Exodus 23:18–19

23:18 “You must not offer43 the blood of my sacrifice with bread containing yeast; the fat of my festal sacrifice must not remain until morning.44 23:19 The first of the firstfruits of your soil you must bring to the house of the Lord your God.

“You must not cook a young goat in its mother’s milk.45

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43	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).
44	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.
45	sn On this verse, see C. M. Carmichael, “On Separating Life and Death: An Explanation of Some Biblical Laws,” HTR 69 (1976): 1–7; J. Milgrom, “You Shall Not Boil a Kid in Its Mother’s Milk,” BRev 1 (1985): 48–55; R. J. Ratner and B. Zuckerman, “In Rereading the ‘Kid in Milk’ Inscriptions,” BRev 1 (1985): 56–58; and M. Haran, “Seething a Kid in Its Mother’s Milk,” JJS 30 (1979): 23–35. Here and at 34:26, where this command is repeated, it ends a series of instructions about procedures for worship.