Exodus 23:19 - Exposition

Law of first-fruits . The first of the first-fruits may mean either "the best of the first-fruits" (see Numbers 18:12 ), or "the very first of each kind that is ripe" ( ib, Exodus 23:13 ). On the tendency to delay, and not bring the very first, see the comment on Exodus 22:29 . The house of the Lord . Generally, in the Pentateuch we have the periphrasis'' the place which the Lord thy God shall choose to put his name there" ( Deuteronomy 12:5 , Deuteronomy 12:11 , Deuteronomy 12:14 ; Deuteronomy 16:16 ; Deuteronomy 26:2 , etc.); but here, and in Exodus 34:26 , and again in Deuteronomy 23:18 , this "place" is plainly declared to be a "house" or "temple."

Law against seething a kid in the mother ' s milk . The outline of law put before the Israelites in the "Book of the Covenant" terminated with this remarkable prohibition. Its importance is shown—

1 . By its place here; and

2 . By its being thrice repeated in the law of Moses (see Exodus 34:16 ; and Deuteronomy 14:21 ). Various explanations have been given of it; but none is saris-factory, except that which views it as "a protest against cruelty, and outraging the order of nature," more especially that peculiarly sacred portion of nature's order, the tender relation between parent and child, mother and suckling. No doubt the practice existed. Kids were thought to be most palatable when boiled in milk; and the mother's milk was frequently the readiest to obtain. But in this way the mother was made a sort of accomplice in the death of her child, which men were induced to kill on account of the flavour that her milk gave it. Reason has nothing to say against such a mode of preparing food, but feeling revolts from it; and the general sense of civilised mankind reechoes the precept, which is capable of a wide application— Thou shalt not seethe a kind in his mother's milk.