Upholding honesty in courts and refusing to favor one group over another are among the timeless lessons of honest and truly restorative justice in Exodus 22–23. Discover Heaven’s revelation to ancient Israel about how to approach justice, mercy and fair treatment across every social class, including the system for integrating foreigners into the family of God.
The Bible’s laws about slavery can be troubling, but they reveal something deeper: Even within ancient realities, God’s instructions are aimed to bring dignity, protection, and a pathway to freedom for everyone — Israelites and outsiders alike. In Exodus 21-22, Jeremiah 34 and similar passages, we see that Scripture moves toward greater justice, mercy and inclusion. Ultimately, all these hopes find their fulfillment in the Messiah, Who opens the door to true freedom for every person and nation, showing God’s heart to set all captives free and welcome all into His family.
Does the Torah promote vigilantism (taking the law into your own hands)? Some years ago, those who were against Torah would ask facetious questions like, “If I see my neighbor mowing the lawn on the Shabbat, do I have permission to kill him?” This ridiculous line of argument even ended up as an episode plot for a popular show (“The Midterms,” The West Wing, October 2000).
Are these judgments ignorant and obsolete? For example, in this section of the Torah refers to daughter literally as their father’s silver. Are daughter just the property of their fathers freely passed around and bought and sold?
We just read the “Big 10,” the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20). Torah reading מִּשְׁפָּטִים Mishpatim (“judgments,” Ex. 21:1–24:18) covers case law results from the Ten Commandments. It covers how to live them out in a world of idolatry (yes, it’s even a modern problem), cruelty, oppression, selfishness, disrespect for authority, apathy and envy.
Yeshua haMashiakh (Jesus the Christ) taught that God’s second-greatest commandment is “love your neighbor as [you love] yourself” (Matt. 22:39; Mark 12:31; quoting Lev. 19:18).
Why should we study the offerings of Israel’s Tabernacle and Temple, particularly after the arrival of the ultimate offering, Yeshua the Mashiakh (Jesus the Christ)? Thankfully, the prophets the LORD sent ahead of the Mashiakh help explain why this study is critical to learning more about the heart of the Creator of the heavens and the Earth.
The parallel passage (haftarah in Hebrew) for the Torah passage צו Tzav (“command,” Lev. 6:8–8:36) provides a sobering reminder that the Tabernacle has always been about the heart connection to Heaven and not works-based forgiveness. We learn that we are to forgive the sins, transgressions and iniquities of others completely, as God has forgiven ours. And we are to forget them, as God has forgotten ours, freeing us from our “house of bondage” of guilt. That’s a great prelude to the memorial of Pesakh (Passover).
Does the Torah promote vigilantism? Are its instructions backward and obsolete? If not, what do these instructions mean to me today?
In the Torah reading מִּשְׁפָּטִים Mishpatim (“Judgments,” Exodus 21–24), we see an explanation of each of the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20; Deuteronomy 5). By keeping the words of Yeshua haMashiakh (Jesus the Christ) in our minds (Matthew 22:36–40) while reading the Torah, we can start to understand how the instructions teach us as much about the character of the Father as they do about Heaven’s goal for our treatment of other people.
The beginning of the future reign of Messiah Yeshua (Jesus) on Earth (Rev. 20:4–6), memorialized in the appointed times of Sukkot (Festival of Tabernacles) and Shmeni Atzeret (Convocation of the Eighth Day). Let’s consider this hypothetical situation: During the 1,000 year-reign of Yeshua, if someone walks the wrong direction, the errant person will hear a voice, “Turn neither to the left or to the right; walk straight!” (Deut. 28:14; Josh. 1:7; Prov. 4:27; cp. Zech. 8:20–23).
Right now, that voice is hard to hear, but during the Millennial reign, that voice will be very clear.
Yeshua’s schooling of a Pharisee member of Israel’s ruling council on allowable actions on Shabbat seems disconnected from the parables that follow in Luke 14. Yet they all are threaded together with learning God’s view on justice, compassion and mercy then honoring God through lifelong commitment to those principles of the kingdom of Heaven.
Not honoring God by seeking that change of “glasses” for seeing the world — and seeing the One through Whom the change would come — doomed much of Israel to be scattered and regathered repeatedly.