23:13 This verse is a summary warning against idolatry (cf. 20:22-23).
"The continual return to the theme of idolatry throughout this section of the book is preparation and background for an appreciation of the incident of the golden calf (Ex 32)."399
23:14-17 All the male Israelites had to make a pilgrimage to the sanctuary (tabernacle) three times a year for the feasts of Unleavened Bread, Firstfruits (Weeks, Pentecost), and Ingathering (Booths, Tabernacles). Women and children would have normally accompanied the males. This requirement fostered the maintenance of the national and social unity of the 12 tribes as well as their spiritual unity.
23:18 "The first part of this verse has nothing to do with eating anything leavened. Rather it means that individual Israelites were not to kill the Passover lamb while leaven was still in their houses. The second half of the verse makes no reference to fat as such; but as the parallel verse in 34:25b says, the sacrifice from the Passover Feast' (here lit., sacrifice of my feast') shall not remain until morning' (cf. 12:10)."400
23:19 The commentators have accounted for the prohibition against boiling a kid (young lamb) in its mother's milk in many different ways. Some scholars believe it was the opposition to commingling life and death, a source of life and its product, or Israel and the nations, that was the basis for this prohibition (cf. Lev. 22:27-28; Deut. 22:6).401Another view is that it was a way of specifying that only weaned animals were acceptable as sacrifices (cf. 34:18-26).402The most popular explanation is that this was a pagan practice that showed disrespect for the God-given relationship between parent and offspring.403The Ras Shamra tablets have shown that boiling sacrificial kids in their mother's milk was a common ritual practice among the Canaanites.404This ordinance is the basis for the separation strict Jews make in their diet by not mixing dairy and meat products. Observant Jews even provide separate equipment and kitchens for the preparation of these dishes.
