Mishpatim

[13] The third reading addresses laws on damage to crops,[14] bailment,[15] seduction,[16] sorcery,[17] bestiality,[18] apostasy,[19] wronging the disadvantaged,[20] lending, and taking someone's property as a pledge.

[24] The fifth reading addresses laws concerning the disadvantaged,[25] false charges,[26] bribery,[27] oppressing the stranger,[28] the sabbatical year for crops (שמיטה‎, Shmita),[29] the Sabbath,[30] the mention of other gods,[31] the Three Pilgrimage Festivals (שָׁלוֹשׁ רְגָלִים‎, Shalosh Regalim),[32] sacrifice (קָרְבָּן‎, korban),[33] and firstfruits (ביכורים‎, Bikkurim).

[65] The parashah has parallels or is discussed in these Biblical sources:[67] Benjamin Sommer argued that Deuteronomy 12–26 borrowed whole sections from the earlier text of Exodus 21–23.

"[76] Exodus 12:5–6, Leviticus 23:5, and Numbers 9:3 and 5, and 28:16 direct "Passover" to take place on the evening of the fourteenth of Aviv (Nisan in the Hebrew calendar after the Babylonian captivity).

Lawrence Schiffman read this regulation as an attempt to avoid violating prohibitions on charging interest to one's fellow Jew in Exodus 22:25, Leviticus 25:36–37, and Deuteronomy 23:19–20.

[105] One of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Community Rule of the Qumran sectarians, cited Exodus 23:7, "Keep far from a deceitful matter," to support a prohibition of business partnerships with people outside of the group.

[106] The parashah is discussed in these rabbinic sources from the era of the Mishnah and the Talmud:[107] Rabbi Akiva deduced from the words "now these are the ordinances that you shall put before them" in Exodus 21:1 that the teacher must wherever possible explain to the student the reasons behind the commandments.

The Gemara used this analysis of Exodus 21:4 to explain why the Mishnah[113] taught that the son of a Canaanite slave mother does not impose the obligation of Levirite marriage (יִבּוּם‎, yibbum) under Deuteronomy 25:5–6.

Rav Papa said in the name of Rava (Abba ben Joseph bar Ḥama) that Exodus 21:19 referred explicitly to healing, and the verse would not make sense if one assumed that retaliation was meant.

[140] Rabbah explained that the Torah in Exodus 22:8–10 requires those who admit to a part of a claim against them to take an oath, because the law presumes that no debtor is so brazen in the face of a creditor as to deny the debt entirely.

[153] In the Babylonian Talmud, the Gemara read Exodus 23:2, "You shall not follow a multitude to do evil," to support the rule that when a court tried a non-capital case, the decision of the majority of the judges determined the outcome.

Mar Zutra and Rav Ashi read the words "that they may learn" in Deuteronomy 31:12 to mean "that they may teach," and thus to exclude people who could not speak from the obligation to appear at the assembly.

[181] The Gemara cited Exodus 23:15 to support the proposition, which both Resh Lakish and Rabbi Joḥanan held, that on the mid-festival days (Chol HaMoed) it is forbidden to work.

Rav Idit answered that indeed Metatron has no authority to forgive sins, and the Israelites would not accept him even as a messenger, for Exodus 33:15 reports that Moses told God, "If Your Presence does not go with me, do not carry us up from here.

Rabbi Akiba cited in support of his position the words of the prophet in the days of Jeroboam, before the birth of Hezekiah, who prophesied (as reported in 1 Kings 13:2), "a son shall be born to the house of David, Josiah by name."

Rabbi Simeon ben Lakish reconciled the two sources, explaining that the hornet stood on the eastern bank of the Jordan and shot its venom over the river at the Canaanites.

But as soon as the Israelites committed the sin of the Golden Calf, 1.2 million destroying angels descended and removed the crowns, as it is said in Exodus 33:6, "And the children of Israel stripped themselves of their ornaments from mount Horeb.

The Midrash deduced that when in Numbers 11:1, the people murmured, speaking evil, and God sent fire to devour part of the camp, all those earlier 70 elders had been burned up.

The Midrash continued that the earlier 70 elders were consumed like Nadab and Abihu, because they too acted frivolously when (as reported in Exodus 24:11) they beheld God and inappropriately ate and drank.

Moses then spent 40 days in the camp, until he had burned the Golden Calf, ground it into powder like the dust of the earth, destroyed the idol worship from among the Israelites, and put every tribe in its place.

And thus Rabbi Tanhum bar Hanilai concluded that it was in reference to Aaron's decision-making in this incident that Psalm 10:3 can be read to mean, "He who praises one who makes a compromise blasphemes God.

[235] Explaining the origins of the law that one can see in the Cities of Refuge, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. wrote that early forms of legal procedure were grounded in vengeance.

[236] Writing for the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards of Conservative Judaism, Rabbis Elliot N. Dorff and Aaron L. Mackler relied on Exodus 21:19–20, among other verses, to find a duty to help see that our society provides health care to those who need it.

This table translates units of weight used in the Bible into their modern equivalents:[238] Benjamin Sommer taught that an ancient reader inserted a clarifying comment into Exodus 22:24.

in 1950, the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards of Conservative Judaism ruled: "Refraining from the use of a motor vehicle is an important aid in the maintenance of the Sabbath spirit of repose.

"[240] Julius Wellhausen conceived of early Israelite religion as linked to nature's annual cycle and believed that Scripture only later connected the festivals to historical events like the Exodus from Egypt.

James Kugel reported that modern scholars generally agreed that Passover reflects two originally separate holidays arising out of the annual harvest cycle.

[245] Everett Fox noted that "glory" (כְּבוֹד‎, kevod) and "stubbornness" (כָּבֵד לֵב‎, kaved lev) are leading words throughout the book of Exodus that give it a sense of unity.

Richard Elliott Friedman attributed the overwhelming majority of the parashah, Exodus 21:1–24:15a, to the Elohist (sometimes abbreviated E), who wrote in the north, in the land of the Tribe of Ephraim, possibly as early as the second half of the 9th century BCE.

The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah after King Zedekiah made a covenant with the people of Jerusalem to proclaim liberty, that all should let their Hebrew slaves—both men and women—go free, and that none should make bondmen of them.