Keluaran 22:20-23

22:20 “Whoever sacrifices to a god other than the Lord ¹  alone must be utterly destroyed. ² 

22:21 “You must not wrong ³  a foreigner ⁴  nor oppress him, for you were foreigners in the land of Egypt.

22:22 “You must not afflict ⁵  any widow or orphan. 22:23 If you afflict them ⁶  in any way ⁷  and they cry to me, I will surely hear ⁸  their cry,

[22:20]  ¹ tn Heb “not to Yahweh.”

[22:20]  ² tn The verb חָרַם (kharam) means “to be devoted” to God or “to be banned.” The idea is that it would be God’s to do with as he liked. What was put under the ban was for God alone, either for his service or for his judgment. But it was out of human control. Here the verb is saying that the person will be utterly destroyed.

[22:21]  ³ tn Or “oppress.”

[22:21]  ⁴ tn Or “alien,” both here and in 23:9. This individual is a resident foreigner; he lives in the land but, aside from provisions such as this, might easily be without legal rights.

[22:22]  ⁵ tn The verb “afflict” is a Piel imperfect from עָנָה (’anah); it has a wide range of meanings: “afflict, oppress, humiliate, rape.” These victims are at the mercy of the judges, businessmen, or villains. The righteous king and the righteous people will not mistreat them (see Isa 1:17; Job 31:16, 17, 21).

[22:23]  ⁶ tn The accusative here is the masculine singular pronoun, which leads S. R. Driver to conclude that this line is out of place, even though the masculine singular can be used in places like this (Exodus, 232). U. Cassuto says its use is to refer to certain classes (Exodus, 292).

[22:23]  ⁷ tn Here again and with “cry” the infinitive absolute functions with a diminished emphasis (GKC 342-43 §113.o).

[22:23]  ⁸ tn Here is the normal use of the infinitive absolute with the imperfect tense to emphasize the verb: “I will surely hear,” implying, “I will surely respond.”