Exodus 22:28

Exodus 22:28 sets two prohibitions side by side: blasphemy against God and cursing the ruler of the people. Far from being incidental legal minutiae, this pairing reveals a divinely ordered hierarchy in which reverence for God and respect for legitimate authority are inseparable obligations. The verse establishes that speech itself is a moral act, capable of honoring or violating the sacred order God has established in both the heavenly and civic spheres.

Literal Sense — The Two Prohibitions

The Hebrew underlying "blaspheme God" uses the word Elohim (אֱלֹהִים), which can refer both to the God of Israel and, in certain contexts, to judges or divine representatives (cf. Ps 82:6). The Septuagint renders it θεοὺς οὐ κακολογήσεις ("you shall not speak evil of gods/God"), and the New Testament's citation of this verse (Acts 23:5) confirms the dual resonance was alive in Second Temple Judaism. In its primary, unambiguous sense, however, the prohibition targets blasphemy — speech that dishonors, defames, or contemptuously misrepresents the divine nature and name. Given the surrounding Sinai legislation, this aligns directly with the Third Commandment's protection of God's holy name (Exod 20:7): not merely swearing falsely, but any speech that treats God with contempt or ridicule.

The second prohibition — "nor curse a ruler (nasi, נָשִׂיא) of your people" — uses the term nasi, which carries the weight of "one lifted up," a prince, chieftain, or appointed leader. Cursing here (qalal, קָלַל) means to treat as light or worthless, to invoke harm. In Israel, the nasi held authority derived from the covenant community's need for ordered governance under God's sovereign rule. To curse such a leader was therefore not merely a political offense; it struck at the delegated authority God himself had sanctioned.

The Pairing as Theological Architecture

The juxtaposition of these two commands is not accidental. In the Covenant Code (Exod 20:22–23:33), laws governing relationships with God and relationships within the community alternate and interpenetrate. By placing the prohibition against blaspheming God immediately alongside the prohibition against cursing rulers, the text implies that both sins are structurally similar: both attack an order of authority that God has ordained. The ruler mediates divine justice among the people; to curse him is to unravel the fabric of covenant society. St. Thomas Aquinas, following this logic in the Summa Theologiae (II-II, q. 72, a. 2), identifies contumely — speech that dishonors another — as a sin against justice, with blasphemy being its most grave form because it is directed against God himself.

Typological and Spiritual Senses

The spiritual sense points forward to Christ, who is simultaneously the eternal Word and the supreme Ruler of God's people. His trial before the Sanhedrin (Matt 26:65) turns precisely on a charge of blasphemy — the religious leaders invoke this very principle against the one who, in truth, could never blaspheme since he is God. The tragic irony of Calvary is that the prohibition of Exodus 22:28 is weaponized against the very one it was designed to honor. In a deeper typological reading, the "ruler of your people" anticipates the messianic King: David, his dynasty, and ultimately Christ as the nasi of the new covenant community, the Church.

Catholic tradition illuminates this verse on several interconnected levels.

On Blasphemy: The Catechism of the Catholic Church treats blasphemy with notable gravity: "Blasphemy is directly opposed to the second commandment. It consists in uttering against God — inwardly or outwardly — words of hatred, reproach, or defiance; in speaking ill of God; in failing to respect him in one's speech" (CCC §2148). The Church Fathers were similarly uncompromising. St. John Chrysostom, in his Homilies on the Statues (Hom. 1), called blasphemy a wound inflicted on the soul of the speaker far more than on God, who is impassible. St. Augustine (Enarrationes in Psalmos, Ps 74) connected the prohibition of blasphemy to the interior disposition of pietas — a right-ordered reverence that governs the entire Christian moral life.

On Respect for Authority: The Second Vatican Council's Gaudium et Spes (§74) and St. Paul's famous teaching in Romans 13:1–7 both echo the logic of Exodus 22:28: legitimate civil authority participates in God's own providential ordering of human society. The Catechism states: "It is the proper function of legitimate authority ... to defend and promote the common good of civil society" (CCC §2235). Crucially, Catholic teaching does not demand blind obedience — authority that commands what is intrinsically evil loses its claim to obedience — but it insists that the office itself, as a divinely ordered institution, commands a baseline of respect that is not contingent on the personal virtue of its holder. This nuance, latent in Exodus 22:28, is fully developed only in the New Testament and Magisterial tradition.

For the contemporary Catholic, Exodus 22:28 arrives as a bracing counter-cultural challenge on two fronts. First, the ubiquity of casual blasphemy in popular culture — exclamations invoking God's name contemptuously, entertainment that mocks the sacred — has so normalized irreverence that many Catholics no longer register it as a moral failing. This verse calls for a renewed examination of conscience: Do I laugh at jokes that demean God or the faith? Do I use sacred names as mere expletives? The prohibition is not about fragile feelings; it is about the ordering of the heart toward truth.

Second, in an era of corrosive political rhetoric, where the cursing and dehumanization of leaders across the political spectrum has become routine — even within Catholic online spaces — this verse demands a different posture. Vigorous disagreement, prophetic criticism, and even lawful civil disobedience can all be consistent with Catholic teaching. But contemptuous cursing, the wish for harm, and language that degrades the office itself — these the Law of Sinai forbids, and the New Law does not relax. St. Paul's instinctive self-correction in Acts 23:5 is a model: even when wronged by authority, the righteous person guards the tongue.