Deuteronomy
Deuteronomy 26
1It shall be, when you have come in to the land which Yahweh your God gives you for an inheritance, possess it, and dwell in it, 2that you shall take some of the first of all the fruit of the ground, which you shall bring in from your land that Yahweh your God gives you. You shall put it in a basket, and shall go to the place which Yahweh your God shall choose to cause his name to dwell there. 3You shall come to the priest who shall be in those days, and tell him, “I profess today to Yahweh your God, that I have come to the land which Yahweh swore to our fathers to give us.” 4The priest shall take the basket out of your hand, and set it down before Yahweh your God’s altar. 5You shall answer and say before Yahweh your God, “My father was a Syrian ready to perish. He went down into Egypt, and lived there, few in number. There he became a great, mighty, and populous nation. 6The Egyptians mistreated us, afflicted us, and imposed hard labor on us. 7Then we cried to Yahweh, the God of our fathers. Yahweh heard our voice, and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression. 8Yahweh brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand, with an outstretched arm, with great terror, with signs, and with wonders; 9and he has brought us into this place, and has given us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. 10Now, behold, I have brought the first of the fruit of the ground, which you, Yahweh, have given me.” You shall set it down before Yahweh your God, and worship before Yahweh your God. 11You shall rejoice in all the good which Yahweh your God has given to you, and to your house, you, and the Levite, and the foreigner who is among you.
12When you have finished tithing all the tithe of your increase in the third year, which is the year of tithing, then you shall give it to the Levite, to the foreigner, to the fatherless, and to the widow, that they may eat within your gates and be filled. 13You shall say before Yahweh your God, “I have put away the holy things out of my house, and also have given them to the Levite, to the foreigner, to the fatherless, and to the widow, according to all your commandment which you have commanded me. I have not transgressed any of your commandments, neither have I forgotten them. 14I have not eaten of it in my mourning, neither have I removed any of it while I was unclean, nor given of it for the dead. I have listened to Yahweh my God’s voice. I have done according to all that you have commanded me. 15Look down from your holy habitation, from heaven, and bless your people Israel, and the ground which you have given us, as you swore to our fathers, a land flowing with milk and honey.”
16Today Yahweh your God commands you to do these statutes and ordinances. You shall therefore keep and do them with all your heart and with all your soul. 17You have declared today that Yahweh is your God, and that you would walk in his ways, keep his statutes, his commandments, and his ordinances, and listen to his voice. 18Yahweh has declared today that you are a people for his own possession, as he has promised you, and that you should keep all his commandments. 19He will make you high above all nations that he has made, in praise, in name, and in honor; and that you may be a holy people to Yahweh your God, as he has spoken.
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What others are saying
4 commentators · 31 notes on this chapter
Matthew Henry3
Writes as a pastor rather than a critic. Expect devotional and practical application over historical or linguistic analysis, read through a Reformed covenantal frame — and expect the Old Testament to be read forward toward Christ throughout.
Why this voice is here: The most widely read English commentary for three centuries. Included as a baseline: where Henry and a modern voice diverge, the divergence itself is usually the interesting part.
Here is, I. A good work ordered to be done, and that is the presenting of a basket of their first-fruits to God every year, Deu 26:1, Deu 26:2. Besides the sheaf of first-fruits, which was offered for the whole land, on the morrow after the passover (Lev…
Concerning the disposal of their tithe the third year we had the law before, Deu 14:28, Deu 14:29. The second tithe, which in the other two years was to be spent in extraordinaries at the feasts, was to be spent the third year at home, in entertaining the…
Two things Moses here urges to enforce all these precepts: - 1. That they were the commands of God, Deu 26:16. They were not the dictates of his own wisdom, nor were they enacted by any authority of his own, but infinite wisdom framed them, and the power of…
John Gill19
The most exhaustive and the most doctrinally committed here. Expect high — even supralapsarian — Calvinism applied consistently, and unusually heavy use of rabbinic and Talmudic sources for Jewish context. Where a passage bears on election or the will, Gill will read it in one direction, and knowing that in advance is the point.
Why this voice is here: The strongest Calvinist reading available in the public domain, and the best on Jewish background. Read alongside Clarke, not instead of him — between them you get both sides of the argument.
And it shall be, when thou art come in unto the land,.... The land of Canaan, which they were now on the borders of, and just entering into: which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance; which is often mentioned, to observe that it was not through…
That thou shalt take of the first of all the fruit of the earth,.... This oblation of firstfruits was different front the sheaf of the firstfruits brought at barley harvest in the time of the passover, and from the two wave loaves of wheaten flour, at wheat…
And thou shalt go unto the priest that shall be in those days,.... Whose course and turn it would be to minister before the Lord; though, according to the Targum of Jonathan, it was the high priest they were to apply to on this occasion; and so Aben Ezra…
Keil & Delitzsch4
The technical one, and Old Testament only. Expect Hebrew grammar, textual argument, and direct engagement with nineteenth-century critical scholarship — closer to a scholarly apparatus than a devotional read. Where a modern critic claims a text is late or composite, this is where the conservative counter-argument was made.
Why this voice is here: Old Testament only, and heavy going — but the place to look when someone asserts a passage cannot mean what it appears to.
To the exposition of the commandments and rights of Israel Moses adds, in closing, another ordinance respecting those gifts, which were most intimately connected with social and domestic life, viz., the first-fruits and second tithes, for the purpose of…
The delivery of the tithes, like the presentation of the first-fruits, was also to be sanctified by prayer before the Lord. It is true that only a prayer after taking the second tithe in the third year is commanded here; but that is simply because this tithe…
"I have not eaten thereof in my sorrow." אני, from און, tribulation, distress, signifies here in all probability mourning, and judging from what follows, mourning for the dead, equivalent to "in a mourning condition," i.e., in a state of legal (Levitical)…
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown5
The concise option. Three authors split the canon, so the voice shifts between sections. Expect brief, sober, conservative notes that resolve difficulties rather than dwelling on them — useful for orientation, thinner than Gill or Clarke where a passage is genuinely contested.
Why this voice is here: The quickest way to see what the mainstream Reformed reading of a passage is. Start here, then go to Gill or Clarke when it matters.
thou shalt say . . . A Syrian ready to perish was my father--rather, "a wandering Syrian." The ancestors of the Hebrews were nomad shepherds, either Syrians by birth as Abraham, or by long residence as Jacob. When they were established as a nation in the…
thou shalt rejoice--feasting with friends and the Levites, who were invited on such occasions to share in the cheerful festivities that followed oblations (Deu 12:7; Deu 16:10-15).
When thou hast made an end of tithing all the tithes of thine increase the third year--Among the Hebrews there were two tithings. The first was appropriated to the Levites (Num 18:21). The second, being the tenth of what remained, was brought to Jerusalem in…
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