Exodus 23:15-18

23:15 You are to observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread; seven days ¹  you must eat bread made without yeast, as I commanded you, at the appointed time of the month of Abib, for at that time ²  you came out of Egypt. No one may appear before ³  me empty-handed.

23:16 “You are also to observe ⁴  the Feast of Harvest, the firstfruits of your labors that you have sown in the field, and the Feast of Ingathering at the end of the year ⁵  when you have gathered in ⁶  your harvest ⁷  out of the field. 23:17 At ⁸  three times in the year all your males will appear before the Lord God. ⁹ 

23:18 “You must not offer ¹⁰  the blood of my sacrifice with bread containing yeast; the fat of my festal sacrifice must not remain until morning. ¹¹ 

[23:15]  ¹ tn This is an adverbial accusative of time.

[23:15]  ² tn Heb “in it.”

[23:15]  ³ tn The verb is a Niphal imperfect; the nuance of permission works well here – no one is permitted to appear before God empty (Heb “and they will not appear before me empty”).

[23:16]  ⁴ tn The words “you are also to observe” are not in the Hebrew text, but are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[23:16]  ⁵ tn An infinitive construct with a preposition and a pronominal suffix is used to make a temporal clause: “in the going in of the year.” The word “year” is the subjective genitive, the subject of the clause.

[23:16]  ⁶ tn An infinitive construct with a preposition and a pronominal suffix is used to make a temporal clause: “in the ingathering of you.”

[23:16]  ⁷ tn Heb “gathered in your labors.” This is a metonymy of cause put for the effect. “Labors” are not gathered in, but what the labors produced – the harvest.

[23:17]  ⁷ tn Adverbial accusative of time: “three times” becomes “at three times.”

[23:17]  ⁸ tn Here the divine Name reads in Hebrew הָאָדֹן יְהוָה (ha’adon yÿhvah), which if rendered according to the traditional scheme of “Lord” for “Yahweh” would result in “Lord Lord.” A number of English versions therefore render this phrase “Lord God,” and that convention has been followed here.

[23:18]  ¹⁰ tn The verb is תִּזְבַּח (tizbbakh), an imperfect tense from the same root as the genitive that qualifies the accusative “blood”: “you will not sacrifice the blood of my sacrifice.” The verb means “to slaughter”; since one cannot slaughter blood, a more general translation is required here. But if the genitive is explained as “my blood-sacrifice” (a genitive of specification; like “the evil of your doings” in Isa 1:16), then a translation of sacrifice would work (U. Cassuto, Exodus, 304).

[23:18]  ¹¹ sn See N. Snaith, “Exodus 23:18 and 34:25,” JTS 20 (1969): 533-34; see also M. Haran, “The Passover Sacrifice,” Studies in the Religion of Ancient Israel (VTSup), 86-116.