Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript: Exodus 23:1-9 – Justice and the Ninth Commandment

is found in Exodus 23. We’ll read verses 1-9, but focus on verses 1, 2, and 8. So, Exodus 23:1-9, please stand for the reading of God’s word. Exodus 23, beginning at verse one.

You shall not circulate a false report. Do not put your hand with the wicked to be an unrighteous witness. You shall not follow a crowd to do evil, nor shall you testify in a dispute so as to turn aside after many to pervert justice.

You shall not show partiality to a poor man in his dispute. If you meet your enemy’s ox or his donkey going astray, you shall surely bring it back to him again. If you see the donkey of one who hates you lying under its burden, and you would refrain from helping it, you shall surely help him with it.

You shall not pervert the judgment of your poor in his dispute. Keep yourself far from a false matter. Do not kill the innocent and righteous, for I will not justify the wicked, and you shall take no bribe, for a bribe blinds the discerning and perverts the words of the righteous.

Also, you shall not oppress a stranger, for you know the heart of a stranger because you were strangers in the land of Egypt.

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for your word and spirit. We pray that your spirit would do his transforming work in our hearts. Lord God, we thank you for this beauty portrayed for us in the book of Revelation in which we are now present, assembled in your throne room, brought up by your spirit to worship you and to praise you and to receive from the Lord Jesus Christ just what we need to be transformed and live lives of holiness and justice.

We pray that you would illumine this text for understanding. But more than that, we pray that your spirit would do his work of transforming us. Smite us, good God, with your sword of truth here. Convict us of sin. Heal us. Transform us into people whose tongues are tongues of justice. In Christ’s name we ask it. Amen.

Please be seated.

Well, we come forward to this heavenly throne room of God to give him worship and praise today. We’re assembled with the angelic host. Hebrews tells us that we meet with the church designated by many as the church triumphant in heaven, the church militant on earth to give God worship and praise and to receive instruction to have ourselves transformed by the power of his word and spirit.

Our consideration for this sermon as well as the next will be the topic of justice. I believe the verses I’ve read provide a unit here. It’s interesting in the New American Standard version I have on my computer. The heading for these verses is “sundry laws”—just various stuff put together. It’s not like that at all as we’ll see in a minute. But our concern is justice today. And I think that’s the underlying principle or truth to these words we’ve just looked at.

Men don’t like justice. We like justice for the other guy. We want justice required of him. When it comes around to us and justice being required of our actions, we’re a lot less likely to talk about that. We think injustice has been replaced in our culture with fairness, whatever that means. And what it does mean is it’s devoid of the law of God. Essentially, fairness becomes what’s right in our emotional state or framework or cast of mind. And I think we’ll see that we are specifically prohibited from thinking in terms of fairness in its popular sense by these laws.

We’re told to cleave to justice, which is a hard thing for us to do because we know that we’re not just in all of our dealings. We know we’re not upright. We know that we have twisted characters and that what these laws tell us will impact us.

We return today to the topic of the tongue. That’s where this section begins. That’s a major element of what happens here and it is the head of this list of commands—this requirement that we don’t be rumor mongers or slander bearers with our tongues.

Now what I’m going to try to say here is that we can look at holiness and justice as the two component elements of the law of the covenant in its second part. You’ll remember if you’ve been here we’re dealing with the second part of the law of the covenant that began in the middle of chapter 22. There were laws that were “if-then” laws and then all of a sudden it changed and other laws that simply state things. No “if-then”—if you do this then I’m going to do this or if you do this then judges do this. That’s not in play anymore. So the section is marked off as a unit that way.

And this section I think can be thought of in terms primarily of two things: holiness before God and justice. And you remember that this section began with a requirement to honor God with our speech and to honor the rulers that God has placed over us in our land—whether it’s the parents, broad application to the church, the state, the business—to honor them with our tongues. And here when we begin a section now on justice that goes together with holiness, we have an emphasis again on the tongue that starts off the whole section.

If you look at your outlines at the very beginning I provide a chiastic structure—one of those you should be becoming familiar with them. This section, this is the entire second half of the law of the covenant. And it’s a unit because, as I said, it’s a particular way of stating the law that’s different from the first half. And if you look at it, you’ll see that it begins with honoring—honoring God and blessing the rulers. Then it moved to a consideration of first fruits, firstborn, and remember the eighth day new creation thing. And then that was summed up in being holy.

“Be holy men unto me.” And I preached on that the last time that we spoke on these laws of the covenant. And then adjunct in connection with that was an eating prohibition. You couldn’t eat what the animals offered up, so to speak. You couldn’t eat things torn by beast. You had to give them to the dogs.

Now, our Savior has no problem treating the dogs as those outside of the covenant people of Israel, outside of the priestly nation. So, I think that by implication with that law was the idea of giving grace to strangers.

And then we get to section E: justice and the layman. We’ll talk about this in just a minute, but I think that we can look at these commandments we just read. First is a series of things to laymen, what they should do in terms of relationships with men and specifically in court, and then in terms of judges and how they should handle cases.

Now, those verses are kind of summed up in verses 1 and 2 for the layman. And then I read a verse about not favoring the poor in matters of justice. Now some commentators have tried to change that verse, add a consonant to it and make it “don’t favor the rich” because they said nobody’s ever going to favor the poor. But we know that isn’t true. We know there’s lots of people that would rather favor the poor in court cases or in matters of justice.

And the average lay person, that’s going to be his tendency. You know, one of the sins we fight against in our hearts is envy of the rich. And when you envy the rich, you want to destroy them and you want to pull out the poor. So we’re going to be tempted to pervert justice—the average person is—by giving benefit or treating the poor better in cases of judgment than the rich. And we see this, you know, it’s just absolutely pandemic in our culture. These class action lawsuits where the supposed rich are tried to be pulled down by people and you always root for the underdog, the poor person.

Well, more on that in a little bit, but in any event, we have a verse there about not honoring the poor in judgments. And then at the center of this section, I believe, kindness to our enemies. That’s not out of place here. It’s not stuck in improperly.

What happens next after these two verses about you should be kind to your enemy who’s got a lost animal or a struggling animal falling down under a burden—then it goes back to the theme of justice and it talks now to rulers and says don’t favor the rich in justices and judgments. Because the judge, one of the upper class of society, usually more wealthy, his tendency would be to want to favor his peer group, the rich, as opposed to the poor. He’s going to be work-oriented. That’s going to be his tendency to sin. So there’s a warning against that.

And then we have justice and the judge specifically: to keep far from a false matter and don’t take a bribe. And then backing out of that section, we’ll have an eating prohibition, which we’ll talk about in a few weeks. You can’t eat the corners of your field. You have to give that to the dogs. You have to give that to the Gentiles. You have to give that to the poor, the poor of the people. So, show grace to strangers and the poor.

And then there’s going to be a summary command just like it says “be holy men unto me.” There’s a summary command we’ll look at in verse 13 that says to be circumspect in all of these judgments and statutes that I give you. Circumspectness in terms of justice, I think, is the idea here. And then there’ll be a section on festivals and first fruits. And then we’ll back out the last commandment: “Don’t seethe the kid in its mother’s milk.”

Which at this point may not seem to have correlation, but it seems like the way it’s laid out here means that it has correlation to the idea of honoring God and honoring rulers. And we’ll treat it that way when we get to it. But for now, we’re interested in this central section that’s in bold type. And today will be the first of a couple of sermons on this central section.

But understand that if this is correct, and I think it is, that at the heart of this second section of the laws of the covenant is this admonition of kindness to enemies—and kindness to enemies is put in the context of matters having to do with justice.

Now this section, verses 1-9, is a commentary—a statement, an unpacking, as it were, of the ninth commandment. The ninth commandment commands that we do not bear false witness against our neighbor. And I think that this does take that in that direction. And so this deals with justice.

Let me read a summation of this from Gary North. He says: “The 23rd chapter of Exodus provides us with some specific details of what constitute biblical justice. False reports are prohibited. Evil acts by men in crowds are banned. Favoritism of the rich or poor is banned. Animals that belong to a hated neighbor must be assisted in turn to him. The acceptance of bribes by leaders is banned. Oppression of strangers is prohibited. In verse 9, God’s laws rule over the affairs of men irrespective of anyone’s personal emotions concerning the worthiness of a man or his cause. All men are worthy to receive God’s justice just as all men are worthy of the wrath of God to come in terms of the final judgment.”

There’s a correlation there. And if we do away with justice in the sense of giving equal justice to all men, we eliminate the idea that all men will be judged equally when God returns. So we get rid of eschatological judgment by perverting justice in the context of our contemporary situation.

Now as I said, this is an extrapolation of the ninth commandment which says “you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.” Now the ninth commandment has probably as its first application that you’re not to testify falsely against your neighbor in a court of law. We don’t think of it that way. You’re not supposed to lie. You’re not supposed to tell lies about your neighbor. That’s a proper application of it. But I think the first instance has court, a court setting in mind. And then it moves from the court. The application is in terms of the broader effect of community.

So here in Exodus 23, the law of false witness in being explained is set forth both in the meanings of the broader context—the requirement of justice. So both of the community aspect of our speech, the implications of the ninth commandment, and the court implications of our speech, implication of the ninth commandment are talked about in these verses we just read. And additionally, those verses are put in the context of a broader context of justice.

Justice—a commentator named Riyeram in the Interpreter’s Bible says this of verses 1-9: “It’s a group of principles and admonitions designed to give the spirit of justice and to permeate all legal decisions.”

Let me read that one more time. These verses in expositing the ninth commandment are a group of principles and admonitions designed to give the spirit of justice and to permeate all legal decisions.

And so in the middle of this section, if I’ve understood the way God has provided it for us, is something that we wouldn’t normally think of in terms of justice—being kind to our enemies. But God puts it right in there because that’s the heart of the matter: our injustice to people stems from our hatred of those who are our enemies. And God corrects that in this particular portion of scripture.

Now, as I said, these verses move from the consideration of the duties of laymen in the first part of it to the duties of judges. I think we can think of it that way. The first section looks at matters from the standpoint of the individual called upon to testify in court or bringing his grievance before the court. The second looks at matters from the standpoint of the magistrate called upon to render judgment in court.

Each section moves from the special to the general. Thus, laws enjoining impartiality in all of life are appended to each of the two sections.

What does that mean? Well, look at your verses. Let’s read them again. First verses here talk about an individual. “Don’t circulate a false report. Don’t put your hand with the wicked to be an unrighteous witness.” So now we’re in court. First verse, we’re not in court yet. Just don’t be a rumor monger. Second half of verse 1, now we’re in court as an unrighteous witness.

Verse 2: “You average guy. Now don’t follow a crowd to do evil, nor shall you testify. You’re not judging. You’re testifying in a dispute so as to turn aside after many to pervert justice.” In other words, don’t let that mob get you to testify wrongly. And then it says “you shall not show partiality to a poor man in his dispute.”

So these are commandments to us in terms primarily of the court but also in terms of our general speech. And then it gives a very broad principle. “If you meet your enemy’s ox or donkey going astray, you shall bring it back to him again. And if you see the donkey of one who hates you lying under its burden, and it fell down. The burden was so heavy, you would refrain from helping it, you shall surely help him with it.”

And then verse 6, I think talks now about the judge because now he’s going to pervert the judgment. “Verse 6: You shall not pervert the judgment of your poor in his dispute. So judge correctly, judge who’s sitting on the bench. Keep yourself far from a false matter. Don’t let a matter come into your law court that is a false matter. Stay way from anything that doesn’t have solid basis and evidence. Do not kill the innocent and righteous.”

You don’t have that capability as an individual person in trial, but the judge does. The judge is being addressed here not to kill the innocent or the righteous. “For I will not justify the wicked and you shall take no bribe, for a bribe blinds the discerning and perverts the words of the righteous.”

And then just as the commandments to us in terms of court ended with a general statement to love your brother—or love your enemy actually and do good to him—so here the statements to the judge end with a general statement. “Don’t oppress a stranger. Your heart—you know rather the heart of a stranger because you are strangers in the land of Egypt.”

So you see these verses really work very well together in terms of a literary structure. It instructs us both as individuals in our common speech. It also instructs us very particularly when we testify in a case. It instructs the judge in the context of what sort of cases he’ll hear and what he does when he hears those cases.

And in both cases, it broadens it out to help us to see that the spirit of justice that underlies the ninth commandment is a desire to be useful and helpful even to our enemies on the part of the average person—and of the judge not to oppress the stranger or sojourner.

So the spirit of justice is equality. It’s no respecting of persons and not even the person who is your enemy in the context of you helping him out with his animal. So that’s the underlying spirit of justice and that’s the beauty of these two sections moving with individual instruction to broader principles, judicial instruction, and then broader principles as well.

We’re going to turn now to focus on the first set of these justice commands in the outline. This is section E and E prime that match together the specific things told to both the average person and then also the judge. And we’re going to look at those together now in a little bit of detail.

And before actually before we turn to that, I want to mention one other thing about the overall structure here. I’ve mentioned that what I think we have in this second half of the law of the covenant is a call to be holy and a call to be just. Those of you who are in my Leviticus class understand that dynamic.

At the center of the Pentateuch is the book of Leviticus. At the center of Leviticus is chapter 19 with 70 commands. This is the summation of the law. And like this section before us, it’s an extrapolation—almost a sermonic view of how to apply the Ten Commandments. Chapter 19 is one speech from God in Leviticus 19. It has two sides to it and they’re very clearly marked out.

We can’t take the time now to look at that. If you want to know more, come to my Leviticus class next week or come to my Leviticus class this week as I talk to my young men and young women Tuesdays and Friday mornings. But it’s very clearly worked out in two halves and the first half deals with holiness, personal integrity as God sees you, and men typically won’t see what’s going on in those sorts of areas. And then the second half deals with justice—things that men will see, civil magistrate will punish and correct.

So in Leviticus the summation of the Ten Commandments is given as holiness, personal integrity and justice. So here in the second half of the law of the covenant it seems like we can think of all of these statutes that seem just to be kind of thrown in together as pivoting around these same two emphases: holiness on the one hand, personal integrity, and justice in our dealings with our fellow man.

Now, we’re image bearers of God. And in Psalm 145:17, we read that “the Lord is righteous.” The word here is the same word for justice. Righteousness in the Bible and justice are synonyms. This is the word “sadak.” Melchizedek—”king of righteousness”—and it means justice. When I say justice, think righteousness. When a person says righteousness, think justice because they’re synonyms of the same word.

“So the Lord is righteous or just in all of his ways and holy in all of his works.” You see, we have these two emphases both in Exodus 23, extrapolating the ninth commandment out for us, as well as in Leviticus 19: holiness and justice because these are two of the prime communicable attributes of the glorious God who we’ve come together to worship today.

We give him worship and praise because he is holy and because he is totally just in all of his dealings. And that is who the person of God is. And he has in his grace and love and mercy to us given us the capability to manifest holiness and personal integrity and to manifest his justice in the way we relate to our fellow man. These things come from God.

We could cite more verses. Let’s do one more. Psalm 68:5 talking about God: “He’s a father of the fatherless, a defender of widows. He’s a judge. He rules justly in terms of the fatherless and widows. A father of the fatherless and defender of widows is God in his holy habitation.” His holiness and justice are two separate but very related attributes. And they’re two separate parts of Exodus 23 but two very related parts as well.

And as I said, God says that in Leviticus 19, these are two central aspects of that as well.

All right. So God is the judge and as judge he is just. God is the cosmic judge. “The heavens declare his righteousness” (Psalm 50:6). God is judge himself. As we just read, a father of the fatherless, a judge of the widows is God and his holy habitation (Psalm 68:5). God is the judge. “He puts down one and sets up another” (Psalm 75:7). And Psalm 82:8: “Arise, oh God, judge the earth, for you shall inherit all the nations.”

So, as we look at the spirit of justice laid out here, what we’re seeing portrayed for us in these verses is a demonstration of the character of God. He is the judge who is just, and he is the person who is holy. He is holy and he is just, and we’re to bear his image in our dealings as well.

All right. So, let’s talk then now moving on to the outline in terms of the specific listing of these verses. We’ll go through these very quickly, but importantly, first of all, we have the layman in justice in Exodus 23:1-2.

And I think what one way to look at these verses is they give us a picture of what the basic law is to us. It then tells us who it is that will tempt us to break this law and then we can look at it in terms of the reality of this particular violation. A little different way to outline it maybe, but hang with me. I think you’ll see the benefit of it.

So, first of all, we’ll think about what is the law? What is going to tempt us to break this law? And then what is how does God describe it when we violate this law?

And the base law here is found in the first verse. “You shall not circulate a false report.” That’s the law and the other things that flow from it are implications of it in the court of law. But this is the root of everything else. “You shall not circulate a false report.”

Don’t raise. The word circulate means to raise up. It can be either to receive or give a false report. A false report means a vain report. The word for false is the same word used in the commandment that says “you shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.”

And if you’ve been at this church very long and heard me talk about that verse, you know that well, surely the third commandment covers profanity. It covers much more than that. It covers swearing falsely in God’s name. But it also includes using the Lord’s name lightly, unthinkingly, or by rote. Thoughtlessly is the way that the Septuagint translates this particular word in the third commandment. It says, “Don’t take the name of the Lord your God thoughtlessly.” Excellent synonym here for “in vain” that helps explain it to us a little bit.

That’s a word, a modern word that’s very much of what’s at heart in this word—thoughtlessly, without heed, emptily. In other words, the primary meaning of this word then—don’t circulate a false report—is emptiness or vanity. So, it’s a lie. It doesn’t have substance to it and you’re not to circulate it. And that’s the basic idea here.

This first commandment forbids slander. It forbids rumor mongering. It forbids slandering and talking about people to other people and bringing down their reputation. Now, most of what is in these verses are not directly applicable to you. You’re not going to go testify in a law case probably anytime in the near future. You’re certainly not going to sit as judge over a matter in the near future, although it has implications for your justice in your home.

But this head of this entire section has very direct applicability to you, does it not? It says in your tongue. Deal justly with your fellow man. And in your tongues specifically, don’t slander. Don’t be a rumor monger.

The spread of rumor and gossip is one of the most serious problems in any community of people. Rumors subtly prejudice everyone who hears them, whether they wish to hear them or not. It is next to impossible to undo the damage done by gossip and the spread of hasty and premature judgments throughout a community or church.

That’s a quote from James B. Jordan on his commentary on this text. Rumor and slander are talked about here. And the scriptures over and over again warn us about this. Psalm 101:5: “Whosoever secretly slanders his neighbor, him I will destroy. I will destroy him who secretly slanders his neighbor. The one who has a haughty look and a proud heart, him I will not endure.”

Why do you slander your neighbor? Because you’re prideful.

Proverbs 10:18: “Whosoever hides hatred has lying lips and whoever spreads slander is a fool.” A fool. One who does not think of God and his justice and his judgment.

Proverbs 17:4: “An evildoer gives heed to false lips. A liar listens eagerly to a spiteful tongue.” In our Adamic nature, this is who we are. We like to hear those things. We like to hear the spiteful tongue. And God says that he’s remaking us in the image of Christ with his justice. And the root concern there is a desire to put away those things from us.

Proverbs 25:23 says: “The north wind brings forth rain and a backbiting tongue and angry countenance.” I think what that means is that our proper response when people do backbite with their tongues is to show them an angry countenance. Not enough just not to hear it. You want to stop that vicious chain of slander and gossip. And that’s what this verse is all about.

Now, in Leviticus 19, we’ll turn there a little later in the sermon, but we have similar language in terms of not going about as a talebarer amongst the people. And a commentator named Ginsburgg says this on Leviticus 19:16:

“This dangerous habit, and it’s applicable to this verse to tell us not to slander our brother to be a rumor monger. This dangerous habit which has ruined the character and destroyed the life of many an innocent person was denounced by the spiritual authorities in the time of Christ as the greatest of sins. Three things they declared remove a man from this world and deprive him of happiness in the world to come: idolatry, incest, and murder. But slander, so they said, surpasses them all. It kills three persons with one act. It’s, you know, it’s a serial killer in one act. It kills the person who listens to the slander. It kills the person who slanders. And it kills the person who is slandered. Hence, the ancient Kaili version of Targum Jonathan of Leviticus 19:16 translates this clause: ‘Thou shalt not follow the thrice-accursed tongue, for it is more fatal than the double-edged devouring sword.’”

When we talk about each other, and you know you do, I know I do. I know that this is a sin that easily besets us. I know that this is the James sums it up—as the task of dominion is to control this tongue that likes to talk about other people, likes to carry false reports, likes to stir things up. And when we do that, we should keep in mind that it’s a killer three times over. And the thrice-accursed tongue has more damage in it than the two-mouthed devouring sword.

That refers to a sword that has two edges on it. You can cut one way or the other. The devouring sword. So, slander, horrible thing, horrible way that we misuse our tongues.

When we sang that song this morning of coming into the throne room of God and imploring the angels to assist our song, when we come into the worship of God, we use these wonderful tongues that God has given us to praise his name. And we ask God for his spirit. We see an image of God on the heavenly throne room. We’re focused on who he is: just and holy. And we are to use our tongues to worship and glorify him.

We are to be caught up in the emotional response and objective response to the God who has called us forth to worship him with praise and thanksgiving. And that same devotion and consideration of the just and holy God that calls forth speech from our tongues—you should be filled with the desire to speak forth the praise of God, to open your mouth wide to sing praises to him when you get a vision from the scripture of what worship is all about, as recorded for instance in Revelation 4.

I pray that your hearts are sensitive to what we do on worship on the Lord’s day. And that as we’re lifted up to consider this God who has created and redeemed us and who has given us the beautiful gift of life that we see manifested in so many ways, and we get a picture of his holiness—totally consecrated, totally set apart—that his character itself is holy and loving and merciful and all so just, and we get a picture of that justice of God, we want to sing forth the praises of that person.

When we see a person on earth that we come across who is a solid upstanding guy, we think, boy, isn’t that neat to be able to discourse with this fellow. We had a meeting yesterday with some folks from I think it’s Trinity Lutheran Church talking about maybe buying this building they have. And it was a joy to sit there and talk to these men because I don’t know them well, but there’s a sense of personal integrity that comes across in their dealings and you want to say, “Isn’t that nice that I don’t have to deal with somebody who’s, you know, crooked and deceitful and all that stuff. This guy has integrity. Praise God.”

Well, when we think of that in terms of God himself on the Lord’s day and we get a vision of this holy and just God, our hearts want to sing out in praise to him, right? And what I’m saying is that what we want to do is understand that same tongue that sang these praises to God 15 to 30 minutes ago. That same tongue we then can and frequently do within hours or at the most days we begin to tear down people with improper uses of our tongues. And God says that’s a horrible thing. It is of the essence of the perversion of justice to use our tongues to carry slander and rumor mongering one or the other—of other people, other groups, other—whatever.

Guises. It’s a horrible, horrible thing. Matthew Henry says that bearing false witness against a man in a matter that touches his life has in it all the guilt of lying, perjury, malice, theft, murder, with the additional stains of coloring all with a pretense of justice and involving many others in the same guilt. There is scarcely any one act of wickedness that a man can possibly be guilty of, which has in it a greater complication of villainies than this has.

And he’s talking about lying in a court of law to do someone damage. It has a horrific spin to it. It’s filled with lies, perjury, malice, theft, murder, and additionally, it’s under the pretense of justice. And so it’s hypocritical. So it’s the height of hypocrisy.

Yet, says Matthew Henry, the former part of this caution is to be extended not only to judicial proceedings, but to common conversation, so that slandering and backbiting are a species of false witness bearing. A man’s reputation lies as much at the mercy of every company or friend as is a state of life does at the mercy of a judge or a jury. Your reputation lies as much at stake with this group of people than your property does at the hands of a judge or jury.

So that he who raises or knowingly spreads a false report against his neighbor, especially if the report be made to wise and good men whose esteem one would desire to enjoy, sins as much against the laws of truth, justice, and charity as a false witness does. With this further mischief: that he leaves it not in the power of the person injured to obtain redress. You go to a court of law and lie about me or I lie about you. You can address it. It’s a public proceeding. You know what’s being said, you can defend yourself. But you spread a rumor that you don’t know to be true. You heard it from somebody and it’s detrimental to someone else and you spread it along. You don’t even give that person the ability to redress the grievance because they don’t even know it’s happened. All they know is now some people don’t like him much anymore. Don’t come around much anymore. Look at him a little bit different. You see it’s horrible. Absolutely horrible.

Matthew Henry goes on to say that which we translate “thou shalt not raise”—the margin reads “thou shalt not receive a false report.” For sometimes the receiver in this case is as bad as the thief and a backbiting tongue would not do so much mischief as it does if it were not countenanced. If you give an angry countenance, a fierce countenance to the backbiter, it’s going to stop the spread of the stuff.

Sometimes we cannot avoid hearing a false report, but we must not receive it. That is, we must not hear it with pleasure and delight as those that rejoice in iniquity, nor give credit to it as long as there remains any cause to question the truth of it. Don’t give credit as long as there is any cause to question the truth of the report. This is to our neighbor’s good name and doing as we would be done by.

George Bush commenting on this says the original Hebrew term to raise has been translated “thou shalt not publish a false report.” Where there are no publishers of slander and calumny there would be no receivers and were there none to receive them there would be none to raise them. And were there none to raise them, were there no raisers, receivers nor propagators or publishers of these calumnies, lies, etc., surely then society would be in peace.

So the transmission of rumor and slander is also spoken of here in terms of its distribution.

Now the command does go on to speak of the requirements in terms of a law court and it should be pointed out that in Deuteronomy 19:16-21 God gives some very explicit punishments to those who do this actually in a law court. And listen, listen what’s said in Deuteronomy 19:16-21.

So what’s being said here is that I’m going to go and lie about you in a court of law and I’m going to seek to have some penalty assessed on you—whether it’s money or maybe a death penalty or whatever it is. And it says if a false witness rises up in this way and it’s found out and the judges make careful inquiry and if the witness is a false witness who has testified falsely against a brother, then you shall do to him as he thought to have done to his brother. Lex Talionis—the law of the hand or the talent, the law of retaliation comes into play.

You wanted him to have the death penalty, you’ve got to die. You wanted him to be fined $10,000, you’ve got to be fined $10,000. As you thought to have done to him, that’s what happens to you. “So you shall put away the evil from among you. And listen now, those who remain shall hear and fear, and hereafter they shall not again commit such evil among you.”

Now that’s interesting language to me. It’s the same language that’s used in Deuteronomy 17 for the contemptuous person who is contemptuous of the authority of God either in the civil arena or the religious arena—to be contemptuous of the judge or the priest. The man who will not do what the judge or priest tells him to do, what God is telling him to do through the rulers that man is to be executed.

And it says specifically in Deuteronomy 17 that the reason for that is that people will see it and no more do this evil in the land. Well, here it’s the same reason is attached to the reason why you want to punish a false witness with what he sought to punish the other person by. It’s a great evil is my point. It is linked here by this assessment of the penalty to scare people away from this sin. That’s what it is—to scare them away from sinning in this way.

It links rumor mongering, slander in a court case at least with absolute contempt of God. The law is do not sin against your brother by carrying a false report of him, by slander and by rumor mongering.

Who will prompt you to break this law? Well, the slanderer. That’s implied here. There’s a transmission process going on and somebody’s going to tempt you to break this law. It’s going to be the person who slanders someone to you.

And I want to read here the extended comments of the Westminster Larger Catechism question 145 dealing with the ninth commandment. And I’ve got a handout today. You can read along if you will and maybe what you ought to do is you might be a little afraid to circle the items that you think you need work on that other people might see you circling. But what you really should do in response to this word today from Exodus 23, an extrapolation, an explanation of the ninth commandment, is you should go through this list and say, “Where does the good Lord of heaven, the just and holy God, where does he want me to become more just in my speech? Which of these sins do I fall into? Which ones would he have me repent with contrition and a broken heart before him for? And which ones is he going to move me in terms of more justice in relationship to?”

Okay. The Westminster Larger Catechism says the sins forbidden in the ninth commandment are all prejudicing the truth and the good name of our neighbors as well as our own. We have a responsibility to protect our own reputation. It’s not ours. We’re supposed to protect our body because it belongs to God. We’re supposed to protect our reputation. It’s God’s reputation that he’s given to us to hold. And we also have to protect ours. So all prejudicing the truth in the good name of our neighbor as well as our own, especially in public judicature—in other words, in public judicial proceedings.

Giving false evidence, suborning false witnesses, trying to get people to lie about things, suborning perjury, right, which our president did in the context of this judicial proceedings a year or two ago. Appearing and pleading for an evil cause, which is what his lawyer did. Outfacing and overbearing the truth. See, the truth is not a commodity you can build or take or position or twist around for particular advantage. The truth is the truth. And to witness, a proper witness is to speak the truth and to not position it.

Passing unjust sentences, calling evil good and good evil, rewarding the wicked according to the work of the righteous and the righteous according to the work of the wicked. Forgery, concealing the truth. Undo silence in a just cause. Yeah. Undo. You see something going on, you know that one thing’s right and another isn’t, and you don’t speak up.

Undo silence in a just cause. Holding our peace when iniquity calls for either a reproof from ourselves or complaint to others. How often do we hear people take our Lord’s name and swear and use his name in vain, and yet we just let it slide by in the context of the work-a-day world. I know you can’t, you know, go to extremes here, but we certainly want to understand that when we hear this sort of speech going on, whether it’s a direct violation of the third commandment or well, it’s whether it’s simply the slandering and rumor mongering that’s spoken of in Exodus 23:1, we’re supposed to make complaint to people about that.

Speaking the truth unseasonably or maliciously to a wrong end, so you can use the truth to the wrong end, perverting it to a wrong meaning or in doubtful or equivocable expressions to the prejudice of truth or justice. Speaking untruth, lying, slandering, backbiting, talebearing, whispering, scoffing, reviling of someone. Rash, harsh and partial censuring, misconstruing and misconstructing intentions, words and actions. So reading in evil actions with our—none there—flattering. Vain glorious boasting. Thinking or speaking too highly or too meanly of ourselves or others, denying the gifts and graces of God, aggravating smaller faults, hiding, excusing or extenuating of sins when called to a free confession. Unnecessary discovering of infirmities. Raising false rumors. Receiving and countenancing evil reports. Stopping our ears against just against the just defense.

Evil suspicion of one another. Envying. Grieving at the deserved credit of any. Feeling bad cuz somebody else did well. You can’t do as well. Endeavoring or desiring to impair it. Rejoice or reject—rejoicing rather in their disgrace and infamy. Scornful contempt. Fond admiration. Breach of lawful promise. Neglecting such things are of a good report and practicing, or not avoiding, ourselves or not hindering what we can in others, such things as procure an ill name.

We have an obligation to stay far away from slander and the slanderer will be the one who tempts us to sin. Secondly though, the wicked will tempt us to sin because it goes on to say, “don’t put your hand with the wicked.”

In explanation of this, taking up of a false report and moving into the court of law, now you’re going to shake hands with the wicked. Who’s going to tempt you to do this? The wicked. The wicked here, the particular Hebrew word is the antonym. It is the opposite of this word “righteousness” or “justice” and it additionally has the negative connotation to it of a behavior of evil thoughts, words and deeds, a behavior contrary to God’s character and also hostile to the community and which at the same time betrays the inner disharmony and unrest of a man.

The wicked man is the man who hurts and breaks down covenant community because his heart is in rebellion to God. He is the opposite of the just man and his actions are associated with the general breakdown of social relationships in which people mistreat good people. He takes a stand—the wicked does—against God. He is the exact opposite of justice and righteousness. He’s the wicked, and that’s what you become when you shake hands with him.

Additionally, the text reminds us that the majority is often wrong. It says “don’t follow a crowd.” And then it says “don’t testify in a dispute so as to turn aside after that crowd or after many people,” and the word here has the primary connotation of a lot of people or a group of people. So the idea of the majority is often wrong and it is forbidden to consult social pressure or peer pressure in matters of truth although such pressures are very difficult to avoid.

It’s not exactly the majority which is in view here but perhaps any group. These are comments by Jim Jordan. Men find it easy to go with the crowd. We are told to check that tendency in ourselves. This is again a command against conspiracy and against mob rule.

So we’re going to be tempted by showing partiality not to the rich necessarily, but to the group itself—the group that we’re part of. Now, I say the majority because the word can also have the connotation of those who are wealthy or magnified or lifted up in position. But the main idea seems to be the idea that the voice of the people is the voice of justice or the voice of God. And the scriptures warn us against that. “Don’t go into action. Don’t follow a multitude to do evil.”

And then finally, the poor also will be a temptation to us. We’ll want to show partiality. As I mentioned earlier, if we’re part of the average guy in the street, our partiality will typically be for the poor as opposed to the rich.

What is the reality of your violation of this particular law? Well, the scriptures use some pretty harsh words to talk about this. And the first is that you become a malicious witness. You end up not just doing, you know, abstract damage to some—