LAW AND NARRATIVE IN EXODUS 19-24

Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, Jun 2004 by Sprinkle, Joe M

The civil laws show God to be a God of justice. God prohibits perjury and demands complete impartiality in court even if it involves one's enemy (Exod 20:16; 23:1-9). He distinguishes the guilt of intentional murder from that of unintentional manslaughter (Exod 21:12-13). God through his law redresses the wrongs done by manslaughter, abuse of parents, kidnapping, and mayhem (Exod 21:12-27), and provides remedies to victims of carelessness, negligence, accident, fraud, and devaluation of property (Exod 21:28-36; 22:5-17).

God expects his people to treat each other aright, and so gives commands on parents, murder, adultery, theft, false witness, and coveting (Exod 20:1217; cf. the civil laws of Exod 21:2-23:9). He expects them to display holiness in their behavior (Exod 22:31). His laws show God to be concerned with various disadvantaged classes: slaves both male and female (Exod 20:10; 21:2-11, 20-21, 26-27), foreign sojourners, widows, orphans, and the poor (Exod 22:21-27; 23:9). God even shows concern for animals. In Exod 20:10 domestic animals are allowed rest on the Sabbath. In Exod 23:11 leaving land fallow is meant to provide food for wild animals. Exodus 23:4-5, 19 reflect concern for lost and overloaded animals and the perversity of cooking a kid-goat in its mother's milk.

Just as God is gracious towards the poor (Exod 22:27), he also expects his people to be empathetic to such people. This empathy should be motivated by Israel's own humble national origins as slaves before Yahweh saved them (Exod 22:21; 23:9). Still more surprising, and showing the complexity of God's character, God's protection extends also to the life of a thief. Bloodguilt is declared on anyone who kills a thief without mitigating circumstances (Exod 22:2-3).

From the above, it is clear that a great deal can be deduced about the character of God through an analysis of his law-speech.

3. Law as God's personal message to Israel gives Israel's law divine authority and motivates obedience. One purpose of this personal language observed above is to persuade and motivate hearers to obey. Watts states, "When read together, the divine sanctions join the stories and the lists of laws in a rhetoric of persuasion to motivate assent and compliance."20 The narrative context of the commands of Exodus 20-23 is the exodus story of Exodus 12-18 and the theophany of Exodus 19, so that "[cjommand is rooted in theophany," and invests the commands with the motivating emotions of the liberation from Egypt.21

For example, the prologue to the Decalogue links the laws with the narratives: "I am Yahweh your God who released you from the land of Egypt, out of the house of slaves. Do not have other gods besides me" (Exod 20:23). The first clause is functionally subordinate clause to the second clause.22 The logic of this is probably as follows: "Because I Yahweh have delivered you, you are to worship me alone." Thus the emotionally charged reference to who and what God has shown himself to be in the exodus narrative serves to motivate Israel to obey the first and other commandments.