see who it is so that he gets away right so he doesn't have to kill him you know to stop what's

happening yeah that's that's a beautiful little detail you can just read over and think there's

nothing on it but it's it's it's vitally important yeah and again we see why these case laws

would just be so important for israel's judges as they're trying to maneuver through

the sticky situations that sin creates, it's these little details that are going to help

them rule justly and wisely.

Welcome to episode 30 of Bible Talk, which is really just kind of episode 29, part two, because we sat down to do Exodus 21 through 23, and lo and behold, we spent a lot of minutes talking about just 21. So here we are for episode 30 of Bible Talk, where we're going to talk about Exodus 22 and 23. Bible talk is brought to you by Nine Marks.

Nine Marks exists to equip church leaders with a biblical vision and practical resources for building

healthy churches. For more, visit nine marks.org. My name is Alex Duke. And with me are my two

very good friends. Sam Elmadi. Jim Hamilton. All right, friends. So Exodus 21, we talked about

the very important point that these laws are an exposition of the Ten Commandments. And much of that is sort of an exposition of the Thou shalt not murder. When we shift into Exodus 22, does that pattern continue? And does it shift commandments that it's exposing? We're still getting expositions of the Ten Commandments.

Yes.

And in some ways, we got some Thou shalt not steal in 21.

I suggested that's what the regulations about slavery are about.

And we're going to get a lot more about stealing here in Chapter 22.

And I think it's worth pointing out that this assumes that people have property rights. This assumes that people are going to have possessions, things that they own.

An oxa sheep, a field of vineyard.

Right. Things that belong to them. And it also assumes that the individual's possession of those things is inviolable. That is, it's not to be stolen by a neighbor, a fellow citizen.

And from what we see later in the Old Testament, it's clear that it's not to be stolen by the king, or we might say by the government.

So just because somebody has an army at their disposal, just because they have the weapons, the spears, the swords, and so forth,

that doesn't give the king the right to murder the man who owns the field so that he can have

Naboth's vineyard. You know, that would be breaking the Ten Commandments. So the human dignity

...