Exodus 23:19

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: rçshîthas 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 bikkurimto 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, bikkurimwere 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 amountof 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 (Jdg 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. viii.; al.) that of using milk thus prepared as a charm for rendering fields and orchards more productive. Frazer (-Folk-lore in the OT.," in Anthropological Essays presented to E. B. Tylor, Oxford, 1907, p. 151 ff.) quotes examples shewing that among many pastoral tribes in Africa there is a strong aversion to boiling milk, lest (on the principle of -sympathetic magic") it should injure or even kill the cow which yielded it: but this case is not quite the same as the one here. Ibn Ezra (11 cent.) ad loc., and Burckhardt (Bedouins, i. 63), both mention boiling a lamb or kid in milk as an Arab custom.