Exodus 23:17

Exo 23:17 Three times in the year all thy males shall appear before the Lord GOD.

Ver. 17. All thy males.] The females are not required to appear, because they were weak, and not so fit for travel. They were also the housekeepers, and sanctified in their husbands. Howbeit many of them came up to these feasts, as Hannah, {1Sa 2:19} and the Virgin Mary. {Luk 2:41} And this was well accepted as a freewill offering.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Exo 23:17. All thy males — All that were of competent years, and health, and strength, and at their own disposal. It is probable, servants were exempt: for none was to appear without an offering: but most of these had nothing to offer.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Verse 17. All thy males] Old men, sick men, male idiots, and male children under thirteen years of age, excepted; for so the Jewish doctors understand this command.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

(17) Three times in the year.—The terms of this verse, as compared with Exo_23:14, limit the observance of the three festivals to the males, but add the important requirement of personal attendance at a given place. By “all thy males” we must understand all of full age and not incapacitated by infirmity or illness.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

17. Every male to appear before (see on v. 15) Jehovah three times in the year. The substantial identity with v. 14, coupled with the different word for ‘times,’ makes it probable that the verse has been introduced here from Exo_34:23

the Lord God] i.e. the Lord, Jehovah. The title ‘Lord’ is an indication that these pilgrimages are to be observed as marks of homage and respect to Jehovah, as Sovereign of the land (Di., Bä.).

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The first of the first fruits of thy land,.... Both of the barley and wheat harvest, and of the wine and oil; yea, Jarchi says, the seventh year was obliged to first fruits; and Josephus (d) relates, that the Jews were so tenacious of this law, that even in the famine in the time of Claudius Caesar, the first fruits were brought to the temple, and were not meddled with:

thou shall bring into the house of the Lord thy God; to the tabernacle, during the standing of that, and the temple when that was built; which were the perquisites of the priests who officiated in the house and service of God: so Pliny says (e) of the ancient Romans, that they tasted not of the new fruits or wines before the first fruits were offered to the priests, which seems to have been borrowed from hence:

thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother's milk: and so a calf, or a lamb (f), as Jarchi interprets it; which some understand of slaying a young kid and its dam together, and so is a law against cruelty, like that law of not taking the dam with the young, on finding a bird's nest, Deu 22:6 others, of killing, dressing, and eating a kid, while it sucks the milk of its mother, before it is eight days old, and so a law against luxury; but the Jews generally understand it of boiling, or eating the flesh of any creature and milk together (g): so the Targum of Onkelos paraphrases it,"ye shall not eat flesh with milk;''and the Targum of Jonathan is,"ye shall neither boil nor eat the flesh and the milk mixed together:''hence, according to the rules they give, the flesh of any beast, or of a fowl, is not to be set upon a table on which cheese is (being made of milk), lest they should be eaten together; nor may cheese be eaten after flesh until some considerable time, and then, if there is any flesh sticks between a man's teeth, he must remove it, and wash and cleanse his mouth; nor may cheese be eaten on a table cloth on which meat is, nor be cut with a knife that flesh is cut with (h): so careful are they of breaking this law, as they understand it: but the words are, doubtless, to be taken literally, of not boiling a kid in its mother's milk; and is thought by many to refer to some custom of this kind, either among the Israelites, which they had somewhere learnt, or among the idolatrous Heathens, and therefore cautioned against; Maimonides and Abarbinel both suppose it was an idolatrous rite, but are not able to produce an instance of it out of any writer of theirs or others: but Dr. Cudworth has produced a passage out of a Karaite author (i), who affirms,"it was a custom of the Heathens at the ingathering of their fruits to take a kid and seethe it in the milk of the dam, and then, in a magical way, go about and besprinkle all their trees, fields, gardens, and orchards, thinking by this means they should make them fructify, and bring forth fruit again more abundantly the next year:''and the Targum of Jonathan on Exo 34:26 seems to have respect to this, where, having paraphrased the words as here quoted above, adds,"lest I should destroy the fruit of your trees with the unripe grape, the shoots and leaves together:''and if this may be depended upon, the law comes in here very aptly, after the feast of ingathering, and the bringing in the first fruits of the land into the Lord's house.

(d) Antiqu. l. 3. c. 15. sect. 3. (e) Nat. Hist. l. 18. c. 2. (f) Vid. T. Bab. Cholin. fol. 114. 1. (g) Tikkune Zohar, Correct. 14. fol. 26. 1. (h) Schulchan Aruch, par. 2. Yore Deah, Hilchot Bashar Bechaleb, c. 88. sect. 1. & 89. sect. 1. 4. (i) Apud Gregory's Notes & Observ. c. 19. p. 97, 98.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

To wit, such as are of competent years, and health, and strength, and such as were at their own dispose; for that servants were not bound to this may seem probable, because none of these concerned were to appear before the Lord empty, or without an offering, but the generality of servants had not any thing to offer. And the care and management of their domestic affairs did require the presence and care of many of their males.

Before the Lord God, i.e. in that place where God shall record his name, Exo 20:24, as the tabernacle or temple.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

17. Three times in the year — That is, at the three festivals just mentioned in Exo_23:14-16.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Three times in the year all thy males shall appear before the Lord God. This seems to moderns a very burthensome enactment. But we must remember that Palestine is not bigger than Wales, and that great gatherings had great attractions for many in the ancient world, when they were the only means by which information was spread, and almost the only occasions on which friends and relations who lived far apart could expect to see each other. The European Greeks had, in their Olympian and other games, similar great gatherings, which occurred once or twice in each year, and, though under no obligation to do so, attended them in enormous numbers. It may be doubted if the religious Hebrews felt the obligation of attendance to be a burthen. It was assuredly a matter of great importance, as tending to unity, and to the quickening of the national life, that they should be drawn so continually to one centre, and be so frequently united in one common worship. Most students of antiquity regard the Greek games as having exerted a strong unifying influence over the scattered members of the Grecian family. The Hebrew festivals, occurring so much more frequently, and required to be attended by all, must have had a similar, but much greater, effect of the same kind.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

All thy males - All that were of competent years, and health and strength, and at their own disposal. 'Tis probable, servants were exempt: for none was to appear without an offering: but most of these had nothing to offer.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

"Three times in the year" (i.e., according to Exo 23:14 and Deu 16:16, at the three feasts just mentioned) "all thy males shall appear before the face of the Lord Jehovah." The command to appear, i.e., to make a pilgrimage to the sanctuary, was restricted to the male members of the nation, probably to those above 20 years of age, who had been included in the census (Num 1:3). But this did not prohibit the inclusion of women and boys (cf. Sa1 1:3., and Luk 2:31.).

Keil & Delitzsch — Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament (1861–1891) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API. (Old Testament only.)

שלש פעמים וגו׳ THREE TIMES etc. — Because this section speaks mainly of the Sabbatical year, it was necessary to state that the sequence of the festivals should not be disturbed even in this year of agricultural rest (Mekhilta; cf. Rashi on v. 12).

כל זכורך means all the male population among you.

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.