Exodus 23

v1-9: The command to love our enemies, and to do good to those who hate us, “is not only a new,” but “also an old commandment.” If this is what we must do “for an enemy, we should do much more for a friend.”

v10-12: As they wandered through the wilderness, the Israelites were to show their dependence upon God, by trusting that “the sixth day’s manna served for two day’s food,” so once they were in the land, they were to trust that the sixth year’s growth from the land would provide food for two years. If they did their duty, they could have “confidence in divine Providence” to provide what they needed day by day, as can we “if we are wise and diligent in our affairs.”

v13-19: Idolatry is a particular sin that God’s people are tempted by which is why “they must try to blot out thoughts of gods of other religions, must no longer use but forget all their superstitious forms of speech, and never mention them except with disgust.”

v20-26: God promised Israel “that they would be guided and kept in their way through the wilderness to the land of promise.” Like He did for them, so He keeps us “through the wilderness of this world and from the scorn of the gates of hell,” and will bring us to the place He has prepared for His followers.

v27-33: “Those who want to avoid bad ways must avoid bad company.” The sins of others “can all too easily trip us up.”

Exodus 24

v1-8: For there to be fellowship between us and God, there first must be “atonement and reconciliation by sacrifice.”

v9-11: As believers, we get to “eat and drink with Christ at his table” every time we celebrate the Lord’s Supper, and we can be sure that we will among “those who will eat bread in the kingdom of our Father and drink the new wine there.”

v12-18: “God could have said what he had… to say to Moses in one day.” Instead, He chose to keep “him with him on the mountain forty days and forty nights.” From this “we are taught… to spend much time in fellowship with God, and to think that such time is spent in the best possible way.”