Exodus 23:19

The first of the first fruits of thy land,.... Both of the barley and wheat harvest, and of the wine and oil; yea, Jarchi says, the seventh year was obliged to first fruits; and Josephus (d) relates,

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.

This seems to be a general rule, extending to all the fruits which the earth first produced; in every kind of which the very first are here enjoined to be offered unto God, before they should presume to eat any of them. It may seem to be repeated here, where the year of rest is mentioned to leach them the first-fruits were to be given to God of all that the earth produced, not only by their labour and seed, as might be thought from , but also of its own accord, as is here implied. He names one kind, under which he understands a lamb, or a calf, &c., according to the use of Scripture style. This law many understand literally, and that it is forbidden to them, because the idolaters had such a custom, whereof yet there seems to be no sufficient proof; nor, if there were, doth it seem to be a rite of that importance or probability to entice the Israelites to imitate it, that there needed a particular law against this, more than against a hundred such ridiculous usages which were among the heathen, and are not taken notice of in the book of God’ s laws. The words may be rendered thus, Thou shalt not seethe, or roast, a kid, being, or whilst it is (which is to be understood, there being nothing more common than an ellipsis of the verb substantive) in his mother’ s milk; which it may be said to be, either, 1. Whilst it sucks its mother’ s milk; and so it may admit of a twofold interpretation: (1.) That this is to be understood of the passover, of which most conceive he had now spoken, , in which they used either a lamb or a kid, , and then the word bashal must be rendered roast. (2.) That this speaks not of sacrifice to God, wherein sucking creatures were allowed, , but of man’ s use; and so God ordained this, partly because this was unwholesome food, and principally to restrain cruelty, even towards brute creatures, and luxury in the use of them. Or rather, 2. Whilst it is very tender and young, rather of a milky than of a fleshy substance, like that young kid of which Juvenal thus speaks, Qui plus lactis habet quam sanguinis, i.e. which hath more milk than blood in it. And it may he said to be in its mother’ s milk, by a usual hypallage, when its mother’ s milk is in it, i.e. whilst the milk it sucks as it were, remains in it undigested and unconverted into flesh, even as a man is oft said to be in the Spirit, when indeed the Spirit is in him. And what is here indefinitely prohibited, is elsewhere particularly explained, and the time defined, to wit, that it be not offered to God before it was eight days old.

Exodus 23:19 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.Ver. 19. The first of the firstfruits.] The best of the best is not to be held too good for God. His "soul hath desired the first ripe fruits." Thou shalt not seethe a kid.] Hereby seemeth to be forbidden either cruelty, or curiosity to please the palate. See my "Commonplace of Abstinence." The Jews at this day, in reference to this law, may not eat flesh and cheese or milk meats together.

(19) The first of the firstfruits—i.e., the very first that ripen. There was a natural tendency to “delay” the offering (Exodus 22:29) until a considerable part of the harvest had been got in. True gratitude makes a return for benefits received as soon as it, can. “Bis dat qui cito dat.”The house of the Lord. Comp. Exodus 34:26 and Deuteronomy 23:18. It is known to Moses that the “place which God will choose to put his name there” is to be a “house,” or “temple.” Thou shalt not seethe a kid.—A fanciful exegesis connects the four precepts of Exo 23:18-19 with the three feasts—the two of Exo 23:18 with the Paschal festival, that concerning firstfruits in Exodus 23:19 with the feast of ingathering, and this concerning kids with the feast of tabernacles. To support this theory it is suggested that the command has reference to a superstitious practice customary at the close of the harvest—a kid being then boiled in its mother’s milk with magic rites, and the milk used to sprinkle plantations, fields, and gardens, in order to render them more productive the next year. But Deuteronomy 14:21, which attaches the precept to a list of unclean meats, is sufficient to show that the kid spoken of was boiled to be eaten. The best explanation of the passage is that of Bochart (Hierozoic. pt. 1, bk. 2, Exo. 52), that there was a sort of cruelty in making the milk of the mother, intended for the kid’s sustenance, the means of its destruction.

Verse 19. Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother's milk.] This passage has greatly perplexed commentators; but Dr. Cudworth is supposed to have given it its true meaning by quoting a MS. comment of a Karaite Jew, which he met with, on this passage. "It was a custom of the ancient heathens, when they had gathered in all their fruits, to take a kid and boil it in the milk of its dam; and then, in a magical way, to go about and besprinkle with it all their trees and fields, gardens and orchards; thinking by these means to make them fruitful, that they might bring forth more abundantly in the following year." - Cudworth on the Lord's Supper, 4to. I give this comment as I find it, and add that Spenser has shown that the Zabii used this kind of magical milk to sprinkle their trees and fields, in order to make them fruitful. Others understand it of eating flesh and milk together; others of a lamb or a kid while it is sucking its mother, and that the paschal lamb is here intended, which it was not lawful to offer while sucking. After all the learned labour which critics have bestowed on this passage, and by which the obscurity in some cases is become more intense, the simple object of the precept seems to be this: "Thou shalt do nothing that may have any tendency to blunt thy moral feelings, or teach thee hardness of heart." Even human nature shudders at the thought of causing the mother to lend her milk to seethe the flesh of her young one! We need go no farther for the delicate, tender, humane, and impressive meaning of this precept.

19a. Firstfruits to be brought to Jehovah’s house. the first of the firstripe fruits] ‘Firstripe fruits’ (bikkurim) seems to be used here in the wider sense noticed on v. 16; and it is said either (Ges.) that the earliest, or (Kn., Ke.) that the first (i.e. the choicest, best: rçshîth as Amos 6:1; Amos 6:6), of these are to be presented to Jehovah: comp. esp. Ezekiel 44:30. The rend. the best, (even) the firstripe fruits, of thy ground (Di., Benzinger, EB. iv. 4910, Nowack, Arch. ii. 256, Bä.) is less natural. As regards the relation of this law to that in v. 16, v. 16 alludes only to the bikkurim to be presented at the Feast of Weeks; the present law is wider, and would include for instance the firstfruits of the grape and olive harvest, which fell later in the year (according to the Mishna, bikkurim were offered on ‘seven kinds,’ viz. wheat, barley, vines, figtrees, pomegranates, oil, and honey: see Gray, Numbers., p. 228). It seems to be a parallel to the law in Exodus 22:29; the two laws probably belonged originally to two distinct collections, and both were preserved on account of the difference in their form. The amount of firstfruits to be offered is not prescribed; and is evidently left to the free will of the individual offerer (cf. v. 15b; Deuteronomy 16:17). the house of Jehovah] The expression might denote the hêkal, or temple, at Shiloh (Judges 18:31, 1 Samuel 1:7; 1 Samuel 1:24; 1 Samuel 3:15), or the Temple of Solomon (1 Kings 8:10, and often): it might also, presumably, denote the local sanctuary nearest to the offerer’s own home; for these, or at least the principal ones, had almost certainly ‘houses’ or shrines (cf. 1 Kings 12:31, 2 Kings 17:32, Amos 7:13; Amos 9:1). The Tent of meeting might also perhaps be spoken of generally as the ‘house,’ or abode, of Jehovah; but the term is not a very natural one to apply to it; and where it does apparently denote the Tent of meeting (Joshua 6:2 [but ‘the house of’ omitted in LXX., as in v. 19 in the Heb.], Exodus 9:23 end), or the tent erected for the ark by David (2 Samuel 12:20; cf. 2 Samuel 6:17), is open to the suspicion of having been used by the writers on account of their familiarity with the Temple of Solomon (in 2 Samuel 7:6 a ‘tent’ denied to be a ‘house’). The present law must have been formulated it seems natural to think, without any reference to the Tent of meeting. 19b. A kid not to be boiled in its mother’s milk. Repeated verbatim, in the || Exodus 34:26 b, and Deuteronomy 14:21 b. The law, to judge from its position beside ritual injunctions, will have had not, as might have been supposed, a humanitarian, but a religious motive. Di. and most suppose then it is aimed against some superstitious custom—perhaps (Maimonides; Spencer, Legg. Hebr. (1686), II.

The first of the firstfruits of thy land - The “best,” or “chief” of the firstfruits, that is, the two wave loaves described Leviticus 23:17.

19. House of the Lord thy God — Observe that here, in this oldest Sinaitic legislation, one common sanctuary is contemplated for all the people. Seethe a kid in his mother’s milk — Compare chap. 34:26, and Deuteronomy 14:21.