the Holocaust, derives from here - or simply general inquity, such as the lies of this verse. I can find no text to confirm this, but I am certain that the multiple meanings have to do with the homophone SHEV'A, written Sheen-Bet-Ayin (שבע), as in Be'er Sheva, "The Well of the Oath".

ED CHAMAS: Yes, the same word as the Palestinian terrorist group; sorry, I meant the legitimate and democratically elected government of the Palestinian enclave in the Gaza Strip; no, sorry again, I really did mean terrorist group - especially against their own people. "Unrighteous" is not an accurate translation in their case; however, the word means "violence".

23:2 LO TIHEYEH ACHAREY RABIM LERA'OT VE LO TA'ANEH AL RIV LINTOT ACHAREY RABIM LEHATOT

לֹא תִהְיֶה אַחֲרֵי רַבִּים לְרָעֹת וְלֹא תַעֲנֶה עַל רִב לִנְטֹת אַחֲרֵי רַבִּים לְהַטֹּת

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

BN: Do not follow the crowd to do evil. Do not put your name forward to support a cause just because everybody else is - it may prove evil.

Short pithy statements, almost in the manner of the Book of Proverbs, but with legal authority. This one uses complex internal rhymes (LE RA'OT...LE'HATOT) and puns (RABIM and RIV, LINTOT and LE'HATOT), adding weight to my SHAV-SHEV'A suggestion, above.

LO TIHEYEH ACHAREY RABIM is the crowds in the Nuremburg Platz, but it's also the crowds in Tianenmen Square and Tahrir Square and Wenceslas Square and Trafalgar Square and Madison Square Gardens for that matter - because sometimes the one you are following appears to be preaching good, but it turns out to be evil. This is more about the act of following, of being persuaded or bullied into following, of doing it because everybody else is doing it, of "just obeying orders". Zeitgeist complicity, driven by herd mentality. Polish death camps!

23:3 VE DAL LO TEH'DAR BE RIYVO

וְדָל לֹא תֶהְדַּר בְּרִיבוֹ

KJ: Neither shalt thou countenance a poor man in his cause.

BN: Do not show favour to a poor man when you judge his case.

This verse needs to be read in parallel with Leviticus 19:15, which takes both sides, where this only takes one.

LO TA'ASU AVEL BA MISHPAT LO TISA PHENEY DAL VE LO TEHDAR PENEY GADOL BE TSEDEK TISHPOT AMITECHA

לֹא תַעֲשׂוּ עָוֶל בַּמִּשְׁפָּט לֹא תִשָּׂא פְנֵי דָל וְלֹא תֶהְדַּר פְּנֵי גָדוֹל בְּצֶדֶק תִּשְׁפֹּט עֲמִיתֶךָ

You shall not be unrighteous in judgment; you shall not give extra weight to a person's poverty, nor favours because a person is powerful; but you shall judge your neighbour righteously.

For justice to be truly justice, the courts have to be absolutely unbiased in any direction; neither the poor because one feels sorry for them, nor the rich because they have the capacity to encourage you to favour them.

samech break

23:4 KI TIPHGA SHOR OYEVECHA OR CHAMORO TO-EH HASHEV TESHIVEYNU LO

כִּי תִפְגַּע שׁוֹר אֹיִבְךָ אוֹ חֲמֹרוֹ תֹּעֶה הָשֵׁב תְּשִׁיבֶנּוּ לוֹ

KJ: If thou meet thine enemy's ox or his ass going astray, thou shalt surely bring it back to him again.

BN: If you come upon your enemy's ox or his ass going astray, you are obligated to return it to him.

This may well be my favourite of all the laws; certainly a contender. The keyword, self-evidently, is OYEVECHA, "your enemy" - anyone can do the right thing by friend or family, or even a complete stranger; but to do the right thing by your enemy...

OYEVECHA: The pointing actually gives OYIVCHA, which is a scribal error.

samech break

23:5 KI TIR'EH CHAMOR SONA'ACHA ROVETS TACHAT MASA'O VE CHADALTA ME AZOV LO AZOV TA'AZOV IMO

כִּי תִרְאֶה חֲמוֹר שֹׂנַאֲךָ רֹבֵץ תַּחַת מַשָּׂאוֹ וְחָדַלְתָּ מֵעֲזֹב לוֹ עָזֹב תַּעֲזֹב עִמּוֹ

KJ: 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.

BN: If you see the ass of he-who-hates-you lying with its load still bound to it, you may not grant yourself permission to pass by; you are obligated to release both it and him.

What is the difference between verses 5 and 6? In the one, you hate him; in the other, he hates you. Either way, his ass deserves to be treated properly.

samech break; end of 4th fragment.

Some of these laws must have been quite hard to obey, let alone enforce; the temptation to do otherwise is enormous.

23:6 LO TATEH MISHPAT EVYONCHA BE RIYVO

לֹא תַטֶּה מִשְׁפַּט אֶבְיֹנְךָ בְּרִיבוֹ

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

BN (provisional): You shall not wrest the judgment of your poor in his quarrel.

Meaning what exactly? How is this different from 23:3 above? Or is this the positive to its negative, the part that is added in the Leviticus 19 version? And if so, is it not out of order - again!

Rashi hasn't a clue either, by the way, before you waste your time looking him up. Nor does Clarke. Benson is totally incomprehensible. Matthew Henry evades by making some generalisations about verses 1-9 as a whole. Barnes is thorough, though he simply regards it as a repetition of 22:21, which it isn't. I tried to find something by Bob Alter, but typically he's unfindable, and if you email him he won't reply. Maimonides in Mishneh Torah ignores the "judgement" but suggests that the "poverty" is not material so much as - well, this is exactly how he puts it: "Not to pervert judgment against a sinner, as [implied by Exodus 23:6, which] states: 'Do not pervert the judgment of a poor person.' This refers to someone who is poor with regard to [the observance of] the mitzvot." I have no idea why he would think it meant this. The best explanation, I believe, can be found in Chabad's version of the 613 Commandments, which renders the verse in English as : "A judge must not decide unjustly the case of the habitual transgressor", which I take as a way of saying that a person's criminal record should not be used against them. I am not sure this is what the Yehudit is saying, but I like the concept anyway. A full list of options can be found here, but all of those are simply repetitions of verse 3, and the wording here is significantly different, in particular:

RIYVO: LARIV means "to quarrel", and is not the verb used for "to bring a case to court". The quarrel took place outside the court, though its consequences may have ended up there... 

and in even more particular:

LO TATEH: from the root NATAH, which means "to stretch out", or "to extend", and once you realise that this, and not "wrest" or "pervert", is the meaning, a translation becomes obvious, especially if you have ever read Dickens' "Bleak House", or found yourself being procrastinated by a Jarndyce of your own:

BN (final translation, but extended to make the point as clear as possible): Do not seek to stretch out the length of your court case, knowing your opponent can barely afford the lawyer's fee in the first place.

23:7 MI DEVAR SHEKER TIRCHAK VE NAKI VE TSADIK AL TAHAROG KI LO ATSDIK RASHA

מִדְּבַר שֶׁקֶר תִּרְחָק וְנָקִי וְצַדִּיק אַל תַּהֲרֹג כִּי לֹא אַצְדִּיק רָשָׁע

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

BN: Stay away from falsehoods. Do not slay the innocent and the righteous, for I will not justify the wicked.

AL TAHAROG: In what way is this different from LO TIRTSACH? See my notes to Exodus 20:12.

ATSDIK: Again the overt voice of the deity. But which deity, YHVH or Elohim?

This is the Timothy Evans clause, the final nail in the coffin of the death-penalty in England (horribly mixed metaphor, but "the last thread on the rope" doesn't have the same death-knell ring about it). Evans was the last man hanged in England, mostly on the evidence of one John Christie - who turned out to have been the real serial killer all along. But this is also the Gerry Conlon clause: the Guildford Four spent years in jail, and Conlon's father died there, on the basis of faked evidence which the police knew was faked, and marked in the court archive as "Not to be shown to the defense lawyer", until she came upon it by chance: had there still been the death penalty in England, all four, plus several others imprisoned with them, would unquestionably have been hanged.

23:8 VE SHOCHAD LO TIKACH KI HA SHOCHAD YE'AVER PIKCHIM VIYSALEPH DIVREY TSADIYKIM

וְשֹׁחַד לֹא תִקָּח כִּי הַשֹּׁחַד יְעַוֵּר פִּקְחִים וִיסַלֵּף דִּבְרֵי צַדִּיקִים

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

BN: And you shall accept no gift; for a gift blinds those that have sight, and perverts the words of the righteous.

SHOCHAD: An odd coincidence takes place here; the Yehudit letters Seen (ש) and Sheen (ש) are indistinguishable without pointing; so this word could as well be SOCHAD as SHOCHAD, and SOCHAD happens to mean "a witness", specifically an "eye-witness", though it only occurs once in the Bible, in Job 16:19, where it may in fact be an Aramaic word.

Job is also key to our understanding the difference between a SHOCHAD and a MATANAH (מתנה), for SHOCHAD is used in Job 6:22 as a gift of ransom paid on someone else's behalf, for the specific purpose of freeing from punishment. A MATANAH is also "a gift", from LATET (לתת) = "to give", but it is SHOCHAD which has the sense of a gift that may lack a full measure of ingenuousness.

23:9 VE GER LO TILCHATS VE ATEM YEDA'TEM ET NEPHESH HA GER KI GERIM HEYIYTEM BE ERETS MITSRAYIM

וְגֵר לֹא תִלְחָץ וְאַתֶּם יְדַעְתֶּם אֶת נֶפֶשׁ הַגֵּר כִּי גֵרִים הֱיִיתֶם בְּאֶרֶץ מִצְרָיִם

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

BN: And you shall not oppress a stranger; for you know the heart of a stranger, seeing that you were strangers in the land of Egypt.

Again that reason for so many of these laws. But here with the overt statement of empathy that seems to me to be one of the great contributions to human civilisation of the Mosaic Laws. Think today's equivalents: all those refugees pouring out of war-torn or drought-torn or tyranny-torn or poverty-torn regions, and we don't want them, or only if there are proper controls, and not in my street... or the plight of our own homeless, the mentally sick, the long-term unemployed... an absence of empathy is one of the principal characteristics of our contemporary way of life.

GER: Note that the text uses GER, not NACHRI (there is an interesting article on the differences between these two, as well as ZAR, TOSHAV and GO'I, at hebrewvisionnews, though I also draw your attention to my own page on the subject, here), which would be more logical in the context; but GER takes us back to the Sabbath laws in Exodus 20:9, and this verse reinforces the statement in the commentary there, that the use of a shobbas goy is a breach of the commandments.

Why is there no samech break here, given that we are about to change topics?

23:10 VE SHESH SHANIM TIZRA ET ARTSECHA VE ASAPHTA ET TEVU'ATAH

וְשֵׁשׁ שָׁנִים תִּזְרַע אֶת אַרְצֶךָ וְאָסַפְתָּ אֶת תְּבוּאָתָהּ

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

BN: For six years you shall sow your land, and gather in the harvest ...

As with the week of Creation throughout the Cosmos, so with the cycle of Creation on the Earth, six years followed by a year Sabbath of rest.

23:11 VE HA SHEVIY'I TISHMETENAH U NETASHTAH VE ACHLU EVYONEY AMECHA VE YITRAM TO'CHAL CHAYAT HA SADEH KEN TA'ASEH LE CHARMECHA LE ZEYTECHA

וְהַשְּׁבִיעִת תִּשְׁמְטֶנָּה וּנְטַשְׁתָּהּ וְאָכְלוּ אֶבְיֹנֵי עַמֶּךָ וְיִתְרָם תֹּאכַל חַיַּת הַשָּׂדֶה כֵּן תַּעֲשֶׂה לְכַרְמְךָ לְזֵיתֶךָ

KJ: 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.

BN: But in the seventh year you shall let it rest and lie fallow, so that the poor among your people may eat; and what they leave the beasts of the field shall eat. In like manner you shalt deal with your vineyard, and with your olive orchard.

Scholars generally read this as meaning that every seventh year is a jubilee year; but surely this must be wrong. If all fields were jubileed at the same time, there would be no food for anyone in that seventh year, except what was stored (like Friday manna) from the sixth and/or previous years - which is obviously an absurd and actually rather stupid way of doing agriculture. What I think we have to assume is that rotation farming was intended, with each field given six years of crop-raising, and then left fallow, but different fields at different points of the cycle. This law is not about feeding the poor anyway; but about the long-term health of the field as an agricultural asset. The feeding of the poor is resolved by the laws pertaining to the gleanings (Leviticus 19:9, 23:22 et al). With vine and olive groves each year new sections would be planted or grafted, so again a rotation system would have been possible.

The figure seven is again linked to the Sabbath-god, and of course Yoseph's lean and fat years were in jubilee cycles too. And then the Shabbat itself, which logically follows in the next verse.

23:12 SHESHET YAMIM TA'ASEH MA'ASEYCHA U VA YOM HA SHEVIY'I TISHBOT LEMA'AN YANU'ACH SHORCHA VA CHAMORECHA VE YINAPHESH BEN AMAT'CHA VE HA GER

שֵׁשֶׁת יָמִים תַּעֲשֶׂה מַעֲשֶׂיךָ וּבַיּוֹם הַשְּׁבִיעִי תִּשְׁבֹּת לְמַעַן יָנוּחַ שׁוֹרְךָ וַחֲמֹרֶךָ וְיִנָּפֵשׁ בֶּן אֲמָתְךָ וְהַגֵּר

KJ: 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.KJ: 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.

BN: For six days you shall do all the things you need to do, but on the seventh day you shall rest; so that your ox and your ass may have rest, and the son of your handmaid, and the stranger too, may be refreshed.

MA'ASEYCHA: As if Sabbath had not already been instituted (Exodus 20:8), but now with variations, which also help us date this text as different from the other versions - though whether earlier or later is for the scholars to determine. In chapter 20 we were told "Sheshet yamim ta'avod, ve asita kol mela'chtecha - שֵׁשֶׁת יָמִים תַּעֲבֹד וְעָשִׂיתָ כָּל מְלַאכְתֶּךָ; now we are given TA'ASEY MA'ASEYCHA (both words from the same root, LA'ASOT = "to do"), which is a much broader description than MELA'CHTECHA, so Orthodox Jews should be pleased that the Talmudic Rabbis chose 20:8 and not 23:12 for the definition of what is and is not permitted on the Sabbath: TA'ASEY MA'ASEYCHA permits nothing at all, where MELA'CHTECHA merely restricts. 20:10 states clearly that the purpose of Shabbat is the honouring of the act of Creation; here it is for the purpose of giving rest to others, man and beast.

BEN AMAT'CHA: It is unclear why it is her son rather than the handmaid herself who gets the lie-in. If he still expects breakfast, forget it, she is prohibited.

VE HA GER: Oh yes, never forget the GER, especially the shobbas goy. The prohibition could not be more explicit.

23:13 U VE CHOL ASHER AMARTI ALEYCHEM TISHAMERU VE SHEM ELOHIM ACHERIM LO TAZKIYRU LO YISHAMA AL PIYCHA

וּבְכֹל אֲשֶׁר אָמַרְתִּי אֲלֵיכֶם תִּשָּׁמֵרוּ וְשֵׁם אֱלֹהִים אֲחֵרִים לֹא תַזְכִּירוּ לֹא יִשָּׁמַע עַל פִּיךָ

KJ: 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.

BN: And in all things that I have said to you take heed. And make no mention of the name of other gods - never let it be heard from your mouth.

TISHAMERU: There is a rather nice naivety to this, as if someone had written an idiot's guide to the laws. Meanings are changed though: now you cannot even say the word YAH, let along sing praises to her (to which I can only say: Hallelu-Yah). Grammar is changed as well: TISHAMERU feels late poetic. TISHMERU is what we would expect.

Again, the cult of the Beney Yisra-El did not, and Judaism today does not, deny the existence of other gods, claiming there is no other god than YHVH, or in this case Elohim; it merely denies the right of worship, and insists on supremacy. Which is reasonable. Hindus are not keen on their followers worshipping Jesus, and there is little support for Buddha at the mosque. This, however, goes one stage further than that, and like the poetical TISHAMERU can be dated to the Hamsonean period, or may even be a Talmudic addition to the text; this, for the second time in this chapter, is YHVH asserting himself as the Omnideity, post-coup. 

23:14 SHALOSH REGALIM TACHOG LI BA SHANAH

שָׁלֹשׁ רְגָלִים תָּחֹג לִי בַּשָּׁנָה

KJ: Three times thou shalt keep a feast unto me in the year.

BN: Three times every year you will make the pilgrimage - the Chag - to me.

REGALIM: This is key to our understanding of the earlier chapters of Exodus, which were described by me as "a pilgrimage". Whether or not you accept my contention that Egypt to Sinai was itself pilgrimage, it certainly became one after the conquest. REGEL = "leg", and the term means "foot-festival", one on which you walk to the shrine. CHAG is the Yehudit equivalent of the Arabic-Moslem Hajj (properly al-Hajju - الحج).

This is also the REGEL upon which Hillel famously stood ("be regel echad - on one regel"), and which was not in fact his leg, though that is how the tale gets told, but the word's other meaning, "a single rule", the distillation of the 613 commandments into a single, over-arching epigram (read the original tale here, in the Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Shabbat; paragraph three when you get to the link. No one ever tells the tale with the Shammai part; but actually you need the Shammai part, because it's Shammai attacking the man with his ruler that makes the pun clear). But the point is: be regel echad means "in one rule", and not "on one leg" - and in the original there is no leg.

PESACH (Passover) has already been given, and celebrated. Shavu'ot has not yet, though it will be in verse 16. But problematically, because Shavu'ot, in Talmudic terms, is both the harvest of the first fruits and the anniversary of the giving of the law, but verse 16 only speaks of the first fruits, in spite of the fact that the laws are clearly being given, right now, in the 3rd month, and at what we have calculated was almost certainly the 6th day of that month (see my notes to Exodus 19:1). Sukot is calendrically yet to come, though it too will be inaugurated in verse 16.

23:15 ET CHAG HA MATSOT TISHMOR SHIV'AT YAMIM TO'CHAL MATSOT KA ASHER TSIVIYTICHA LE MO'ED CHODESH HA AVIV KI VO YATSA'TA MI MITSRAYIM VE LO YERA'U PHANAI REYKAM

אֶת חַג הַמַּצּוֹת תִּשְׁמֹר שִׁבְעַת יָמִים תֹּאכַל מַצּוֹת כַּאֲשֶׁר צִוִּיתִךָ לְמוֹעֵד חֹדֶשׁ הָאָבִיב כִּי בוֹ יָצָאתָ מִמִּצְרָיִם וְלֹא יֵרָאוּ פָנַי רֵיקָם

KJ: 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:).

BN: You shall keep the feast of unleavened bread; for seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, as I have instructed you, at the time appointed in the month of Aviv; for in that month you left Mitsrayim; and no one shall appear before me hungry.

CHAG HA MATSOT: Note that it is not called Pesach here, but by what was probably its earlier name when it was already in place as the spring harvest in Egypt.

YERA'U PHANAI: What do the last few words really mean? "None shall come into my presence" would probably be a more precise translation, but it has too many overtones of the Pharaoh, and too many reminders of Yoseph's official name, Tsaphnat Pa'ne'ach. The intention seems to be to eat plenty. But it is not the emptiness of our stomachs that matters; it requires the Beney Yisra-el to bring animal sacrifices on each festival; which of course they get to eat, and the god gets the smell of the cooking, which he "savours".

23:16 VE CHAG HA KATSIR BIKOREY MA'ASEYCHA ASHER TIZRA BA SADEH VE CHAG HA ASIPH BE TS'ET HA SHANAH BE ASPECHA ET MA'ASEYCHA MIN HA SADEH

וְחַג הַקָּצִיר בִּכּוּרֵי מַעֲשֶׂיךָ אֲשֶׁר תִּזְרַע בַּשָּׂדֶה וְחַג הָאָסִף בְּצֵאת הַשָּׁנָה בְּאָסְפְּךָ אֶת מַעֲשֶׂיךָ מִן הַשָּׂדֶה

KJ: 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.

BN: And the harvest festival, the first-fruits of your labours, which you sow in the field; and the feast of ingathering, at the end of the year, when you gather in the fruit of your labours from the field.

CHAG HA KATSIR: Shavu'ot, which takes place 49 days after the second day of Pesach (which of course is the same as saying it takes place fifty days after the start of Pesach; but actually, no, it is not the same thing at all.) Today it is regarded primarily as the celebration of the giving of the law (for which, again, see my notes to Exodus 19:1; but it is plain here that the Law was not the reason for the annual celebration, even though that could now be added as a secondary reason; the primary reason is the summer harvest festival - and note that all three REGALIM, all three of the annual visits to the shrine, are connected with the harvest, and as such must be regarded as parts of the ancient fertility cult. The likelihood is that Shavu'ot, like Pesach and Sukot, had been celebrated across the Near and Middle East for several thousand years already, ever since the corn-god was first born in the accidental evolution of the Emmer and Bread wheats (cf Ancestry of the Patriarch 2: Kesed 7,000 BCE)

CHAG HA ASIPH: Marking the harvest as "the end of the year", which is rather strange, since we have only just been told to mark Pesach in the spring as the start of the new year - unless it simply means "the agricultural year". We know exactly when the calendar was changed, so we now have the means of dating this text as post-exilic. And of course today Sukot, which is the festival in question, falls just after the New Year, though it is not named CHAG HA ASIPH any more than Shavu'ot is named CHAG HA KATSIR or Pesach CHAG HA MATSOT. So we can say that, not only was there a reform of the calendar, which moved the date of the new year from the spring to the autumn, but that there were fundamental changes, at some point, in the nature of the feasts themselves; probably a consequence of the Beney Yisra-El becoming city-dwellers.

MA'ASEYCHA: We have just noted a different term for the work prohibited on Shabbat, and here is that word again, clearly used as agricultural labour; though this does not mean that it was used exclusively for agricultural labour.

23:17 SHALOSH PE'AMIM BA SHANAH YERA'EH KOL ZECHURCHA EL PENEY HA ADON YHVH

שָׁלֹשׁ פְּעָמִים בַּשָּׁנָה יֵרָאֶה כָּל זְכוּרְךָ אֶל פְּנֵי הָאָדֹן יְהוָה

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

BN: Three times each year all your males shall appear before the Lord YHVH.

ADON YHVH: Many times we have seen ADONAI, "my Lord", as an alternative to naming him, but rarely do we see the two together. This is a way of addressing "Your Majesty", so again we can date it to the very latest period, post-Biblical, when YHVH finally emerged as the Omnideity.

Endorsing the pilgrimage instruction in verse 14; but adding the masculine exclusivity, which must have been a late addition, possibly an Ezraic addition, possibly later still. And how do we know it didn't apply now? Because we are on pilgrimage, and the women are there alongside the men, and Mir-Yam and her ladies are singing, dancing and playing musical instruments. Gender equality still applies, at least in this regard, and will continue to do so, throughout the period of the FirstTemple,

23:18 LO TIZBACH AL CHAMETS DAM ZIVCHI VE LO YALIN CHELEV CHAGI AD BOKER

לֹא תִזְבַּח עַל חָמֵץ דַּם זִבְחִי וְלֹא יָלִין חֵלֶב חַגִּי עַד בֹּקֶר

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

BN: You shall not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leavened bread; nor shall the fat of my feast remain all night until the morning.

No explanation is given as to why for either of these, but blood and fat will be prohibited consistently throughout the rules of Kashrut. Most scholars assume that these were matters of hygiene, especially in that desert climate: the yeast in the bread will go blue very quickly, and the fat will attract all manner of insects and bacteria. This may or may not be a correct explanation; we cannot know.

CHALEV: means "fat", but in the next verse is used to mean "milk".

23:19 RESHIT BIKUREY ADMAT'CHA TAVI BEYT YHVH ELOHEYCHA LO TEVASHEL GEDI BA CHALEV IMO

רֵאשִׁית בִּכּוּרֵי אַדְמָתְךָ תָּבִיא בֵּית יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ לֹא תְבַשֵּׁל גְּדִי בַּחֲלֵב אִמּוֹ

KJ: 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.

BN: You shall bring the choicest first-fruits of your land into the house of YHVH your god. You shall not seethe a kid in its mother's milk. {P}

Of course, the real reason for insisting on the best of the first fruits, is that this is what the priests got to eat!

LO TEVASHEL: The source of the meat-and-dairy prohibitions in Kashrut. The idea is that killing the calf is bad enough, but made acceptable by Shechitah; but to then milk the mother, and broil the meat using that milk, is to add insult to injury. The inference is that, if you know that the milk is not from the mother, then you can broil the kid in milk; but Talmudic interpretation prohibits all mixing of milk and meat, just in case. A question for the Rabbis then is: if one cooks lamb in cow's milk, or beef in goat's milk, how can it possibly be breaking this commandment?

Deuteronomy 22:6 has an equivalent of this: "If a bird's nest happens to be in front of you along the road, in any tree or on the ground, with young ones or eggs, and the dam is sitting on the young, or on the eggs, you may not take the dam with the young." From which, applying Rabbi Ishmael's laws, it should be a breach of kashrut to mix egg and chicken.

pey break; end of 5th fragment

23:20 HINEH ANOCHI SHOLE'ACH MAL'ACH LEPHANEYCHA LISHMARCHA BA DARECH VE LAHAVIY'ACHA EL HA MAKOM ASHER HACHINOTI

הִנֵּה אָנֹכִי שֹׁלֵחַ מַלְאָךְ לְפָנֶיךָ לִשְׁמָרְךָ בַּדָּרֶךְ וְלַהֲבִיאֲךָ אֶל הַמָּקוֹם אֲשֶׁר הֲכִנֹתִי

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

BN: Behold, I am sending a messenger ahead of you, to guide you on the way, and to bring you to the place which I have prepared.

Angels, as have been pointed out many times before, are a late addition to proto-Judaism, post-exile. It appears that, at some point, the Rabbis must have become uncomfortable with the pillar of cloud, or perhaps just with its literality, and placed an angel in the vanguard in its place. The angel is not named, but we are left to wonder if it was not perhaps a seraph, which is to say an angel in the form of a serpent, parallelling the Nechushtan, Mosheh's serpent-banner; or perhaps the angel was Nechushtan (I didn't want to add this parenthesis, because I might be accused of egging my cake by restating the hypothesis so often, but a friend has pointed it out, and insisted that I include it; the point being that there is only one reference to a seraph anywhere in the Bible, and that is in Isaiah chapter 6, verse 2).

We can also not help but point out that, a) there is no further mention of this angel, so the verse may well be a complete anomaly; and b) if there was such an angel, given the experiences of the Beney Yisra-El over the next thirty-nine and three quarter years, it must have been a very inept and incompetent angel, so perhaps it was one of those middle-son angels of a senior archangel, for whom nothing more useful or less damaging could be found to do in Heaven, but who had to be given something status-worthy, and at least this kept him out of mischief.

And why the need for an angel anyway, when YHVH himself is leading this pilgrimage, in the fire and smoke of a volcanic eruption? Perhaps this is yet another different version.

Or perhaps we should take "angel" out of the translation, and render MAL'ACH as it was intended, as "messenger", the pillar of smoke by day and the pillar of fire by night functioning as a torch in the sky, a lighthouse so to speak for the ship of Israel in the sea of the desert, just as the stars in the skies are likewise the "messengers of the gods". But even that reflects a very different version.

23:21 HISHAMER MI PANAV U SHEMA BE KOLO AL TAMER BO KI LO YISA LEPHISH'ACHEM KI SHEMI BE KIRBO

הִשָּׁמֶר מִפָּנָיו וּשְׁמַע בְּקֹלוֹ אַל תַּמֵּר בּוֹ כִּי לֹא יִשָּׂא לְפִשְׁעֲכֶם כִּי שְׁמִי בְּקִרְבּוֹ

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

BN: Guard yourself against his face, and listen to his voice. Do not be rebellious against him, for he will not pardon your transgression: my name is in him.

SHEMI BE KIRBO: "My name is in him": a rather strange concept that is probably identifiable as late Persian - you will need to read more about Zoroastrianism for that to become self-evident! -click here for a starting-point, but if you do further research ignore any website that tries to convince you that Zoroastrianism is monothesitic; it is unequivocally dualistic).

What is normally BE KIRBO is a baby in the womb, though it does also have this general usage of "amidst" (as in v 25 below). This is a warning about the volcano: keep your eyes open for his next eruption, and when you hear him rumbling, know that another is on the way, or at the very least an earthquake - for which this verse, with its comment about rebellion, provides a prefiguring of the rebellion of Korach in Numbers 16 (and the permanent messenger also suggests that the "forty-year journey" is in fact an allegory for the circumambulation of the sacred mountain, which idea will be confirmed when they return to their starting-point in the Book of Deuteronomy).

Tikunei Zohar 66b (the text will come up in Ivrit at the link; click on the Aא sign and you will get the bilingual version: this is always the case for Sefaria, and most of my Talmudic links are to their website), a tract of mysticism, insists that the angel is Metatron (מֵטַטְרוֹן), whose name contains the name of god (שַׁדַּי) - and no, I cannot find it there either, but that turns out to be because it is not there in letters as such, but only in the values of letters as numbers, for the numerical value of both is 314. There are no references to Metatron in the Tanach, and very few in the Talmud, but this does not seem to inhibit in any way the mystics or the code-seekers.

23:22 KI IM SHAMO'A TISHMA BE KOLO VE ASIYTA KOL ASHER ADABER VE AYAVTI ET OYEVECHA VE TSARTI ET TSOREREYCHA

כִּי אִם שָׁמוֹעַ תִּשְׁמַע בְּקֹלוֹ וְעָשִׂיתָ כֹּל אֲשֶׁר אֲדַבֵּר וְאָיַבְתִּי אֶת אֹיְבֶיךָ וְצַרְתִּי אֶת צֹרְרֶיךָ

KJ: 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.

BN: But if you do indeed heed his voice, and do all that I tell you; then I will be an enemy to your enemies, and a foe to your foes.

The translation of TSOREREYCHA as "adversaries" is uncomfortable; that word is usually "reserved" for HA SATAN, and has very specific, late-post-exilic connotations. "Foe to your foes" conveys the Yehudit meaning accurately, without unintentionally adding the inaccuracies implied by "adversary". 

23:23 KI YELECH MAL'ACHI LEPHANEYCHA VE HEVIY'ACHA EL HA EMORI VE HA CHITI VE HA PERIZI VE HA KENA'ANI HA CHIVI VE HA YEVUSI VE HICH'CHADETIV

כִּי יֵלֵךְ מַלְאָכִי לְפָנֶיךָ וֶהֱבִיאֲךָ אֶל הָאֱמֹרִי וְהַחִתִּי וְהַפְּרִזִּי וְהַכְּנַעֲנִי הַחִוִּי וְהַיְבוּסִי וְהִכְחַדְתִּיו

KJ: 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.

BN: For my messenger shall go before you, and bring you in to the land of the Emori, and the Chiti, and the Perizi, and the Kena'ani, the Chivi, and the Yevusi; and I will cut them off.

Why name each of them every time; is it because what we (us, today) think of as Kena'an (Canaan) was not a single country, but a land of many tribes?

There is also a conflict here between this statement, which implies that the messenger is leading them there now, and the forty years in the wilderness that they will actually spend, and the continuing presence of the pillars of smoke and cloud.

HA CHIVI: There appears to be a scribal error here, as every other people is connected by the conjunctive VE = "and", but this one is missing.

23:24 LO TISHTACHAVEH L'ELOHEYHEM VE LO TA'AVDEM VE LO TA'ASEH KE MA'ASEYHEM KI HARES TEHARSEM VE SHABER TESHABER MATSEVOTEYHEM

לֹא תִשְׁתַּחֲוֶה לֵאלֹהֵיהֶם וְלֹא תָעָבְדֵם וְלֹא תַעֲשֶׂה כְּמַעֲשֵׂיהֶם כִּי הָרֵס תְּהָרְסֵם וְשַׁבֵּר תְּשַׁבֵּר מַצֵּבֹתֵיהֶם

KJ: 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.

BN: You shall not bow down to their gods, nor serve them, nor do as they do; but you shall utterly overthrow them, and break in pieces their pillars.

TA'AVDEM: again meaning worship, not service or slavery.

This is not the same as Exodus 22:19, where they were told that "He who makes a sacrifice to any other gods but YHVH alone shall be excommunicated". There, it was an announcement of pure monotheism: it is no longer acceptable to YHVH that the Elohim be worshipped as well; he has overthrown them and is now the only deity left, a monotheistic Omnideity who has absorbed all the powers of the planetary deities and the constellations as well as Nature itself. But that only applies inside the world of the Beney Yisra-El. This verse is about the polytheisms of other people. Breaking their pillars means pulling down their shrines; but don't forget that the most basic shrines were often nothing more than a single stone pillar, a baetylos, or Beth-El, or even a tree that had sacred usages and connotations.

Odd that we can accept this in the Biblical tale, but would not accept it in today's world. If the Israeli government, following this verse, were to tear down the Shrine of Omar and the el-Axar mosque in Yeru-Shala'im, both of them shrines to foreign gods, both of them placed there deliberatlely for the same reason - in their case in order to stop the Jews from ever rebuilding the Temple - would they not be condemned, as ISIS were condemned for what they did at Palmyra?

23:25 VE AVADETEM ET YHVH ELOHEYCHEM U VERACH ET LACHMECHA VE ET MEYMEYCHA VA HASIROTI MACHALAH MI KIRBECHA

וַעֲבַדְתֶּם אֵת יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵיכֶם וּבֵרַךְ אֶת לַחְמְךָ וְאֶת מֵימֶיךָ וַהֲסִרֹתִי מַחֲלָה מִקִּרְבֶּךָ

KJ: 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.

BN: And you shall worship YHVH your god, and he will bless your bread, and your water; and I will take away all sickness from among you.

AVADETEM: "Serve" or "worship"?

A god of bread and water, and a god of healing. We have moved a long way from the Creation god and the fertility goddess, which was Brahma; this is now Vishnu, the Sustainer.

HE...I: Strange grammar, or one god speaking about another, and then himself, or the theological redaction of a phrase that was originally both Yah and YHVH? Hints of a continuing pantheon anyway, and right after that seeming announcement of monotheism in the previous verse.

samech break; end of 6th fragment

23:26 LO TIHEYEH MESHAKELAH VA AKARAH BE ARTSECHA ET MISPAR YAMEYCHA AMAL'E

לֹא תִהְיֶה מְשַׁכֵּלָה וַעֲקָרָה בְּאַרְצֶךָ אֶת מִסְפַּר יָמֶיךָ אֲמַלֵּא

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

BN: No one will miscarry, nor be barren, in your land; I will fulfill the number of your days.

The provision of bread and water is expectable; for a people wandering in the desert, these are the two primary needs, and any god who offers to provide both is likely to be worshipped. But the rest is pure utopia, the kind of things we expect from politicians before elections, and the heirs of Charlie Ponzi. Can this god reduce income tax as well? And as to who may have written this; cf Yesha-Yahu (Isaiah), from around chapter 56 onwards... say 56:4ff, then jump to 58:6 through the end of that chapter, then jump again to the whole of 60 (the chapters alternate between the brutality that will happen to the wicked and the utopian fantasy like this verse that is Ponzied to those who choose to invest with righteousness), and do not miss 65:16-25, especially verse 20, which echoes this verse.

YAMEYCHA AMAL'E: Generally this number is agreed to be 70, though actually the Tanach never gives that number. Genesis 6:3 told us that "My spirit shall not abide in Humankind for ever, for that he also is flesh; therefore shall his days be a hundred and twenty years", and Psalm 90:10 suggests that it might be 70, but just as likely might be 80: "The days of our years are threescore years and ten, or even by reason of strength fourscore years".

23:27 ET EYMATI ASHALACH LEPHANEYCHA VE HAMOTI ET KOL HA AM ASHER TAV'O BA HEM VE NATATI ET KOL OYEVECHA ELEYCHA OREPH

אֶת אֵימָתִי אֲשַׁלַּח לְפָנֶיךָ וְהַמֹּתִי אֶת כָּל הָעָם אֲשֶׁר תָּבֹא בָּהֶם וְנָתַתִּי אֶת כָּל אֹיְבֶיךָ אֵלֶיךָ עֹרֶף

KJ: 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.

BN: I will send my terror before you, and will discomfit all the people to whom you shall come, and I will make all your enemies turn their backs to you.

Still more pre-election promises which will not be fulfilled in the event.

OREPH: We need to look more closely at OREPH. There are links to King David and the Greek Orpheus in this word, especially in that "messenger", the star Lyra, which was both Orpheus' and David's musical instrument, and then their constellation; while Orpheus' journey into the Underworld is paralleled in David's pursuit by the King of the Underworld, Sha'ul (Saul).

We might also wonder if the word-play here is deliberate or coincidental; the last time we heard about somebody turning their back was Lot's wife, and down poured the volcanic lava on her, turning her into a pillar of salt!

23:28 VE SHALACHTI ET HA TSIR'AH LEPHANEYCHA VE GERSHAH ET HA CHIVI ET HA KENA'ANI VE ET HA CHITI MI LEPHANEYCHA

וְשָׁלַחְתִּי אֶת הַצִּרְעָה לְפָנֶיךָ וְגֵרְשָׁה אֶת הַחִוִּי אֶת הַכְּנַעֲנִי וְאֶת הַחִתִּי מִלְּפָנֶיךָ

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

BN: And I will send the hornet before you, which will drive out the Chivi, the Kena'ani, and the Chiti, from before you.

TSIR'AH: But not the Yevusi (Jebusite) or the Emori (Amorite), who were also listed above. Why a hornet? Was this a sacred animal to one of the Kena'ani deities? The bumble bee, Devorah, as we have seen in Genesis 38:5, and will again in Judges 4 and 5, is an aspect of the mother-goddess; is this then a variant upon that? In which case, is this another version of the Ten Plagues, or an extension of the plagues of Mitsrayim into Kena'an? Or is it possibly a typographic error for TSA'IRAH (צָעִירה), meaning, literally, "the infantry"? No, it cannot be; the root of that would be TSARAR = "to oppress, besiege, distress, lay hold of", or generally "shut up"; 1 Samuel 1:6 uses it to mean "a rival", but mostly it means "an adversary" (see verse 22 above), and generally it is female. Imagine it: Yehoshua's armies, vanguarded by Yisra-Elit Amazons!

But this is not TSARAR, and neither doesthis have anything to do with bumble-bees, or wasps - this is definitely a hornet. How do I know? Because of a very strange, but very parallel passage, at Judges 13, about a man named Mano'ach, who came from Tsar'ah, except that Mano'ach isn't really Mano'ach, and Tsar'ah isn't really Tsar'ah - my notes at Judges 13:2 are lengthy and detailed, so I shall not repeat them here; but if you thought my picking up the abstruse allusion to Lot's wife in the last verse was stretching it, read those notes, and then draw that conclusion. From Tsar'ah to Tsir'ah is less distance than from leprosy to volcanic ash. You should also look at my notes to Joshua 24:12, where "I sent the hornet before you, which drove them out from before you", and where my notes continue with a further explanation of the hornet-leprosy-volcano connections.

23:29 LO AGARSHENU MI PANEYCHA BE SHANAH ECHAT PEN TIHEYEH HA ARETS SHEMAMAH VE RABAH ALEYCHA CHAYAT HA SADEH

לֹא אֲגָרְשֶׁנּוּ מִפָּנֶיךָ בְּשָׁנָה אֶחָת פֶּן תִּהְיֶה הָאָרֶץ שְׁמָמָה וְרַבָּה עָלֶיךָ חַיַּת הַשָּׂדֶה

KJ: 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.

BN: I will not drive them out from before you in one year, lest the land become desolate, and the beasts of the field multiply against you.

You mean all that "no more income tax", all those promises of 72 virgins while still on Earth, free camels, and the immediate arrival of the Messiah - it really was just an election pledge, a Ponzi scam? This is one of the most disappointing phrases in the entire Tanach; and classic politician-speech: spun out to sound positive when it is actually a retreat. First: I will do it, I promise. Then this: mañana; and not even a provisional end-date (two days after the next election after this one would still be a date) offered. Then the deity will procrastinate still more by sending them on a forty-year wander. Finally, Yehoshu'a will replace both Mosheh and the deity as the one who enacts the conquest; and actually no one is ever driven out... until the Beney Yisra-El themselves are driven out, but hundreds of mañanas later.

But... but... as politicians and Ponzi schemes always do, the qualifications, the procrastinations, the reasons why not. This verse reminds me of nothing so much as President Obama's absolute determination to close the torture prison at Guantanamo Bay. For ten long years he promised it, two while he was a candidate, eight as President. They are still water-boarding there as I write, long after he moved on.

23:30 ME'AT ME'AT AGARSHENU MI PANEYCHA AD ASHER TIPHREH VE NACHALTA ET HA ARETS

מְעַט מְעַט אֲגָרְשֶׁנּוּ מִפָּנֶיךָ עַד אֲשֶׁר תִּפְרֶה וְנָחַלְתָּ אֶת הָאָרֶץ

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

BN: Little by little I will drive them out from before you, until you have increased, and inherit the land.

The very policy being utilised today, in the West Bank: conquest by stealth, by occupation and increase, eventually by annexation. And the irony is, that the very next verse speaks about the Pelishtim, the aboriginal Palestinians.

This, again, is very much the language of the later prophets, and not just Yesha-Yahu (Isaiah).

We need to remember this verse, and return to it, at the end of the Book of Joshua, when the "conquest" of the land is "complete" - though actually very, very incomplete.

23:31 VE SHATI ET GEVULCHA MI YAM SUPH VE AD YAM PELISHTIM U MI MIDBAR AD HA NAHAR KI ETEN BE YEDCHEM ET YOSHVEY HA ARETS VE GERASHTAMO MI PANEYCHA

וְשַׁתִּי אֶת גְּבֻלְךָ מִיַּם סוּף וְעַד יָם פְּלִשְׁתִּים וּמִמִּדְבָּר עַד הַנָּהָר כִּי אֶתֵּן בְּיֶדְכֶם אֵת יֹשְׁבֵי הָאָרֶץ וְגֵרַשְׁתָּמוֹ מִפָּנֶיךָ

KJ: 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.

BN: And I will set your borders from the Red Sea as far as the sea of the Pelishtim, and from the desert as far as the River; for I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hands; and you shall drive them out before you.

This geographical boundary-marking is promulgated on a reading of YAM SUPH as the Red Sea, but by doing so it fails to mark the full boundaries, which is normally achieved by using diagonal compass-points. The Red Sea is in the furthest south, "the sea of the Pelishtim" is the Mediterranean, which is in the west, and though it runs north-south all the way to Lebanon, nothing here denotes where that Lebanese boundary lies, nor any north-eastern border towards Hermon and Ashur (Assyria), but only an eastern border, for HA NAHAR is usually taken to mean the Perat (Euphrates), though we could, at a pinch, denote is as the Yarden (Jordan). Not that this lack of clarity is improved by translating YAM SUPH as the Sea of Reeds, which is to say the eastern part of the Nile Delta.

GERASHTAMO: There is no suggestion at any point of co-habitation, of finding homes in the land and living there in peace with the natives. This is the source of "manifest destiny", the ideology that justified the virtual genocide of those who inhabited the Americas, north and south, prior to Columbus.

PELISHTIM: Do I need to point out, yet again, that there were not yet any Pelishtim, nor any land of Pelashet, at any of the dates, earliest or latest,  which the scholars like to place on the pseudo-history of Mosheh? They began their slow process of colonisation after the fall of Knossos, starting around 1300 BCE.

23:32 LO TICHROT LAHEM VE L'ELOHEYHEM BERIT

לֹא תִכְרֹת לָהֶם וְלֵאלֹהֵיהֶם בְּרִית

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

BN: You shall not make any covenant with them, nor with their gods.

Covenant here in the sense of political treaty or military alliance, and not a religious treaty; the latter would go against the ordinances in verses 13, 23 and 24 (though this verse also conflicts with verse 9, which forbids any mistreatment of other people, such as driving them out or refusing to make treaties with them, and also conflicts with verses 22 and 28 and 33 below, which definitely drive them out... ); though of course, once driven out, there are obviously not going to be any covenants or treaties or alliances with them anyway.

23:33 LO YESHVU BE ARTSECHA PEN YACHATIY'U OT'CHA LI KI TA'AVOD ET ELOHEYHEM KI YIHEYEH LECHA LE MOKESH

לֹא יֵשְׁבוּ בְּאַרְצְךָ פֶּן יַחֲטִיאוּ אֹתְךָ לִי כִּי תַעֲבֹד אֶת אֱלֹהֵיהֶם כִּי יִהְיֶה לְךָ לְמוֹקֵשׁ

KJ: 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.

BN: They shall not dwell in your land, lest they make you sin against me, for you will serve their gods, and they will be a snare to you.

These last verses merit an essay, but in brief: the notion of AM KADOSH is usually read as "a holy people", but we know that KADOSH means "separate"; and here is YHVH explicitly instructing the people to become separate from the nations, to wipe them out and their gods so there can be no possible counter-religion to that of YHVH. Destroy them, lest they influence you to cease worshipping me. It argues for isolation, against assimilation and integration; it argues for ghettos and high walls; it also argues for ethnic cleansing and even genocide, if argues is even the right expression, given that this is a commandment from YHVH. Much the same has been forced on Jews in various parts of the world at various times, and there is a tendency amongst certain orthodox cults to choose this, but it has never been adopted as a principle of Judaism, and certainly was not adopted in ancient Kena'an.

At the same time, the danger described turned into a reality. If the verses were genuinely Mosaic, then they were very accurately predictive; but they were probably written later, in the time of the Prophets, to validate retroactively the prophetic rage against idol-worship of many kinds and bring the people back to YHVH.

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