Discovery BoxExodus 23:15-18 
Context23:15 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
1 tn This is an adverbial accusative of time.
2 tn Heb “in it.”
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”).
4 tn The words “you are also to observe” are not in the Hebrew text, but are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.
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.
6 tn An infinitive construct with a preposition and a pronominal suffix is used to make a temporal clause: “in the ingathering of you.”
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.
8 tn Adverbial accusative of time: “three times” becomes “at three times.”
9 tn Here the divine Name reads in Hebrew הָאָדֹן יְהוָה (ha’adon yÿhvah), which if rendered according to the traditional scheme of “
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).
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.
