20
EXO 22:20
28
EXO 22:28
“ Thou shalt not despise God, and the prince among thy people thou shalt not curse. ” Elohim does not mean either the gods of other nations, as Josephus, Philo, and others, in their dead and work-holy monotheism, have rendered the word; or the rulers, as Onkelos and others suppose; but simply God, deity in general, whose majesty was despised in every break of the commandments of Jehovah, and who was to be honoured in the persons of the rulers (cf. Proverbs 24:21; 1 Peter 2:17). Contempt of God consists not only in blasphemies of Jehovah openly expressed, which were to be punished with death (Leviticus 24:11.), but in disregard of His threats with reference to the oppression of the poorer members of His people (Exodus 22:22-27), and in withholding from them what they ought to receive (Exodus 22:29-31). Understood in this way, the command is closely connected not only with what precedes, but also with what follows. The prince ( נשׂיא , lit., the elevated one) is mentioned by the side of God, because in his exalted position he has to administer the law of God among His people, and to put a stop to what is wrong.
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Whoever offered sacrifice to strange gods instead of to Jehovah alone, was liable to death. יחרם he shall be banned, put under the ban ( cherem ), i.e., put to death, and by death devoted to the Lord, to whom he would not devote himself in life (cf. Leviticus 27:29, and my Archäologie, §70).
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