19 You are to keep My statutes. You shall not crossbreed two different kinds of livestock; you shall not sow your fields with two kinds of seed; and you shall not wear clothing made of two kinds of material.

20 If a man lies carnally with a slave girl promised to another man but who has not been redeemed or given her freedom, there must be due punishment. But they are not to be put to death, because she had not been freed. 21 The man, however, must bring a ram to the entrance to the Tent of Meeting as his guilt offering to the LORD. 22 The priest shall make atonement on his behalf before the LORD with the ram of the guilt offering for the sin he has committed, and he will be forgiven the sin he has committed.

23 When you enter the land and plant any kind of tree for food, you shall regard the fruit as forbidden. For three years it will be forbidden to you and must not be eaten. 24 In the fourth year all its fruit must be consecrated as a praise offering to the LORD. 25 But in the fifth year you may eat its fruit; thus your harvest will be increased. I am the LORD your God.

26 You must not eat anything with blood still in it.

You must not practice divination or sorcery.

27 You must not cut off the hair at the sides of your head or clip off the edges of your beard.

28 You must not make any cuts in your bodies for the dead or put tattoo marks on yourselves. I am the LORD.

29 You must not defile your daughter by making her a prostitute, or the land will be prostituted and filled with depravity.

30 You must keep My Sabbaths and have reverence for My sanctuary. I am the LORD.

31 You must not turn to mediums or spiritists; do not seek them out, or you will be defiled by them. I am the LORD your God.

32 You are to rise in the presence of the elderly, honor the aged, and fear your God. I am the LORD.

33 When a foreigner resides with you in your land, you must not oppress him. 34 You must treat the foreigner living among you as native-born and love him as yourself, for you were foreigners in the land of Egypt. I am the LORD your God.

35 You must not use dishonest measures of length, weight, or volume. 36 You shall maintain honest scales and weights, an honest ephah, and an honest hin. I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt.

37 You must keep all My statutes and all My ordinances and follow them. I am the LORD.”

REFLECTIONS

Today’s passage has such a diverse list of laws. But the bit that got stuck in my brain was the law about a man who sleeps with a slave girl who has been promised in marriage to another man (v 20-22). Did those verses make you at all uncomfortable?

Here’s what I think is most helpful for seeing how good this command is: It was designed to give Israel’s judges one key principle as they considered cases of sexual misconduct. That key principle was that every person has the same value in God’s eyes.

Female slaves were the lowest of the low on Israel’s social scale (that scale didn’t come from God, mind you!). The Law of Moses had already laid out protections for women, to stop men from exploiting them and then abandoning them. This law makes it clear that even female slaves were to receive those protections, and that the man who did this had to both seek God’s forgiveness and do everything possible to repair the damage he had caused. For example, the man in this case would probably have had to marry the slave girl to provide for her (that’s the most likely “due punishment” in verse 20).

I love that God cares for the poor and the foreigner, as we saw yesterday and today. I love that he has female slaves, along with everyone else, at the top of his social scale. And I love how Jesus wanted tax collectors and prostitutes to find life and salvation. That’s the king I want to follow.