This passage contains a collection of commands relating to different situations, without obvious order. Throughout chapter 21 we found conditional laws. This type of law continues into chapter 22 up to verse 16, after which the apodictic type of law is presented. Verses 16-17 set out the penalty for the seduction of a virgin. In verses 18-20, the death penalty is commanded for three offences which were considered particularly horrible in their effect on the community of God. Verses 21-24 command kind behaviour to foreigners who come into the community, and to widows and orphans. The people of God are reminded of their own sufferings when they were in Egypt; the mercy of God to them is implicit in this verse. Because God showed mercy to them, they in turn must show mercy to others who are in need. This idea carries on into verses 25-27. Anyone who has enough money to be able to lend it to someone else poorer than himself, must not ask for interest on it. If a man's cloak (the main garment of a poor man, used not only in the day but as a blanket at night) was left as a token of repayment for money borrowed, it had to be returned at night so that he might sleep with dignity and not lie naked on the ground.

Verse 28 repeats the command not to misuse the name of God, and then goes on to prohibit cursing of a leader of the community. The implication is that God has given the leader his authority and this must be respected. Verse 29 commands that offerings of com, wine, and olive-oil should be made to God from each harvest. As with 21: 5-6, settled agriculture as a practice of the community is assumed in this command. The verse continues and joins with verse 31 to command the dedication of first sons and first-born male animals to God. In the case of animals, these were to be sacrificed to God.

Verse 31 takes what was probably a very old prohibition amongst shepherd peoples (that the meat of an animal killed by wild animals such as lions should not be eaten by people), and gives this prohibition new theological significance. Because the communities are God's people, they must not behave like scavengers eating what has been left by beasts. This brings us to a point of general significance. Although some of the laws and prohibitions concerning behaviour found in the Pentateuchal books can be paralleled in the traditional codes of behaviour of other peoples, we must see that whole body of Israel's law within the context of their faith and relationship with God. The whole of their behaviour was to be governed by this. They were to show mercy to others because God had shown mercy to them. They were to abhor oppression and injustice because God had saved them from the oppression and injustice of Egypt. Their worship was to express all that had been revealed to them of the character of their God-his Lordship of the earth, his provision for all their needs, his holiness, and his election of them as his special people. When we reach Exodus 23, we find further expression of this.