Study

a Bible passage

Click a verse to see commentary
Select a resource above

First Fruits and Tithes

26

When you have come into the land that the L ord your God is giving you as an inheritance to possess, and you possess it, and settle in it, 2you shall take some of the first of all the fruit of the ground, which you harvest from the land that the L ord your God is giving you, and you shall put it in a basket and go to the place that the L ord your God will choose as a dwelling for his name. 3You shall go to the priest who is in office at that time, and say to him, “Today I declare to the L ord your God that I have come into the land that the L ord swore to our ancestors to give us.” 4When the priest takes the basket from your hand and sets it down before the altar of the L ord your God, 5you shall make this response before the L ord your God: “A wandering Aramean was my ancestor; he went down into Egypt and lived there as an alien, few in number, and there he became a great nation, mighty and populous. 6When the Egyptians treated us harshly and afflicted us, by imposing hard labor on us, 7we cried to the L ord, the God of our ancestors; the L ord heard our voice and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression. 8The L ord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with a terrifying display of power, and with signs and wonders; 9and he brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. 10So now I bring the first of the fruit of the ground that you, O L ord, have given me.” You shall set it down before the L ord your God and bow down before the L ord your God. 11Then you, together with the Levites and the aliens who reside among you, shall celebrate with all the bounty that the L ord your God has given to you and to your house.

12 When you have finished paying all the tithe of your produce in the third year (which is the year of the tithe), giving it to the Levites, the aliens, the orphans, and the widows, so that they may eat their fill within your towns, 13then you shall say before the L ord your God: “I have removed the sacred portion from the house, and I have given it to the Levites, the resident aliens, the orphans, and the widows, in accordance with your entire commandment that you commanded me; I have neither transgressed nor forgotten any of your commandments: 14I have not eaten of it while in mourning; I have not removed any of it while I was unclean; and I have not offered any of it to the dead. I have obeyed the L ord my God, doing just as you commanded me. 15Look down from your holy habitation, from heaven, and bless your people Israel and the ground that you have given us, as you swore to our ancestors—a land flowing with milk and honey.”

Concluding Exhortation

16 This very day the L ord your God is commanding you to observe these statutes and ordinances; so observe them diligently with all your heart and with all your soul. 17Today you have obtained the L ord’s agreement: to be your God; and for you to walk in his ways, to keep his statutes, his commandments, and his ordinances, and to obey him. 18Today the L ord has obtained your agreement: to be his treasured people, as he promised you, and to keep his commandments; 19for him to set you high above all nations that he has made, in praise and in fame and in honor; and for you to be a people holy to the L ord your God, as he promised.


1. And it shall be when thou art come. The Israelites are commanded to offer their first-fruits, for the same reason that they were to pay the tribute for every soul; viz., that they might confess that they themselves, and all that they had, belonged to God. This was the only distinction, that the tribute was a symbol of their emancipation, that they might acknowledge themselves to be free, as having been redeemed by the special mercy of God; but by the firstfruits they testified that the land was tributary to God, and that they were masters of it by no other title than as tenants at will, so that the direct sovereignty and property of it remained with God alone. This, then, was the object of the first-fruits, that they might renew every year the recollection of their adoption; because the land of Canaan was given to them as their peculiar inheritance, in which they were to worship God in piety and holiness, and at the same time reflect that they were not fed promiscuously, like the Gentiles, by God, but like children; whence also their food was sacred. But we shall have to speak again elsewhere of the first-fruits, in as much as they were a part of the oblations; yet it was necessary to insert here their main object, that we might know that they were appointed to be offered by the people, in pious acknowledgment that their food was received from God, and to shew that, being separated from other nations, they were dependent upon the God of Israel alone.


VIEWNAME is study