Deuteronomy 14:21b-29--Tithes

Deuteronomy 14:21b-29
English Standard Version

“You shall not boil a young goat in its mother's milk.

Tithes
22 “You shall tithe all the yield of your seed that comes from the field year by year. 23 And before the LORD your God, in the place that he will choose, to make his name dwell there, you shall eat the tithe of your grain, of your wine, and of your oil, and the firstborn of your herd and flock, that you may learn to fear the LORD your God always. 24 And if the way is too long for you, so that you are not able to carry the tithe, when the LORD your God blesses you, because the place is too far from you, which the LORD your God chooses, to set his name there, 25 then you shall turn it into money and bind up the money in your hand and go to the place that the LORD your God chooses 26 and spend the money for whatever you desire—oxen or sheep or wine or strong drink, whatever your appetite craves. And you shall eat there before the LORD your God and rejoice, you and your household. 27 And you shall not neglect the Levite who is within your towns, for he has no portion or inheritance with you.

​28 “At the end of every three years you shall bring out all the tithe of your produce in the same year and lay it up within your towns. 29 And the Levite, because he has no portion or inheritance with you, and the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow, who are within your towns, shall come and eat and be filled, that the LORD your God may bless you in all the work of your hands that you do.

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As I explained last time, I think the second half of verse 21 goes with this section on tithes and offerings.  It's a phrase that appears several times in the Law and the context of each surrounding passage is bringing sacrifices and tithes and offerings to the LORD.  It seems to be a prohibition on trying to mix something old with something new.  They were only to offer the new grain, new wine and new livestock--they were not to try to mix the leftover's from last year's harvest with the tithe and offering of this year's harvest to try to make it look like a larger contribution or even to try to spice it up a bit.  No, the LORD does not want your "leftovers" that cost you nothing.  For further context on this phrase that I believe to be an idiom, see Exodus 23:18-19 and Exodus 34:25-26 (notice the context of both is mixing things together that are going to be offered on the altar--for this reason, I think this verse goes with the passage on tithes and offerings).

Now that we have talked about that hard verse (I don't think that it's a verse that prohibits us from eating a cheeseburger, but if you feel convicted about eating a cheeseburger because of that verse, don't eat it), let's move onto what God said about acceptable sacrifices that the people should be offering to Him when they come into the Promised Land.

Notice that they are to tithe the seed that they harvest every year (year by year)--I think this ties in with what we said about the second half of verse 21.  They are also to bring the tither of their grain, wine, oil, and the newborns of all their flocks year by year.  They will bring them to the place designated by the LORD for the Tabernacle or Temple to be.  Again, they were to tithe from everything that the LORD provided for them for that year's harvest to show they trusted Him to provide even more harvest that year to take care of them and that they trusted Him to provide enough harvest in future years that they could give their firstfruits (both the first and the best) to the LORD, entrusting that He would provide a better and more fruitful harvest in His time.  We see Jesus describes as the Firstfruits of many brethren from among the dead--He was the first and the best to be resurrected to eternal life, but the Bible says that the entire Church and all the Old Testament saints would follow in receiving their bodies that were like His and that this harvest would not only be more than the first but that God would even call it better than the first--I have a hard time wrapping my head around that, but that's what the Bible says that God thinks about saving us and preparing us for heaven.  We cannot mix anything "old" with the "new" thing that God created and have it be an acceptable sacrifice to Him because everything of old was detestable to Him--that's what Jesus died for.

If it was not possible for them to transport the firstfruits of their harvest to the Tabernacle or Temple because of the distance they would need to travel, then the LORD permitted them to sell these items and convert their tithe into money, carry the money with them to the place that the LORD specified and they would have to use that money to buy their supplies to celebrate the Feast of Firstfruits at the designated time and place.  They were also to use this money to take care of the Levites that lived in their towns among them since a portion of their tithe would have gone to the Levites and their families as their inheritance, and if people converted their firstfruits into cash and spent it only on themselves, then the Levites would not be taken care of as the LORD had desired.  God still wants us today to take care of those who are in full-time ministry--Paul speaks to this in his epistles in the New Testament.

The LORD also set up a program to take care of those who poor and destitute, or those who depended on the charity of others.  Every third year, the tithe would stay in everyone's town and would be given to the Levites, the widows and fatherless, and the homeless (the sojourner).  Yes, it is our responsibility as God's people to take care of those in our communities, but notice that this is once every three years, so either this is enough to last those people for all three years or the LORD expects the people to help those who are destitute to get out of that situation or the LORD expects them to be helping take care of these people out of what they keep that is not offered to the LORD on the other two years.  We'll see more what the LORD commands about taking care of these groups of people as we go through the Law.

The LORD said that if the people would remember to do this and give to Him first, then He would bless all the work of their hands and bless their harvest so that they would be filled to overflowing, but if they tried to be stingy and keep the best for themselves, or did not give the LORD the first of their harvest because they did not trust the LORD to provide for them, He would make the ground not produce crops for them, he would shut up the heavens to not produce rain for them, and he would make their livestock unable to give birth.  Their crops would be stolen by marauders, eaten by locusts, or left for someone else to consume because the LORD might actually send them out of the Land if they failed to obey Him.  All these things the LORD would actually do in the time of the Kings and the Prophets when we continue to study the Old Testament.  The LORD warned of all these things and was slow to execute judgment, but judgment did eventually come on these people because they forgot to obey these commands--to observe the Sabbath, to give of their Fristfruits, and to worship the LORD alone and show that they feared Him with holy reverence by their obedience and their transformed hearts and lives.  We must remember even today that "obedience is better than sacrifice." (We'll get there when we study the prophet-judge-priest Samuel and his ministry to King Saul).