18
22:29 as a call for literal human sacrifice; the narrative context precludes that interpretation, even
though the words without the earlier narrative might have been taken that way.
Thus the exodus experience alluded to in these laws implicitly motivates obedience, and
they provide the backdrop for correct interpretation.
f. Driving out the Canaanites. The epilogue of the book of the covenant (Exod 23:20-33)
commands Israel not to worship Canaanite gods, but instead to drive the Canaanites out and
obliterate their cultic objects (Exod 24:24). God goes on to say that he would fix their
boundaries from the Red Sea to the Sea of the Philistines, to the Euphrates (Exod 23:31). This
is clearly an allusion to the land promise given to Abraham (Gen 15:18-20, where the dimensions
are from the river of Egypt to the Euphrates), a promise that God said he would fulfill by
bringing Israel from Egypt to Canaan (Exod 6:2-8). Thus the basis for the law to drive out the
Canaanites is the narrative promise to the patriarchs, and the promise given to Moses in Exodus
6.
6. The Legal Context affects the Reading of Narratives.
Not only do the narratives affect the understanding of the laws, but the laws affect our
reading of the narratives. This is certainly true of narratives subsequent to the giving of the law,
but is also true of earlier narratives.
a. "Do Not Approach a Woman" (Exod 19:15). God had Moses admonish the Israelite
men in preparation for his manifesting himself on Mount Sinai, "Do not approach a woman"
(Exod 19:15). This seems to anticipate the laws of purity in Leviticus 15 where even ordinary
sexual intercourse made a person ceremonially unclean (Lev 15:16-18), and contact with a
woman in her period would also transfer uncleanness (Lev 15:19). Those who are ceremonially
unclean were prohibited from approaching the presence of God in a sanctuary (Num 5:1-3).