1“Observe the month of Abib, and you shall make Passover for YHWH, your God, because in the month of Abib YHWH, your God, brought you out from Egypt at night.
16:1. the month of Abib. See the comment on Exod 13:4.
2And you shall make a Passover sacrifice to YHWH, your God, of the flock and herd, in the place that YHWH will choose to tent His name there.
3You shall not eat leavened bread with it. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, the bread of degradation, with it, because you went out from the land of Egypt in haste—so that you will remember the day you went out from the land of Egypt all the days of your life.
4And you shall not have leaven appear within all your borders for seven days, and none of the meat that you will sacrifice in the evening on the first day shall remain until the morning.
5You may not make the Passover sacrifice within one of your gates that YHWH, your God, is giving you.
6But, rather, to the place that YHWH, your God, will choose to tent His name: there you shall make the Passover sacrifice in the evening at sunset, the time when you went out from Egypt.
7And you shall cook and eat it in the place that YHWH, your God, will choose; and you shall turn in the morning and go to your tents.
8Six days you shall eat unleavened bread, and on the seventh day shall be a convocation to YHWH, your God. You shall not do work.
9“You shall count seven weeks. From when the sickle begins to be in the standing grain you shall begin to count seven weeks.
10And you shall make a Festival of Weeks for YHWH, your God, the full amount of your hand’s contribution that you can give insofar as YHWH, your God, will bless you.
11And you shall rejoice in front of YHWH, your God—you and your son and your daughter and your servant and your maid and the Levite who is within your gates and the alien and the orphan and the widow who are among you—in the place that YHWH, your God, will choose to tent His name there.
12And you shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt, and you shall be watchful and do these laws.
13“You shall make a Festival of Booths seven days, when you gather from your threshing floor and from your winepress.
14And you shall rejoice on your festival—you and your son and your daughter and your servant and your maid and the Levite and the alien and the orphan and the widow who are within your gates.
15Seven days you shall celebrate for YHWH, your God, in the place that YHWH will choose, because YHWH, your God, will bless you in all your produce and all your hands’ work, and you shall just be happy.
16“Three times in the year every male of yours shall appear in front of YHWH, your God, in the place that He will choose: on the Festival of Unleavened Bread and on the Festival of Weeks and on the Festival of Booths. And he shall not appear in front of YHWH empty-handed:
17each according to what his hand can give, according to the blessing of YHWH, your God, that He has given you.
JUDGES
18“You shall put judges and officers in all your gates that YHWH, your God, is giving you, for your tribes, and they shall judge the people: judgment with justice.
16:18. judgment with justice. It should be obvious, but, regrettably, it needs to be said: judgment and justice are not the same thing. Judges and lawyers can be part of one of the noblest endeavors of humankind: the law. When they fail to pursue justice in their performance of judgment, they pervert and degrade the law, and thus they demean humankind—nothing less. The same goes for clerks, bailiffs, law enforcement officers, and everyone else involved in the execution of justice. They elevate or lower themselves—and all of us—by the degree of their commitment to justice.
19You shall not bend judgment, you shall not recognize a face, and you shall not take a bribe, because bribery will blind the eyes of the wise and undermine the words of the virtuous.
20Justice, justice you shall pursue, so that you’ll live, and you’ll take possession of the land that YHWH, your God, is giving you.
16:20. Justice, justice. Many interpretations have been given for the repetition of the word justice in this famous verse, from taking it to mean that one should go to a good court (Siphre; Rashi) to midrashic and Kabbalistic meanings (Ramban), as well as the most basic explanation: that it is repeated for emphasis. It has also been taken to mean “justice alone” (Jeffrey Tigay). And it is often said to mean that one must pursue justice in a just way: one cannot use improper means to achieve it. For example, police and prosecutors must not bend the law in order to get a conviction. The repetition might also be taken to mean that one must pursue justice for both sides: both the plaintiff and the defense in a civil matter, and both the defendant and the prosecution (“the people”) in a criminal matter. Most probably, though, we should understand it with those who take it to be a matter of emphasis. Lacking italics or exclamation points, Biblical Hebrew has few ways other than repetition to express emphasis. That is the function of placing an infinitive before a cognate verb (see the comment on Exod 19:12), and here it is achieved by repeating the noun.
21“You shall not plant an Asherah of any wood near the altar of YHWH, your God, that you will make.
16:21. Asherah. The word is used for the goddess of that name or for a tree or wooden pole that was associated with the worship of Asherah (or possibly other deities as well).
22And you shall not set up a pillar, which YHWH, your God, hates.
16:22. you shall not set up a pillar. Moses set up pillars himself (Exod 24:4). So did Jacob (Gen 28:18; 32:45; 35:14,20). So why does Moses forbid it now? Rashi and some modern commentators have thought that pillars were originally acceptable but came to be associated with pagan worship and so were abandoned. That may or may not be the actual historical development behind these changes, but that does not seem to be what is presented here in the text, because Moses moves from making them to saying that God hates them, all within the forty years in the wilderness. Perhaps we should understand it to mean that Moses is prohibiting the people from making pillars after the formal altar and Temple are built in the land, because then an altar might be taken as an alternative locus of God. Here in Deuteronomy Moses repeatedly emphasizes that there can be only one place of worship, one structure in which God’s name is housed. Thus, even Joshua sets up a large stone, which seems like a pillar (although the word is not used there; Josh 24:26), but this may be before the establishment of an official central place of worship.