Exodus 22:21 to Exodus 23:5
The ordinances completing the law follow from ch. 21 to the end of ch. 23. The LORD in His perfect wisdom foresees everything that can arise and enters into the most ordinary of circumstances in the life of His own children: the pledge of a poor man, the encounter with a strayed ox . . . We see Him undertaking the defence of the weak, putting them under His protection.
For us who are Christians, side by side with the fundamental truths concerning our Saviour and our salvation, we have also in the inexhaustible Word of God instructions for our day-to-day life. But in marked contrast with the children of Israel, the Holy Spirit has been given us. He dwells in the believer, and causes him to know the will of God rightly in all the practical details of his daily life. He opens his understanding, shows him what he should do and what he should refrain from doing. The Bible then is quite a different thing from a set of rules, a long list of "do’s" and "don’ts". It reveals a God of love, a Father, whose character we are invited to reproduce. "I am merciful", He says of Himself at the end of v. 27. "Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful", that is what the Lord Jesus would teach us (Luke 6:36).