Charles Ellicott Commentary Exodus 23:19

"The first of the first-fruits of thy ground thou shalt bring into the house of Jehovah thy God. Thou shalt not boil a kid in it mother`s milk." — Exodus 23:19 (ASV)

The first of the firstfruits — that is, the very first that ripen. There was a natural tendency to “delay” the offering (Exodus 22:29) until a considerable part of the harvest had been gathered. True gratitude makes a return for benefits received as soon as it can. “Bis dat qui cito dat.”

The house of the Lord. Compare Exodus 34:26 and Deuteronomy 23:18. It is known to Moses that the place which God will choose to put his name there is to be a “house,” or “temple.”

Thou shalt not seethe a kid. —A fanciful exegesis connects the four precepts of Exodus 23:18-19 with the three feasts—the two of Exodus 23:18 with the Paschal festival, that concerning firstfruits in Exodus 23:19 with the feast of ingathering, and this concerning kids with the feast of Tabernacles. To support this theory, it is suggested that the command refers to a superstitious practice customary at the close of the harvest—a kid being then boiled in its mother’s milk with magic rites, and the milk used to sprinkle plantations, fields, and gardens, to render them more productive the next year.

But Deuteronomy 14:21, which attaches the precept to a list of unclean meats, is sufficient to show that the kid spoken of was boiled to be eaten. The best explanation of the passage is that of Bochart (Hierozoic. pt. 1, bk. 2, Exo. 52), that there was a sort of cruelty in making the milk of the mother, intended for the kid’s sustenance, the means of its destruction.