You are the children of Yahweh your God. You shall not cut yourselves, nor make any baldness between your eyes for the dead.
Parallel Translations
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You are the children of Yahweh your God. You shall not cut yourselves, nor make any baldness between your eyes for the dead.
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Ye are the children of the LORD your God: ye shall not cut yourselves, nor make any baldness between your eyes for the dead.
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Ye are the children of the LORD your God: ye shall not cut yourselves, nor make any baldness between your eyes for the dead.
Examined in Scripture Analysis
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Cross-references (23)
Passages linked to Deuteronomy 14:1 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Leviticus 21:5 “ ‘They shall not shave their heads or shave off the corners of their beards or make any cuttings in their flesh.
- Romans 9:8 That is, it is not the children of the flesh who are children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as heirs.
- Galatians 3:26 For you are all children of God, through faith in Christ Jesus.
- Romans 9:26 “It will be that in the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ there they will be called ‘children of the living God.’ ”
- Jeremiah 16:6 Both great and small will die in this land. They will not be buried. Men won’t lament for them, cut themselves, or make themselves bald for them.
- Jeremiah 41:5 men came from Shechem, from Shiloh, and from Samaria, even eighty men, having their beards shaved and their clothes torn, and having cut themselves, with meal offerings and frankincense in their hand, to bring them to Yahweh’s house.
- Hosea 1:10 Yet the number of the children of Israel will be as the sand of the sea, which can’t be measured or counted; and it will come to pass that, in the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ they will be called ‘sons of the living God.’
- John 1:12 But as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become God’s children, to those who believe in his name:
- Romans 8:16 The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God;
- Hebrews 2:10 For it became him, for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing many children to glory, to make the author of their salvation perfect through sufferings.
- Leviticus 19:27-28 “ ‘You shall not cut the hair on the sides of your head or clip off the edge of your beard. “ ‘You shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor tattoo any marks on you. I am Yahweh.
- Psalms 82:6-7 I said, “You are gods, all of you are sons of the Most High. Nevertheless you shall die like men, and fall like one of the rulers.”
- Jeremiah 3:19 “But I said, ‘How I desire to put you among the children, and give you a pleasant land, a goodly heritage of the armies of the nations!’ and I said, ‘You shall call me “My Father”, and shall not turn away from following me.’
- John 11:52 and not for the nation only, but that he might also gather together into one the children of God who are scattered abroad.
- 2 Corinthians 6:18 I will be to you a Father. You will be to me sons and daughters,’ says the Lord Almighty.”
- 1 John 3:1-2 See how great a love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God! For this cause the world doesn’t know us, because it didn’t know him. Beloved, now we are children of God. It is not yet revealed what we will be; but we know that when he is revealed, we will be like him; for we will see him just as he is.
- 1 John 3:10 In this the children of God are revealed, and the children of the devil. Whoever doesn’t do righteousness is not of God, neither is he who doesn’t love his brother.
- Genesis 6:2 God’s sons saw that men’s daughters were beautiful, and they took any that they wanted for themselves as wives.
- Genesis 6:4 The Nephilim were in the earth in those days, and also after that, when God’s sons came in to men’s daughters and had children with them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown.
- Exodus 4:22-23 You shall tell Pharaoh, ‘Yahweh says, Israel is my son, my firstborn, and I have said to you, “Let my son go, that he may serve me;” and you have refused to let him go. Behold, I will kill your firstborn son.’ ”
- Jeremiah 47:5 Baldness has come on Gaza; Ashkelon is brought to nothing, the remnant of their valley: how long will you cut yourself?
- 1 Thessalonians 4:13 But we don’t want you to be ignorant, brothers, concerning those who have fallen asleep, so that you don’t grieve like the rest, who have no hope.
- 1 John 5:2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep his commandments.
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John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Deu 14:1 Ye [are] the children of the LORD…
Deu 14:1 Ye [are] the children of the LORD your God: ye shall not cut yourselves, nor make any baldness between your eyes for the dead.
Ver. 1. Ye are the children of the Lord.] Ye should therefore do nothing unworthy of such a Father. Antigonus being invited to a place where a notable harlot was to be present, asked counsel of Menedemus what he should do? He bade him only remember that he was a king’s son, and do accordingly. {a}
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Ye shall not cut. {See Trapp on "Lev 19:28"}
{a} Plut.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain Of the Lord your God; whom therefore you must…
Of the Lord your God; whom therefore you must not disparage by unworthy or unbecoming practices, such as here follow, and whom you must not disobey. Ye shall not cut yourselves, nor make any baldness between your eyes, which were the practices of idolaters, both in the worship of their idols, as 1Ki 18:28; or in their funerals, as here, and Jer 16:6; or upon occasion of public calamities, as Jer 41:5; 47:5. See Poole "Lev 19:27", See Poole "Lev 19:28". See Poole "Lev 21:5". For the dead; through excessive sorrow for your dead friends, as if you had no hope of their happiness after death, 1Th 4:13.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain Moses here tells the people of Israel,
Moses here tells the people of Israel,
I. How God had dignified them, as a peculiar people, with three distinguishing privileges, which were their honour, and figures of those spiritual blessings in heavenly things with which God has in Christ blessed us. 1. Here is election: The Lord hath chosen thee, v: 2. Not for their own merit, nor for any good works foreseen, but because he would magnify the riches of his power and grace among them. He did not choose them because they were by their own dedication and subjection a peculiar people to him above other nations, but he chose them that they might be so by his grace; and thus were believers chosen, Eph 1:4. 2. Here is adoption (Deu 14:1): "You are the children of the Lord your God, formed by him into a people, owned by him as his people, nay, his family, a people near unto him, nearer than any other." Israel is my son, my first-born; not because he needed children, but because they were orphans, and needed a father. Every Israelite is indeed a child of God, a partaker of his nature and favour, his love and blessing Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us! 3. Here is sanctification (Deu 14:2): "Thou art a holy people, separated and set apart for God, devoted to his service, designed for his praise, governed by a holy law, graced by a holy tabernacle, and the holy ordinances relating to it." God's people are under the strongest obligations to be holy, and, if they are holy, are indebted to the grace of God that makes them so. The Lord has set them apart for himself, and qualified them for his service and the enjoyment of him, and so has made them holy to himself.
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II. How they ought to distinguish themselves by a sober singularity from all the nations that were about them. And, God having thus advanced them, let not them debase themselves by admitting the superstitious customs of idolaters, and, by making themselves like them, put themselves upon the level with them. Be you the children of the Lord your God; so the Seventy read it, as a command, that is, "Carry yourselves as becomes the children of God, and do nothing to disgrace the honour and forfeit the privileges of the relation." In two things particularly they must distinguish themselves: -
1. In their mourning: You shall not cut yourselves, Deu 14:1. This forbids (as some think), not only their cutting themselves at their funerals, either to express their grief or with their own blood to appease the infernal deities, but their wounding and mangling themselves in the worship of their gods, as Baal's prophets did (Kg1 18:28), or their marking themselves by incisions in their flesh for such and such deities, which in them, above any, would be an inexcusable crime, who in the sign of circumcision bore about with them in their bodies the marks of the Lord Jehovah. So that, (1.) They are forbidden to deform or hurt their own bodies upon any account. Methinks this is like a parent's change to his little children, that are foolish, careless, and wilful, and are apt to play with knives: Children, you shall not cut yourselves. This is the intention of those commands which oblige us to deny ourselves; the true meaning of them, if we understood them aright, would appear to be, Do yourselves no harm. And this also is the design of those providences which most cross us, to remove from us those things by which we are in danger of doing ourselves harm. Knives are taken from us, lest we should cut ourselves. Those that are dedicated to God as a holy people must do nothing to disfigure themselves; the body is for the Lord, and is to be used accordingly. (2.) They are forbidden to disturb and afflict their own minds with inordinate grief for the loss of near and dear relations: "You shall not express or exasperate you sorrow, even upon the most mournful occasions, by cutting yourselves, and making baldness between your eyes, like men enraged, or resolvedly hardened in sorrow for the dead, as those that have no hope," Th1 4:13. It is an excellent passage which Mr. Ainsworth here quotes from one of the Jewish writers, who understands this as a law against immoderate grief for the death of our relations. If your father (for instance) die, you shall not cut yourselves, that is, you shall not sorrow more than is meet, for you are not fatherless, you have a Father, who is great, living, and permanent, even the holy blessed God, whose children you are, Deu 14:1. But an infidel (says he), when his father dies, hath no father that can help him in time of need; for he hath said to a stock, Thou art my father, and to a stone, Thou hast brought me forth (Jer 2:27); therefore he weeps, cuts himself, and makes himself bald. We that have a God to hope in, and a heaven to hope for, must bear up ourselves with that hope under every burden of this kind.
2. They must be singular in their meat. Observe,
(1.) Many sorts of flesh which were wholesome enough, and which other people did commonly eat, they must religiously abstain from as unclean. This law we had before Lev 11:2, where it was largely opened. It seems plainly, by the connection here, to be intended as a mark of peculiarity; for their observance of it would cause them to be taken notice of in all mixed companies as a separate people, and would preserve them from mingling themselves with, and conforming themselves to, their idolatrous neighbours. [1.] Concerning beasts, here is a more particular enumeration of those which they were allowed to eat then was in Leviticus, to show that they had no reason to complain of their being restrained from eating swines' flesh, and hares, and rabbits (which were all that were then forbidden, but are now commonly used), when they were allowed so great a variety, not only of that which we call butcher's meat (Deu 14:4), which alone was offered in sacrifice, but of venison, which they had great plenty of in Canaan, the hart, and the roe-buck, and the fallow deer (Deu 14:5), which, though never brought to God's altar, was allowed them at their own table. See Deu 12:22. When of all these (as Adam of every tree of the garden) they might freely eat, those were inexcusable who, to gratify a perverse appetite, or (as should seem) in honour of their idols, and in participation of their idolatrous sacrifices, ate swines' flesh, and had broth of abominable things (made so by this law) in their vessels, Isa 65:4. [2.] Concerning fish there is only one general rule given, that whatsoever had not fins and scales (as shell-fish and eels, besides leeches and other animals in the water that are not proper food) was unclean and forbidden, Deu 14:9, Deu 14:10. [3.] No general rule is given concerning fowl, but those are particularly mentioned that were to be unclean to them, and there are few or none of them which are here forbidden that are now commonly eaten; and whatsoever is not expressly forbidden is allowed, Deu 14:11-20. Of all clean fowls you may eat. [4.] They are further forbidden, First, To eat the flesh of any creature that died of itself, because the blood was not separated from it, and, besides the ceremonial uncleanness which it lay under (from Lev 11:39), it is not wholesome food, nor ordinarily used among us, except by the poor. Secondly, To seethe a kid in its mother's milk, either to gratify their own luxury, supposing it a dainty bit, or in conformity to some superstitious custom of the heathen. The Chaldee paraphrasts read it, Thou shalt not eat flesh - meats and milk - meats together; and so it would forbid the use of butter as sauce to any flesh.
(2.) Now as to all these precepts concerning their food, [1.] It is plain in the law itself that they belonged only to the Jews, and were not moral, nor of perpetual use, because not of universal obligation; for what they might not eat themselves they might give to a stranger, a proselyte of the gate, that had renounced idolatry, and therefore was permitted to live among them, though not circumcised; or they might sell it to an alien, a mere Gentile, that came into their country for trade, but might not settle it, Deu 14:21. They might feed upon that which an Israelite might not touch, which is a plain instance of their peculiarity, and their being a holy people. [2.] It is plain in the gospel that they are now antiquated and repealed. For every creature of God is good, and nothing now to be refused, or called common and unclean, Ti1 4:4.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain Ye are the children of the Lord your God,....…
Ye are the children of the Lord your God,.... Some of them were so by the special grace of adoption, and all of them by national adoption; which was the peculiar privilege of the people of Israel, and laid them under great obligation to honour and obey the Lord their God, who stood in the relation of a father to them, and they of children to him, Mal 1:6. The Targum of Jonathan paraphrases it "beloved children"; so the apostle calls the saints; the "dear children of God", who therefore ought to be followers of him, Eph 5:1 and for a like reason this relation is observed here, namely, to quicken a regard to the exhortations of the Lord, his cautions, commands, laws, and ordinances, particularly to what follows:
ye shall not cut yourselves; for the dead, as appears from the next clause, as the Heathens did, who not only tore their garments, but their flesh in several parts of their bodies, in their mouths, cheeks, breasts, &c. (r); and used other extravagant signs of mourning, which the apostle cautions against, Th1 4:13 and were condemned by the Heathens themselves (s). Though some think this refers to incisions the Heathens made in their flesh to the honour of their gods, cutting the names of them therein to whom they devoted themselves; or lashing their bodies at the worship of them, as the worshippers of Baal did when they called upon him, Kg1 18:28 and so the Jerusalem Targum,"make not marks, marks,''that is, here and there, in many places, or bruises black and blue by striping and beating themselves, for strange worship, or at it, in honour of their gods; but the former sense seems best to agree with what follows; see Lev 19:28,
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nor make any baldness between your eyes for the dead; by shaving the forepart of their head or their eyebrows, or both, which used to be done in lamentations for the dead; see Jer 16:6 if this could be thought to have any respect to rites and ceremonies used in the worship of dead and lifeless idols, the customs of the Egyptians might be referred to, who are said to shave their heads and their eyebrows in their sacred rites to Isis (t).
(r) Vid. Virgil. Aeneid. 12. ver. 870, 871. and Servium in Aeneid. 1. ver. 78. and in l. 12. (s) Vid. Cicero de Leg. l. 2. c. 23. and Tusculan. Quaest. l. 3. c. 27. (t) Ambros. Epist. l. 4. c. 30. p. 259.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain Directions, concerning mourning, ver. 1, 2. Concerning clean and…
Directions, concerning mourning, ver. 1, 2. Concerning clean and unclean meats, ver. 3-21. Concerning tithes, ver. 29.
Of the Lord - Whom therefore you must not disparage by unworthy or unbecoming practices. Ye shall not cut yourselves - Which were the practices of idolaters, both in the worship of their idols, in their funerals, and upon occasion of public calamities. Is not this like a parent's charge to his little children, playing with knives, "Do not cut yourselves!" This is, the intention of those commands, which obliges us to deny ourselves. The meaning is, Do yourselves no harm! And as this also is, the design of cross providences, to remove from us those things by which we are in danger of doing ourselves harm.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain The Israelites are not to adopt superstitious customs in
CHAPTER XIV
The Israelites are not to adopt superstitious customs in
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mourning, 1, 2.
The different kinds of clean and unclean animals, 3-20.
Nothing to be eaten that dieth of itself, 21.
Concerning offerings which, from distance cannot be carried to
the altar of God, and which may be turned into money, 22-26.
The Levite is not to be forsaken, 27.
The third year's tithe for the Levite, stranger, widow, c.,
28, 29.
NOTES ON CHAP. XIV
Verse 1. Ye are the children of the Lord] The very highest character that can be conferred on any created beings ye shall not cut yourselves, i. e., their hair, for it was a custom among idolatrous nations to consecrate their hair to their deities, though they sometimes also made incisions in their flesh.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Deu 14:1. Ye are the children of the Lord…
Deu 14:1. Ye are the children of the Lord your God — Ye are not only the creatures, and the offspring, but the peculiar people, the worshippers, the servants, and those of you that are truly pious, the adopted children of Jehovah, the one living and true God, who is your God in covenant; and therefore you should not dishonour him, your heavenly Father, nor disparage yourselves, by unworthy or unbecoming practices, such as here follow; and whom you must not disobey. Ye shall not cut yourselves — This was the practice of idolaters, both in the worship of their idols and in their funerals, as also upon occasion of public calamities. For the dead — Through excessive sorrow for your dead friends, as if you had no hope of their happiness after death, 1Th 4:13. See on Lev 19:28. These furious expressions of mourning for the dead subsist at this day in some of the eastern countries: see on Gen 50:10. But nothing surely can be more unbecoming the sons of God and heirs of immortality than thus to sorrow like those who expect no life after this. Nor make any baldness between your eyes — On the fore part of your heads, (Lev 21:5,) just over the space that is between your eyes.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain Make any baldness between your eyes - i. e.…
Make any baldness between your eyes - i. e. by shaving the forepart of the head and the eyebrows. The practices named in this verse were common among the pagan, and seem to be forbidden, not only because such wild excesses of grief (compare 1Ki 18:28) would be inconsistent in those who as children of a heavenly Father had prospects beyond this world, but also because these usages themselves arose out of idolatrous notions.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain Be ye. Hebrew, "you are," &c. It may be…
Be ye. Hebrew, "you are," &c. It may be connected with the preceding chapter. --- Cut, as the barbarians and infidels do, who have no hope, 1 Thessalonians iv. 12., and Leviticus xix. 29. --- Dead idols, Adonis, &c. The Arabs and Saracens cut the hair on the forepart of the head only, and so did the ancient Scotch monks, in imitation, as they pretended, of St. John. The Egyptians cut off the hair of their head and eye-brows when they were initiated in the mysteries of Isis, (St. Ambrose, ep. 58,) to testify that they partook in her sorrow for the death of her husband, Osiris. Hence it is probable that Moses forbids any conformity in such superstitious practices; particularly as the Israelites were consecrated to the service of the living God. (Calmet)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain 1Ye are the children [sons] of the Lord your…
Deu_14:1-29
1Ye are the children [sons] of the Lord your God: ye shall not cut [wound] yourselves, nor make any baldness between your eyes for [with regard to] the dead. 2For thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God, and the Lord hath chosen thee to be a peculiar people [a people of possession] unto himself, above all the nations that are upon the [face of] earth. 3Thou shalt not eat any abominable 4thing. These are the beasts which ye shall [may] eat: The ox, the sheep, and the goat, 5The hart, and the roe-buck1 [gazelle], and the fallow-deer [dappled buck], and the wild-goat, and the pygarg [buffalo? chamois?], and the wild-ox, and the chamois.2 6And every beast that parteth the hoof, and cleaveth the cleft into two claws, and cheweth [bringing up] the cud among the beasts, that ye shall eat. 7Nevertheless, these ye shall not eat, of them that chew the cud, or of them that divide the cloven hoof; as the camel, and the hare, and the coney [a species of marmot]; for they chew the cud [are ruminators], but divide not the hoof; therefore 8they are unclean unto you. And [also] the swine, because it divideth the hoof, yet cheweth not the cud, it is unclean unto you: ye shall not eat of their flesh, nor touch their dead carcass [that which is fallen]. 9These ye shall eat, of 10all that are in the waters: all that have fins and scales shall ye eat: And whatsoever 11hath not fins and scales ye may not eat; it is unclean unto you. Of all clean 12birds ye shall [may] eat. But these are they of which ye shall not eat: The eagle, and the ossifrage [bone-breaker, sea-eagle], and the ospray, 13And the glede3 [falcon], and the kite, and the vulture4 after his kind. 14And every raven after his kind. 15And the owl5 [daughter of wailing, or desert, or of greediness], and the night-hawk 16[cuckoo], and the cuckoo6 [hawk], and the hawk after his kind. The little owl, and the great owl, and the swan7 [screech-owl], 17And the pelican, and the gier-eagle 18[carrion-kite? heron? swan?], and the cormorant, And the stork, and the heron 19[plover?], after her kind, and the lapwing, and the bat. And every creeping thing 20that flieth [all turning things] is unclean unto you: they shall not be eaten. But of all clean fowls ye may eat. 21Ye shall not eat of anything that dieth [falleth] of itself: thou shalt give it unto the stranger that is in thy gates, that he may eat it; or thou mayest sell it unto an alien: for thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God. Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother’s milk. 22Thou shalt truly8 [again] tithe all the increase of thy seed, that the field bringeth forth year by year. 23And thou shalt eat before the Lord thy God, in the place which he shall choose to place his name there, the tithe of thy corn, of thy wine, and of thine oil, and the firstlings of thy herds and of thy flocks; that thou mayest learn to fear the Lord thy God always. 24And if the way be too long for thee, so that thou art not able to carry it; or if the place be too far from thee, which the Lord thy God shall choose to set his name there, when [if] the Lord thy God hath blessed thee: 25Then shalt thou turn [give it] it into money, and bind up the money in thine hand, and shalt go unto the place which the Lord thy God shall choose: 26And thou shalt bestow [give] that money for whatsoever thy soul lusteth [desireth] after, for oxen, or for sheep, or for wine, or for strong drink, or for whatsoever thy soul desireth [asketh]: and thou shalt eat there before the Lord thy God, and thou shalt rejoice, thou, and thine household. 27And the Levite that is within thy gates; thou shalt not forsake 28him: for he hath no part nor inheritance with thee. At [From] the end of three years thou shalt bring forth all the tithe of thine increase [in-bringing, return] the same year, and shalt lay it up within thy gates: 29And the Levite (because he hath no part nor inheritance with thee), and the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow, which are within thy gates, shall come, and shall eat and be satisfied; that the Lord thy God may bless thee in all the work [the deeds] of thine hand which thou doest.
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EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
1. Deu_14:1-2. From the death-penalty mentioned above, Moses comes now to speak of mourning for the dead, so far as the confession to the Lord therein comes into view, as a confession with respect to man even, viz., as to his body, Deu_14:1-2. The reason is found in the filial relation of Israel, and more closely and objectively stated in this peculiar people. Comp. Exo_4:22 (Num_11:12; Deu_1:31; Deu_8:5; Deu_32:6; Deu_32:18). To this objective relation there must be a corresponding subjective conduct, since those consecrated to Jehovah would be profaned by a heathenish excess in mourning. Comp. upon Lev_19:28 (Deu_21:5).—Between your eyes, i.e. upon the forefront of the head, above the brow. The wound and disfiguration is thus the most external or obvious, but comprehends more truly the conformity to heathen customs, and still more the wild excess of grief for the dead, as over against God, who is and will be the living (Deu_5:23). Upon Deu_14:2 comp. Deu_7:6. [The order of thought is this: Idolatry must be checked and suppressed at whatever cost, chap. 13. The whole life of the people, also, was to be shaped and regulated by its relations to God; as to their mourning, Deu_14:1-2, as to their food, 3–21, and in their sacred meals, 22–29.—A. G.]
2. Deu_14:3-21. The same motives and reasoning avail with respect to food, Deu_14:3-21, as with respect to life; and Moses comes back to the joyful meals, chap. 12, in order to close up what he had to say in the exposition of the third command. What in this reference is an abomination to the Lord (Deu_7:25-26; Deu_12:31), and thus forbidden by Him; as it opposes His holiness, so also the confession of His name (Act_10:14). While in Lev_11:3 we have the general rule as to what may be eaten among the land animals, here we have named 1) four-footed domestic animals, Deu_14:4, and wild animals, Deu_14:5, in reference to Canaan, then first, Deu_14:6, the general rule with perfect plainness. Of the two criteria of animals proper for food, the first, which is also the most detailed,—the cleaving of the hoof, since the cleft extends entirely through,-thus makes two hoofs,-and comes altogether outwardly into view, only to aid the other (and hence the absence of the ו conj.),—which is the more important. The arrangement of the ruminants, as it permits a more rapid assimilation of the food in the quiet of digestion, diffuses over them the paradise-peace of the tame animals, by so much the more as their food is only vegetable (Gen_1:30). The divided hoof, with respect to the domestic animals, as thus clearly proper for food, is simply used as a mark.—Chewing [bringing up] the cud.—גֵרָה, from גָרַר גָרַח to cleave with the teeth, crush, i.e. ruminating (Lev_11:7 : chew that which is chewed, still over again), since the ruminants can by a four-fold stomach bring back again the swallowed food that they may masticate it. Deu_14:7. The camel has no thoroughly cloven hoof, but treads behind upon an undivided yielding ball. If the hare is intended, it is referred to because of the ruminating movement of the lips, as also the wahr or marmot. Comp. Lev_11:4 sq., where what is here said of the three, is said of each one separately. Linnæus classes the hare with the ruminants. [Upon the objection that Moses has here fallen into a mistake, since the hare does not ruminate, it is sufficient to say, that those who have watched the hare moving and working its jaw are led to speak of it as chewing the cud. Cowper speaks of one of his hares “as chewing the cud all day.” Although not strictly and scientifically a ruminant, it was popularly so. And Moses is not writing a scientific work upon the natural history of these animals, but simply giving to the people a ready index by which they could know what were to be eaten and what not. He grounds nothing upon the apparent rumination of the hare, but guards the people against grounding their conduct upon it. They may not eat of it, though it (apparently, popularly) cheweth the cud. There is no more solid ground for the objection here than there would be for an objection against the phrases which speak of the sun as rising and setting.—A. G.]
Deu_14:8. Swine form another exception, Lev_11:7-8. נְבֵלָה, the sinking away, fallen (cadaver). Deu_14:9-10. To the larger land-animals follow now 2) the water-animals. Similar to Lev_11:9 sq., but more briefly. The serpent appears to have fixed the rule, Genesis 3.
Deu_14:11. צִפּוֹרLev_11:13; הַעוֹף.
Deu_14:12 to Deu_18:3) The three times seven unclean birds. Comp. Lev_11:13 sq. Deu_14:13. הָרָאָה where Lev_11:14 has הַדָּאָה. The latter is either an error of the copyist for the former, or a synonym for it, or the first is an interpolation, as then the not exhaustive catalogue admitted of completions. דָאָה literally bird of prey, is moreover equivalent to דַיָּהIsa_34:15.
Deu_14:19. Lastly: 4) the small animals, (שֶרֶץ creeping things, reptiles), but as it is connected with the birds, more fully Lev_11:20 sq., where four kinds of locusts were permitted, but which in reference to Canaan do not come into view here. Deu_14:20 is therefore more comprehensive than Deu_14:11, silently including the permitted locusts. [As to the distinction between clean and unclean animals, its historical basis and growth, the grounds on which it rests, the ends it was designed to serve, and how far it is now done away, abrogated since Christ—the great sacrifice—died, see Smith’sBib. Dic.: Bib. Com., Leviticus 11, and this Comm. on the same passage. As to the differences between the enumeration there and here, they are to be accounted for by the change in the circumstances of the people—they not needing now such full instruction as to the whole class of reptiles as then; by the special objects which Moses had in view in Deuteronomy; and upon the fact that the variations are only apparent, the omitted animals being included in the general classes in both narratives.—A. G.]. Deu_14:21 is to be applied naturally to animals proper for food. Comp. Deu_14:8. נבלה is indeed not the same as מרפה (Exo_22:30); but according to Lev_17:15 (11:39 sq.), the eating of the one as of the other, defiles on account of the blood, and even to the stranger. There is here a concession to the enlarged relations in Canaan, while moreover the prohibition for Israel is made still more manifest. For thou art an holy people. The stranger as is suited to the march in the wilderness is thought of in Leviticus, as in closer relations to Israel than in Deuteronomy, and thus the defilement only until the evening was spoken of with reference to both. Here, on the contrary, there is a separation between the two, for Israel a simple prohibition, and for the stranger a general permission. Through the giving (Exo_22:30; Rev_22:15) and selling to the stranger of what was forbidden to Israel, Israel was profited. There is in the case a confession and judgment as to the stranger in question, out of which was developed afterward the distinction between גר צדק, and the גר תושב. Thus here also גר is connected with נָכְדִי (the disowned, rejected, the other absolute stranger).—גדי is generally the young (the expelled) especially the young kid. Comp. upon Exo_23:19; Exo_34:26. The direction is here connected with the command and prohibition as to animal food, through which the milk of the mother, as the natural food of the young, appears “to a certain extent of one grade with the blood of the animal,” thus indicating a tender regard for life, however much the killing and eating of the young kid was relished. Jehovah the living God! that Israel must never forget. To seethe, sq., would barbarously sacrifice that regard for life to the dainty lickerish taste. The general preparation with milk was not forbidden. Comp. further Deu_22:6 sq.
3. Deu_14:22-29. There is here a closing return to Deu_12:6, and indeed in reference to the tithe. For the more detailed statement of the case, see Intro., § 4, I. 19. Comp. moreover Lev_27:30 sq; Numbers 18. The tithing generally, is an acknowledgment of Jehovah as the proprietor, but especially here in Deu_14:23. Comp. Deu_12:11; Deu_4:10, and other passages. Comp. also upon Deu_15:19 sq. Deu_14:24. A reference to the altered circumstances in Canaan, as in Deu_12:21. Deu_14:25. Into money (silver) to give instead of these vegetable tithes in kind. But that this should appear as clearly as possible as a tithe-gift, it was more definitely added, that they should take the money bound up in the hand when they came to the place of the sanctuary. There, Deu_14:26, it was to be expended for the purpose of this tithe, to wit, the joyful sacred meal, to which both flesh and wine, etc., belonged. [It is scarcely possible to confound this tithe with that to the Levites, Lev_27:31; Num_18:27. Two-tenths were to be taken—one for the Levites, and one reserved for the uses of the person who gave the tithe—as directed here and in the 12th chap. It is a question whether this second tithe was a full tenth, or only a tenth of the portion left after the Levitical tithe had been levied. The more obvious construction implies that there were two full tenths.—A. G.]. שֵׁכָר intoxicating drink, must, palm wine. Comp. also Deu_12:15; Deu_12:20. [The distinction here is not between two kinds of wine, one intoxicating and the other not, but between wine and a drink made from some other substance than the grape; from honey or barley. Gesenius: Or perhaps dates. In Num_28:7 it seems to be used as synonymous with wine, or at least as including it.—A. G.]. Deu_14:27. As Deu_12:12; Deu_12:19. Herxheimer: “When thou separatedst this second tithe, withhold not the first tithe to the Levite, this thou mayest give to no other than the Levite dwelling with thee.” Deu_14:28. At the end, sq., i.e., in the passing of each third year, and indeed after the harvest of the third year; twice in each seven years. Comp. Deu_15:1. Thou shalt bring forth from the storehouses, granaries. All, viz., all the second tithe of this year (Deu_14:22)—called by the Jewish authorities “the third tithe” (a poor tithe)—but should not, neither in kind nor in money, come to the place of the sanctuary. Comp. Deu_26:12 sq.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. As the mourning, with whose prohibition the chapter begins, has a symbolical nature, in accordance with the well-known character of the East, and of antiquity generally, so the command and prohibition as to food belongs to the ceremonial law, and shares the same symbolical character. At first the prohibition, Deu_14:3. Jehovah thus defines what in regard to flesh-food would not accord with the confession of His name. There is therefore in the Rabbinic notion of a “kingly, authoritative command,” as to whose grounds we need not refine and strive, more theology than in many attempted explanations of the clean and unclean. The sanitarian theory (Grotius, Michaelis [Spencer,—A. G.]), although only in respect to the bodily life, could be conceived and framed theologically from the idea of God as the living one; still further upon an old back-reaching (upon Lev_11:44) emphasizing of the significance of animal food generally, especially of unclean animals, with respect to the soul-life of man. The notion of “an animal clean and unclean, physiologico-psychical disposition” (Lange, Delitzsch), comes too near a creative dualism, and in its particular features is not susceptible of proof. But the founding of the distinction (Keil Archæ, II. 20) “upon a certain instinctive feeling, to view many animals as types of sin and corruption, which thus fill us with aversion and horror” is too subjective. That the separation of the O. T. people of God from the idolatrous world, comes out in the food statutes of Israel, appears from the scorn of the heathen, who ate for the most part precisely those animals forbidden to Israel. It is undeniable also that with such divine limitations as to what should be eaten and what not, life, even down to its material foundations, carries with it a thorough and prevailing reminding of Jehovah. The idea physically fixed in the Israelitish food laws, was the religious and moral idea of the living God, of Jehovah as the Holy One, to which only the pure or the purified agree. Whatever is an abomination to Jehovah (תועבה, Deu_14:3) must be an unclean, defiled thing to Israel (שקץ), it defiles the people of the Lord (Leviticus 11); it should be unclean to them (Deu_14:7-8; Deu_14:10). Thus the ceremonial law generally, and the food law especially, promoted the knowledge of sin, and of death, which has entered the creation of God through sin.
2. In Leviticus 11, and in this renewal in Deuteronomy, we have the familiar division of animals into four classes, and in the same order of succession. But (comp. Exeget. and Crit.) although the Deuteronomic statement is based upon that in Lev.; where they coincide, it is more condensed, what is there detailed is here omitted, the same freedom rules it with respect to the number and arrangement of the unclean birds, as earlier in the particular enumeration of the larger clean land animals. It is evident that the latter lies as entirely in the circumstances in Canaan, to which Deuteronomy bears constant reference, while e.g. the detailed description, Lev_11:9 sq. (Deut. simply בַמָּיִם) to the desert. (A similar contrast, Deu_8:7 sq.). The omission of locusts, still used as food in the wilderness (Mat_3:4) is justified fully by the repeated attestations in Deut. of the abundance in Canaan. The prevalence of the sacred symbolic numbers as to the formal element of the chapter, is worthy of notice: thus ten clean land animals, three into seven unclean birds.
3. The food usages of Israel symbolized the religious destination of the people, in opposition to sin and death; as the consecration to the holy and living Jehovah is formulated to a confession in the food of Israel, it should also rule throughout the life sustained by the food, and thus essentially as it is in the New Testament. Col_3:17, (1Co_10:31). Comp. Joh_17:19. The opposition to sin and death, in which the food-law moves, leads as was remarked in the exegesis—and by a more full and accurate consideration of particulars the retrospect may be much more clearly seen—back to the original creation, in which there was neither sin nor death. With this also agrees especially the prohibition with respect to the kid, and generally the prohibition as to the fallen, both of the clean and unclean, reaching as far as the touch even, and silent as to the eating; for upon the נבלה death has done its work (Lev_11:29 : וכי יּמוּת) it is not slain according to the Divine permission, Genesis 9. Here belongs also in reference to the unclean birds, and so much the more since there is no characteristic of the clean given, the prominent idea, that they are birds of prey, carnivorous, devouring alive the smaller animals. On the other hand the greater land animals, since the giving of flesh for food, the defined four-footed animals with their significant marks, although they perhaps do not conceal or hide the dissension, the breach, running through the good creation of God through sin (?) do yet in any case, with their vegetable food, to which they hold fast agreeably to their origin, offer the most natural, as at the same time the most obvious, rule of the clean. [For what is supposed to be the spiritual meaning of these marks—the cloven hoof, and the chewing the cud—see Wordsworth: here and on Leviticus 11, who is learned and rich in all the patristic literature.—A. G.].
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
Deu_14:1. Against excessive mourning: it is childish, not childlike; heathenish, not holy. The true measure in our mourning for the dead, not borrowed from the heathen, who have no hope, 1Th_4:13, and are out of communion with God. (Upon anniversaries for the dead). Baumgarten: “The inward communion of Israel with Jehovah should be such that death should have no power over it, so that Israel, in the midst of the dominion of death, should not suffer the disfiguring signs of death, by which the heathen represent themselves as a prey to the power of death (Heb_2:15) though in the midst of life, to come upon his body. But the divine sonship of the individual rests upon the divine sonship of the entire Israel, just as the divine sonship of Christ is the ground out of which believers receive power to become the sons of God.” Where the sonship of God is, there is the inheritance, the promise of eternal life.
Deu_14:2. Piscator: “A beautiful description of the Christian Church.” Berl. Bib.: “Whoever will be holy for God, must be a child, must be as God will have him. Luk_18:16 sq.” Deu_14:3. Starke: “He alone is a true Israelite who guards himself from the impurities of sin, Mat_15:17 sq.” Wurt. Bib.: “Pure things become impure to men through the prohibition of the divine word.” Osiander: “We should not bring the shadows of the O. T. into the free Church of Christ. 1Co_10:25.” Deu_14:5. What was clean to eat was not therefore clean for sacrifice; since the pure brings himself a sacrifice, all is pure for food. Rom_14:14; Col_2:14; Col_2:16 sq.; 1Ti_4:4; Gen_9:3.
Deu_14:21. Luther: i.e., “Let the dead bury their dead.” Piscator: “It is demanded from a Christian that he should not be defiled with dead——works.” Deu_14:26. Schultz: “Though a man has great reason to be sad in himself, let him rejoice so much the more in the Lord, and through his rejoicing actually praise His kindness. Psa_23:5.” Deu_14:28. Tub. Bib.: “We should cheerfully set aside from our possessions for the poor, and that according to our ability.” Deu_14:29. Richter: “Christ reminds us of these love-feasts. Luk_14:13 sq. The blessing will not fail. 2Co_9:6 sq.” Starke: “There is no better means to secure the blessing of God and be rich, than generosity and benevolence to the servants of the Church, the stranger, the poor, the widow and the fatherless, and all for the sake of religion. Pro_19:17.”
Footnotes:
[1][Deu_14:5. Ges.: The roe-antelope, referring to the whole species, and so called from its gracefulness and beauty.—A. G.]
[2][Deu_14:5. These terms are descriptive of different kinds of antelopes, named from the physical qualities, as swiftness, leaping or color. The chamois denoting most probably some mountain sheep.—A. G.]
[3][Deu_14:13. Glede, common kite, from its keenness of sight. Perhaps we should read דָאָה, vulture, for רָאָה, Lev_11:14.—A. G.]
[4][Deu_14:13. Kite and vulture. The distinction seems to be that between the red and black kite. See Smith’s Bib. Dict., which is full and satisfactory upon all these terms.—A. G.]
[5][Deu_14:15. Probably the ostrich.]
[6][Deu_14:15. Cuckoo, a species of petrel.]
[7][Deu_14:16. More correctly the ibis.]
[8][Deu_14:22. Tithing, thou shalt tithe.]
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 1. Ye shall not cut yourselves — Comp. Lev_19:28.…
1. Ye shall not cut yourselves — Comp. Lev_19:28. It was the practice of some nations to make incisions on their faces or other parts of their bodies at funerals. There is reference to this custom in Jer_16:6; Jer_41:5. Also in connexion with idolatrous religious services the heathen cut themselves with knives as though their gods were to be propitiated by human suffering.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 1 f. Against certain Rites for the Dead
1 f. Against certain Rites for the Dead
No parallel in JE; but one in H, Lev_19:28 a.
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1. Sons are ye to Jehovah your God] The order of the EVV. misses the emphasis. Note not merely the change to the Pl. address but its cause, the conception of individual Israelites as the sons of Jehovah: not elsewhere in D. In the discourses in D Israel, the nation, is as the son of Jehovah, Deu_1:31, Deu_8:5 and so more definitely in J, Exo_4:22 f., Hos_11:1, and Jer_31:20. The transition from this conception to the statement of Jehovah’s fatherhood of Israelites as individuals was natural; the two conceptions occur together in the Song Deu_32:5-6 and in Hosea and Jeremiah. The latter is already found in the 8th century, Hos_1:10, Isa_1:2. But as we advance through the prophecies of Jeremiah and Ezekiel, with their strong individualism, to the exilic and post-exilic writings we find a great increase of references to Israelites as the sons of Jehovah, Jer_3:14; Jer_3:19; Jer_3:22; Jer_4:22, Ezek. (Eze_2:4?), Eze_20:21, Isa_63:8; Isa_63:16; Isa_64:8 (cp. Isa_57:4), Mal_2:10, Deu_32:5, Psa_73:15; Psa_82:6. This is contemporary with the breaking up of the Jewish state and the destruction of the national worship. While then it is clear that one cannot take sons of Jehovah in this law as by itself proof of an exilic or post-exilic date, we can say that if it does not add to, it at least agrees with, the evidence in that direction adduced in the note below.
Many ancient nations believed in their descent from gods or demigods; and among them the Semitic peoples, e.g. the Moabites are called sons and daughters of Kemosh, Num_21:29. But the relation was conceived physically. In the O.T. God’s fatherhood and Israel’s sonship are historical and ethical, based not on physical generation, but on an act of love on God’s part, on His choice or adoption (cp. Rom_9:4) of the people, and on His deliverance of them from Egypt; and it is carried out by His providence of love and moral chastisement (see the references above and cp. Amos 3), which is nowhere more tenderly described than in this Book. But when all the O.T. references to God as the Father whether of Israel or Israelites and to them as His children have been reckoned up, how few are they in comparison to the number of times that sons, and children, of God occur in the N.T. God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts crying Abba Father (Gal_4:6); joint heirs with Christ (Rom_8:17).
ye shall not cut or gash yourselves] So of the priests of Ba‘al (1Ki_18:28) and in Ar. one form of the vb. is used of mutilations of animals, Lev_19:28 : you shall put no incision on your flesh (cp. Deu_21:5) nor any tattooing upon you.
nor set a baldness between your eyes] Lev_21:5 : not make a baldness on their head neither shave off the corner of their beard.
for the dead] That these customs were not practised merely from excess of grief, nor only as testifying to the continuance of the mourner’s blood-covenant with the dead, but also in acknowledgement of the divinity of the latter and as the mourners’ consecration to them, is implied in the reason given in Deu_14:2 for Israel’s abstention from such things. Jehovah’s people are holy and sacred to Himself alone. Hence, too, the inclusion of this law among those against the worship of strange gods. Moreover Jer_16:7 describes a communion feast as part of the same rites. May not also the choice of the expression sons are ye to Jehovah be due to this cause, as if such rites implied an ancestor worship? For the worship of their ancestors by Arab tribes who bring offerings and sacrifice at their graves see Musil, Ethn. Ber. 329.
For the prevalence, among many ancient nations, particularly the Semitic, as well as among modern peoples, of these customs of gashing the flesh and shaving part of the hair or beard, apparently always with a religious implication, see W. R. Smith, Rel. Sem. 302 ff. Gashing, both of face and body called ‘Tashrit’ (cp. Heb.) was explained to Burton in Mekka as a sign ‘that the scarred was the servant of Allah’s House.’ (Pilgrimage, etc. ii. 234.) Mohammed expressly forbad the practice. The O.T. confirms it for Moab (Isa_15:2) and the Philistines (Jer_47:5), and states that both customs were practised in Israel not only as usual and natural in mourning (equally so with the wearing of sackcloth), but as even sanctioned by Israel’s God (Amo_8:10; Isa_22:12): he calls to weeping … and baldness; Jer_16:6 : as His punishment of an evil generation, the usual rites of mourning for its dead, including gashing and baldness, shall not be observed; Jer_41:5 : men come from Shechem to the house of Jehovah with shaven heads and having gashed themselves; Eze_7:18. Note, too, the absence from the earlier legislation of a law against these practices. The law first appears here and in H, Lev_19:28, Lev_21:25.
Unknown to Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and to those Shechem Jews who, in obedience to the central law of D, brought their offerings to the Temple, this law cannot have formed part of the original code of D; but is an exilic or post-exilic addition.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (1) Ye are the children of Jehovah.—This fact is…
XIV.
(1) Ye are the children of Jehovah.—This fact is made the foundation of all the laws of ceremonial and moral holiness in the Pentateuch, more especially in the Book of Leviticus, where these laws are chiefly to be found.
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Ye shall not cut yourselves.—The precept is repeated with little variation from Lev_19:28.
Any baldness between your eyes—i.e., apparently, “on your foreheads.” The word for baldness in this place is generally used for baldness on the back of the head.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. H. Mackintosh 1880 · Public Domain Deuteronomy 14
Deuteronomy 14
"Ye are the children of the Lord your God: ye shall not cut yourselves, nor make any baldness between your eyes for the dead: for thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God, and the Lord hath chosen thee to be a peculiar people unto himself, above all the nations that are upon the earth." (Vers. 1, 2.)
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The opening clause of this chapter sets before us the basis of all the privileges and responsibilities of the Israel of God. It is a familiar thought amongst us that we must be in a relationship before we can know the affections or discharge the duties which belong to it. This is a plain and undeniable truth. If a man were not a father, no amount of argument or explanation, could make him understand the feelings or affections of a father’s heart; but the very moment he enters upon the relationship, he knows all about them.
Thus it is as to every relationship and position; and thus it is in the things of God. We cannot understand the affections or the duties of a child of God until we are on the ground. We must be Christians before we can perform Christian duties. Even when we are Christians, it is only by the gracious aid of the Holy Ghost that we can walk as such; but clearly if we are not on Christian ground, we can know nothing of Christian affections or Christian duties. This is so obvious, that argument is needless.
Now, most evidently, it is God’s prerogative to declare how His children ought to conduct themselves, and it is their high privilege and holy responsibility to seek, in all things, to meet His gracious approval. "Ye are the children of the Lord your God: ye shall not cut yourselves." They were not their own; they belonged to Him, and therefore they had no right to cut themselves or disfigure their faces for the dead. Nature, in its pride and self-will, might say, "Why may we not do like other people? What harm can there be in cutting ourselves, or making a baldness between our eyes? It is only an expression of grief, an affectionate tribute to our loved departed ones. Surely there can be nothing morally wrong in such a suited expression of sorrow!
To all this there was one simple but conclusive answer, "Ye are the children of the Lord your God" This face altered everything. The poor ignorant and uncircumcised Gentiles around them might cut and disfigure themselves, inasmuch as they knew not God, and were not in relationship to Him. But as for Israel, they were on the high and holy ground of nearness to God, and this one fact was to give tone and character to all their habits. They were not called upon to adopt or refrain from any particular habit or custom, in order to be the children of God. This would be, as we say, beginning at the wrong end; but, being His children, they were to act as such.
"Thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God." He does not say, "Ye ought to be an holy people." How could they ever make themselves an holy people, or a peculiar people unto Jehovah? Utterly impossible. If they were not His people, no effort of theirs could ever make them such. But God, in His sovereign grace, in pursuance of His covenant with their fathers, had made them His children, made them a peculiar people above all the nations that were upon the earth. Here was the solid foundation of Israel’s moral edifice. All their habits and customs, all their doings and ways, their food and their clothing, what they did and what they did not do - all was to flow out of the one grand fact, with which they had no more to do than with their natural birth, namely, that they actually were the children of God, the people of His choice, the people of His own special possession.
Now, we cannot but acknowledge it to be a privilege of the very highest order to have the Lord so near to us, and so interested in all our habits and ways. To mere nature, no doubt, to one who does not know the Lord, is not in relationship to Him, the very idea of His holy presence, or of nearness to Him would be simply intolerable. But to every true believer, every one who really loves God, it is a most delightful thought to have Him near us, and to know that He interests Himself in all the most minute details of our personal history, and most private life; that He takes cognisance of what we eat and what we wear; that He looks after us by day and by night, sleeping and waking, at home and abroad; in short, that His interest in and care for us go far beyond those of the most tender, loving mother for her babe.
All this is perfectly wonderful; and surely if we only realised it more fully we should live a very different sort of life, and have a very different tale to tell. What a holy privilege, what a precious reality to know that our loving Lord is about our path by day, and about our bed by night; that His eye rests upon us when we are dressing in the morning, when we sit down to our meals, when we go about our business, and in all our intercourse, from morning till night. May the sense of this be a living and abiding power in the heart of every child of God on the face of the earth!
From verse 3 to 20, we have the law as to clean and unclean beasts, fishes and fowls. The leading principles as to all these have already come under our notice in Leviticus 11.* But there is a very important difference between the two scriptures. The instructions in Leviticus are given primarily to Moses and Aaron; in Deuteronomy they are given directly to the people. This is perfectly characteristic of the two books. Leviticus may be specially termed, the priest’s guide book. In Deuteronomy the priests are almost entirely in the background, and the people are prominent. This is strikingly apparent all through the book, so that there is not the slightest foundation for the idea that Deuteronomy merely repeats Leviticus. Nothing can be further from the truth. Each book has its own peculiar province, its own design, its own work. The devout student sees and owns this with deep delight. Infidels are wilfully blind, and can see nothing.
{*As we have given in our "Notes on the Book of Leviticus," chapter 11, what we believe to be the scriptural import of Verses 4-20 of our chapter, we must refer the reader to what is there advanced.}
In verse 21 of our chapter, the marked distinction between the Israel of God and the stranger is strikingly presented. " Ye shall not eat of anything that dieth of itself; thou shalt give it unto the stranger that is in thy gates; that he may eat it; or thou mayest sell it unto an alien; for thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God" The grand fact of Israel’s relationship to Jehovah marked them off from all the nations under the sun. It was not that they were, in themselves, a whit better or holier than others; but Jehovah was holy, and they were His people. "Be ye holy, for I am holy."
Worldly people often think that Christians are very Pharisaic in separating themselves from other people, and refusing to take part in the pleasures and amusements of the world; but they do not really understand the question. The fact is, for a Christian to participate in the vanities and follies of a sinful world would be, to use a typical phrase, like an Israelite eating that which had died of itself. The Christian, thank God, has gotten something better to feed upon than the poor dead things of this world. He has the living bread that came down from heaven, the true manna; and not only so, but he eats of "the old corn of the land of Canaan," type of the risen and glorified Man in the heavens. Of these most precious things the poor unconverted worldling knows absolutely nothing and, hence, he must feed upon what the world has to offer him. It is not a question of the right or the wrong of things looked at in themselves. No one could possibly have known ought about the wrong of eating of anything that had died of itself, if God’s word had not settled it.
This is the all-important point for us. We cannot expect the world to see or feel with us as to matters of right and wrong. It is our business to look at things from a divine standpoint. Many things may be quite consistent for a worldly man to do which a Christian could not touch at all, simply because he is a Christian. The question which the true believer has to ask as to everything which comes before him is simply, "Can I do this to the glory of God? Can I connect the Name of Christ with it?" If not, he must not touch it.
In a word, the Christian’s standard and test for everything is Christ. This makes it all so simple. Instead of asking, Is such a thing consistent with our profession, our principles, our character or our reputation? we have to ask, Is it consistent with Christ? This makes all the difference. Whatever is unworthy of Christ is unworthy of a Christian. If this be thoroughly understood and laid hold of it will furnish a great practical rule which may be applied to a thousand details. If the heart be true to Christ, if we walk according to the instincts of the divine nature, as strengthened by the ministry of the Holy Ghost, and guided by the authority of holy scripture, we shall not be much troubled with questions of right or wrong in our daily life.
Before proceeding to quote for the reader the lovely paragraph which closes our chapter, we would very briefly call his attention to the last clause of verse 21. "Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother’s milk." The fact that this commandment is given three times, in various connections, is sufficient to mark it as one of special interest and practical importance. The question is, what does it mean? what are we to learn from it? We believe it teaches very plainly that the Lord’s people must carefully avoid everything contrary to nature. Now, it was, manifestly, contrary to nature that what was intended for a creature’s nourishment should be used to seethe it.
We find, all through the word of God, great prominence given to what is according to nature - what is comely. "Does not even nature itself teach you?" says the inspired apostle, to the assembly at Corinth. There are certain feelings and instincts implanted in nature, by the Creator, which must never be outraged. We may set it down as a fixed principle, an axiom in Christian ethics, that no action can possibly be of God that offers violence to the sensibilities proper to nature. The Spirit of God may, and often does, lead us beyond and above nature, but never against it.
We shall now turn to the closing verses of our chapter, in which we shall find some uncommonly fine Practical instruction. "Thou shalt truly tithe all the increase of thy seed, that the field bringeth forth year by year. And thou shalt eat before the Lord thy God, in the place which he shall choose to place his name there, the tithe of thy corn, of thy wine, and of thine oil, and the firstlings of thy herds and of thy flocks; that thou mayest learn to fear the Lord thy God always. And if the way be too long for thee, so that thou art not able to carry it; or if the place be too far from thee, which the Lord thy God shall choose to set his name there, when the Lord thy God hath blessed thee; then shalt thou turn it into money, and bind up the money in thine hand, and shalt go unto the place which the Lord thy God shall choose; and thou shalt bestow that money for whatsoever thy soul lusteth after, for oxen, or for sheep, or for wine or for strong drink, or for whatsoever thy soul desireth; and thou shalt eat there before the Lord thy God, and thou shalt rejoice, thou, and thine household, and the Levite that is within thy gates; thou shalt not forsake him; for he hath no part nor inheritance with thee. At the end of three years thou shalt bring forth all the tithe of thine increase the same year, and shalt lay it up within thy gates And the Levite (because he hath no part nor inheritance with thee) and the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow, which are within thy gates, shall come, and shall eat, and be satisfied, that the Lord thy God may bless thee in all the work of thine hand which thou doest." (Vers. 22-29.)
This is a deeply interesting and most important passage, setting before us, with special simplicity, the basis, the centre and practical features of Israel’s national and domestic religion. The grand foundation of Israel’s worship was laid in the fact that both they themselves and their land belonged to Jehovah. The land was His, and they held as tenants under Him. To this precious truth they were called, periodically, to bear testimony by faithfully tithing their land. "Thou shalt truly tithe all the increase of thy seed, that thy field bringeth forth year by year." They were to own, in this practical way, the proprietorship of Jehovah, and never lose sight of it. They were to own no other landlord but the Lord their God. All they were and all they had belonged to Him. This was the solid groundwork of their national worship - their national religion.
And then as to the centre, it is set forth with equal clearness. They were to gather to the place where Jehovah recorded His Name. Precious privilege for all who truly loved that glorious Name! We see in this passage, as also in many other portions of the word of God, what importance He attached to the periodical gatherings of His people around Himself. Blessed be His Name, He delighted to see His beloved people assembled in His presence, happy in Him and in one another; rejoicing together in their common portion, and feeding in sweet and loving fellowship on the fruit of Jehovah’s land. "Thou shalt eat before the Lord thy God, in the place which He shall choose, to place his name there, the tithe of thy corn ....that thou mayest learn to fear the Lord thy God always."
There was - there could be, no other place like that, in the judgement of every faithful Israelite, every true lover of Jehovah. All such would delight to flock to the hallowed spot where that beloved and revered Name was recorded. It might seem strange and unaccountable to those who knew not the God of Israel, and cared nothing about Him, to see the people travelling - many of them - a long distance from their homes, and carrying their tithes to one particular spot. They might feel disposed to call in question the needs-be for such a custom. "Why not eat at home? they might say. But the simple fact is, such persons knew nothing whatever about the matter, and were wholly incapable of entering into the preciousness of it. To the Israel of God, there was the one grand moral reason for journeying to the appointed place, and that reason was found in the glorious motto - Jehovah Shammah - " the Lord is there." If an Israelite had wilfully determined to stay at home, or to go to some place of his own choosing, he would neither have met Jehovah there, nor his brethren, and hence he would have eaten alone. Such a course would have incurred the judgement of God; it would have been an abomination. There was but one centre, and that was not of man’s choosing, but of God’s. The godless Jeroboam, for his own selfish political ends, presumed to interfere with the divine order, and set up his calves at Bethel and Dan; but the worship offered there was offered to demons and not to God. It was a daring act of wickedness which brought down upon him and upon his house the righteous judgement of God; and we see, in Israel’s after history, that "Jeroboam the son of Nebat" is used as the terrible model of iniquity for all the wicked kings.
But all the faithful in Israel were sure to be found at the one divine centre, and nowhere else. You would not find such making all sorts of excuses for staying at home; neither would you find them running hither and thither to places of their own or other people’s choosing; no, you would find them gathered to Jehovah Shammah, and there alone. Was this narrowness and bigotry? Nay, it was the fear and love of God. If Jehovah had appointed a place where He would meet His people, assuredly His people should meet Him there.
And not only had He appointed the place, but in His abounding goodness, He devised a means of making that place as convenient as possible for His worshipping people. Thus we read, "And if the way be too long for thee, so that thou art not able to carry it; or if the place be too far from thee which the Lord thy God shall choose to set his name there, when the Lord thy God hath blessed thee; then thou shalt turn it into money, and bind up the money in thine hand, and shalt go unto the place which the Lord thy God shall choose.... And thou shalt eat there before the Lord thy God, and thou shalt rejoice, thou and thy household."
This is perfectly beautiful. The Lord, in His tender care and considerate love, took account of everything. He would not leave a single difficulty in the way of His beloved people, in the matter of their assembling round Himself. He had His own special joy in seeing His redeemed people happy in His presence; and all who loved His Name would delight to meet the loving desire of His heart by being found at the divinely appointed centre.
If any Israelite were found neglecting the blessed occasion of assembling with his brethren, at the divinely chosen place and time, it would have simply proved that he had no heart for God or for His people, or, what was worse, that he was wilfully absent. He might reason as he pleased about his being happy at home, happy elsewhere; it was a false happiness, inasmuch as it was happiness found in the path of disobedience, the path of wilful neglect of the divine appointment.
All this is full of most valuable instruction for the church of God now. It is the will of God now, no less than of old, that His people should assemble in His presence, on divinely appointed ground, and to a divinely appointed centre. This, we presume, will hardly be called in question by any one having a spark of divine light in his soul. The instincts of the divine nature, the leadings of the Holy Ghost, and the teachings of holy scripture, do all, most unquestionably, lead the Lord’s people to assemble themselves together for worship, communion, and edification. However dispensations may differ, there are certain great principles and leading characteristics which always hold good; and the assembling of ourselves together is, most assuredly, one of these. Whether under the old economy or under the new, the assembling of the Lord’s people is a divine institution.
Now, this being so, it is not a question of our happiness, one way or the other; though we may be perfectly sure that all true Christians will be happy in being found in their divinely appointed place. There is ever deep joy and blessing in the assembly of God’s people. It is impossible for us to find ourselves together in the Lord’s presence and not be truly happy. It is simply heaven upon earth for the Lord’s dear people - those who love His Name, love His Person, love one another, to be together, round His table, around Himself. What can exceed the blessedness of being allowed to break bread together in remembrance of our beloved and adorable Lord, to show forth His death until He come; to raise, in holy concert, our anthems of praise to God and the Lamb; to edify, exhort and comfort one another, according to the gift and grace bestowed upon us by the risen and glorified Head of the church; to pour out our hearts, in sweet fellowship, in prayer, supplication, intercession and giving of thanks for all men, for kings and all in authority, for the whole household of faith, the church of God, the body of Christ, for the Lord’s work and workmen all over the earth.
Where, we would ask, with all possible confidence, is there a true Christian, in a right state of soul, who would not delight in all this, and say, from the very depths of his heart, that there is nothing this side the glory to be compared with it?
But, we repeat, our happiness is not the question; it is less than secondary. We are to be ruled, in this, as in all beside, by the will of God as revealed in His holy word. The question for us is simply this, Is it according to the mind of God that His people should assemble themselves together for worship and mutual edification? If this be so, woe be to all who wilfully refuse, or indolently neglect to do so, on any ground whatsoever; they not only suffer serious loss, in their own souls, but they are offering dishonour to God, grieving His Spirit, and doing injury to the assembly of His people.
These are very weighty consequences, and they demand the serious attention of all the Lord’s people. It must be obvious to the reader that it is according to the revealed will of God that His people should assemble themselves together, in His presence. The inspired apostle exhorts us, in the tenth chapter of his Epistle to the Hebrews, not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together. There is special value, interest and importance attaching to the assembly. The truth as to this begins to dawn upon us in the opening pages of the New Testament. Thus, in Matt. 18: 20, we read the words of our blessed Lord, "Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them." Here we have the divine centre. "My Name." This answers to "The place which the Lord thy God shall choose to place his name there," so constantly named, and so strongly insisted upon in the book of Deuteronomy. It was absolutely essential that Israel should gather at that one place. It was not a matter as to which people might choose for themselves. Human choice was absolutely and rigidly excluded. It was "The place which the Lord thy God shall choose," and no other. This we have seen distinctly. It is so plain that we have only to say, "How readest thou?"
Nor is it otherwise with the church of God. It is not human choice, or human judgement, or human opinion, or human reason, or human anything. It is absolutely and entirely divine. The ground of our gathering is divine, for it is accomplished redemption. The centre round which we are gathered is divine, for it is the Name of Jesus. The power by which we are gathered is divine, for it is the Holy Ghost. And the authority for our gathering is divine, for it is the word of God.
All this is as clear as it is precious; and all we need is the simplicity of faith to take it in and act upon it. If we begin to reason about it, we shall be sure to get into darkness; and if we listen to human opinions, we shall be plunged in hopeless perplexity between the conflicting claims of Christendom’s sects and parties. Our only refuge, our only resource, our only strength, our only comfort, our only authority is the precious word of God. Take away that, and we have absolutely nothing. Give us that, and we want no more.
This is what makes it all so real and so solid for our souls. Yes; reader, and so consolatory and tranquillizing, too. The truth as to our assembly is as clear, and as simple, and as unquestionable as the truth in reference to our salvation. It is the privilege of all Christians to be as sure that they are gathered on God’s ground, around God’s centre, by God’s power, and on God’s authority, as that they are within the blessed circle of God’s salvation.
And, then, if we be asked, "How can we be certain of being round God’s centre?" We reply, simply by the word of God. How could Israel of old be sure as to God’s chosen place for their assembly? By His express commandment. Were they at any loss for guidance? Surely not; His word was as clear and as distinct as to their place of worship as it was in reference to everything else. It left not the slightest ground for uncertainty. It was so plainly set before them that, for any one to raise a question, could only be regarded as wilful ignorance or positive disobedience.
Now, the question is, Are Christians worse off than Israel in reference to the great subject of their place of worship, the centre and ground of their assembly? Are they left in doubt and uncertainty? Is it an open question? Is it a matter as to which, every man is left to do what is right in his own eyes? Has God given us no positive, definite instruction on a question so intensely interesting, and so vitally important? Could we imagine, for a moment, that the One who graciously condescended to instruct His people of old in matters which we, in our fancied wisdom, would deem unworthy of notice, would leave His church now without any definite guidance as to the ground, centre, and characteristic features of our worship? Utterly impossible! Every spiritual mind must reject, with decision and energy, any such idea.
No, beloved Christian reader, you know it would not be like our gracious God to deal thus with His heavenly people. True, there is no such thing now as a particular place to which all Christians are to betake themselves periodically for worship. There was such a place, for God’s earthly people; and there will be such a place for restored Israel and for all nations by-and-by. "It shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established m the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it. And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths; for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem." (Isa. 2) And again, "It shall come to pass, that every one that is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem, shall even go up from year to year to worship the King the Lord of hosts, and to keep the feast of tabernacles. And it shall be that whoso will not come up of all the families of the earth, unto Jerusalem, to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, even upon them shall be no rain." (Zech. 14: 16, 17.)
Here are two passages culled, one from the first, and the other from the last but one, of the divinely inspired prophets, both pointing forward to the glorious time when Jerusalem shall be God’s centre for Israel and for all nations. And we may assert, with all possible confidence, that the reader will find all the prophets, with one consent, in full harmony with Isaiah and Zechariah, on this profoundly interesting subject. To apply such passages to the church, or to heaven, is to do violence to the clearest grandest utterances that ever fell on human ears; it is to confound things heavenly and earthly, and to give a flat contradiction to the divinely harmonious voices of prophets and apostles.
It is needless to multiply quotations. All scripture goes to prove that Jerusalem was and will yet be God’s earthly centre for His people, and for all nations. But, just now, that is to say, from the day of Pentecost, when God the Holy Ghost came down, to form the church of God, the body of Christ, until the moment when our Lord Jesus Christ shall come to take His people away out of this world, there is no place, no city, no sacred locality, no earthly centre for the Lord’s people. To talk to Christians about holy places or consecrated ground is as thoroughly foreign to them - at least it ought to be - as it would have been to talk to a Jew about having his place of worship in heaven. The idea is wholly out of place, wholly out of character.
If the reader will turn, for a moment, to the fourth chapter of John, he will find, in our Lord’s marvellous discourse with the woman of Sychar, the most blessed teaching on this subject. "The woman saith unto him, Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet. Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship. Jesus saith unto her, woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father. Ye worship ye know not what; we know what we worship; for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth; for the Father seeketh such to worship him. God is a Spirit; and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth." (Vers. 19-24.)
This passage entirely sets aside the thought of any special place of worship now. There really is no such thing. "The Most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands; as saith the prophet, Heaven is my throne, and earth is my footstool: what house will ye build me? saith the Lord; or what is the place of my rest? Hath not my hand made all these things?" (Acts 7.48-50.) And again, "God that made the world, and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; neither is worshipped with man’s hands, as though he needed anything, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things." (Acts 17: 24, 25.)
The teaching of the New Testament, from beginning to end, is clear and decided as to the subject of worship; and the Christian reader is solemnly bound to give heed to that teaching, and to seek to understand and submit his whole moral being to its authority. There has ever been, from the very earliest ages of the church’s history, a strong and fatal tendency to return to Judaism, not only on the subject of righteousness, but also on that of worship. Christians have not only been put under the law for life and righteousness, but also under the Levitical ritual for the order and character of their worship. We have dealt with the former of these in chapters 4 and 5 of these "Notes;" but the latter is hardly less serious in its effect upon whole tone and character of Christian life and conduct.
We have to bear in mind that Satan’s great object is to cast the church of God down from her excellency, in reference to her standing, her walk and her worship. No sooner was the church set up on the day of Pentecost than he commenced his corrupting and undermining process, and for eighteen long centuries he has carried it on with diabolical persistency. In the face of these plain passages quoted above, in reference to the character of worship which the Father is now seeking, and as to the fact that, God does not dwell in temples made with hands, we have seen, in all ages, the strong tendency to return to the condition of things under the Mosaic economy. Hence the desire for great buildings, imposing rituals, sacerdotal orders, choral services, all of which are in direct opposition to the mind of Christ and to the plainest teachings of the New Testament. The professing church has entirely departed from the spirit and authority of the Lord in all these things; and yet, strange and sad to say, these very things are continually appealed to as proofs of the wonderful progress of Christianity. We are told by some of our public teachers and guides that the blessed Apostle Paul had little idea of the grandeur to which the church was to attain; but if he could only see one of our venerable cathedrals, with its lofty aisles and painted windows, and listen to the peals of the organ and the voices of the choristers, he would see what an advance had been made upon the upper room at Jerusalem!
Ah! reader, be assured it is all a most thorough delusion. It is true, indeed, the church has made progress, but it is in the wrong direction; it is not upward but downward. It is away from Christ, away from the Father, away from the Spirit, away from the word.
We should like to ask the reader this one question, If the Apostle Paul were to come to London for next Lord’s day? where could he find what he found in Troas, eighteen hundred years ago, as recorded in Acts 20: 7? Where could he find a company of disciples gathered simply by the Holy Ghost, to the Name of Jesus, to break bread in remembrance of Him, and to show forth His death till He come? Such was the divine order then, and such must be the divine order now. We cannot for a moment, believe that the apostle would accept anything else. He would look for the divine thing; he would have that or nothing. Now, where could He find it? Where could he go and find the table of his Lord as appointed by Himself, the same night in which He was betrayed?
Mark, reader, we are bound to believe that the apostle Paul would insist upon having the table and the supper of his Lord, as he had received them direct from Himself in the glory, and given them by the Spirit, in the tenth and eleventh chapter of his epistle to the Corinthians - an epistle addressed to all that in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both theirs and ours." We cannot believe that he would teach God’s order, in the first century and accept man’s disorder in the nineteenth. Man has no right to tamper with a divine institution. He has no more authority to alter a single jot or tittle connected with the Lord’s supper than Israel had to interfere with the order of the Passover.
Now, we repeat the question - and earnestly entreat the reader to ponder and answer it in the divine presence, and in the light of scripture - Where could the apostle find this in London, or anywhere else in Christendom on next Lord’s day? Where could he go and take his seat at the table of his Lord, in the midst of a company of disciples gathered simply on the ground of the one body, to the one centre, the Name of Jesus, by the power of the Holy Ghost, and on the authority of the word of God? Where could he find a sphere in which he could exercise his gifts without human authority, appointment, or ordination? We ask these questions in order to exercise the heart and conscience of the reader. We are fully convinced that there are places, here and there, where Paul could find these things carried out, though in weakness and failure; and we believe the Christian reader is solemnly responsible to find them out. Alas! alas! they are few and far between, compared with the mass of Christians meeting otherwise.
We may perhaps be told that if people knew that it was the apostle Paul, they would willingly allow him to minister. But then he would neither seek nor accept their permission, inasmuch as he tells us plainly, in the first chapter of Galatians, that his ministry was "not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ, and God the Father, who raised him from the dead."
And not only so, but we may rest assured that the blessed apostle would insist upon having the Lord’s table spread upon the divine ground of the one body; and he could only consent to eat the Lord’s Supper according to its divine order as laid down in the New Testament. He could not accept, for a moment, anything but the divine reality. He would say, "Either that or nothing." He could not admit any human interference with a divine institution; neither could He accept any new ground of gathering, or any new principle of organisation. He would repeat his Own inspired statements, "There is one body and one Spirit;" and "We being many, are one bread, one body; for we are all partakers of that one bread." These words apply to "all that in every place call on the name of Jesus Christ our Lord; and they hold good in all ages of the church’s existence on earth.
The reader must be very clear and distinct as to this. God’s principle of gathering and unity must, on no account, be surrendered. The moment men begin to organise, to form societies, churches or associations, they act in direct opposition to the word of God, the mind of Christ, and the present action of the Holy Ghost. Man might as well set about to form a world as to form a church. It is entirely a divine work. The Holy Ghost came down, on the day of Pentecost, to form the church of God, the body of Christ; and this is the only church, the only body that scripture recognises; all else is contrary to God, even though it may be sanctioned and defended by thousands of true Christians.
Let not the reader misunderstand us. We are not speaking of salvation, of eternal life, or of divine righteousness, but of the true ground of gathering the divine principle on which the Lord’s table should be spread, and the Lord’s supper celebrated. Thousands of the Lord’s beloved people have lived and died in the communion of the church of Rome; but the church of Rome is not the church of God, but a horrible apostasy; and the sacrifice of the mass is not the Lord’s supper, but a marred, mutilated and miserable invention of the devil. If the question in the mind of the reader be merely what amount of error he can sanction without forfeiting his soul’s salvation, it is useless to proceed with the grand and important subject before us.
But where is the heart that loves Christ that could be content to take such miserably low ground as this? What would have been thought of an Israelite of old who could content himself with being a child of Abraham, and could enjoy his vine and his fig-tree, his flocks and his herds, but never think of going to worship at the place where Jehovah had recorded His Name? Where was the faithful Jew who did not love that sacred spot? "Lord, I have loved the habitation of thine house, and the place where thine honour dwelleth"
And when, by reason of Israel’s sin, the national polity was broken up, and the people were in captivity, we hear the true-hearted exiles amongst them Pouring forth their lament in the following touching and eloquent strain, "By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down; yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion, We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion. How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land? If I forget thee, O Jerusalem," - God’s centre for His earthly people - "let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth; if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy." (Ps. 137.)
And again, in Daniel 6, we find that beloved exile opening his window, three times a day, and praying toward Jerusalem, although he knew that the lions’ den was the penalty. But why insist upon praying toward Jerusalem? Was it a piece of Jewish superstition? Nay; it was a magnificent display of divine principle; it was an unfurling of the divine standard amid the depressing and humiliating consequences of Israel’s folly and sin. True, Jerusalem was in ruins; but God’s thoughts respecting Jerusalem were not in ruins. It was His centre for His earthly people. "Jerusalem is builded as a city that is compact together, whither the tribes go up, the tribes of the Lord, unto the testimony of Israel, to give thanks unto the name of Lord. For there are set thrones of judgement, the thrones of the house of David. Pray for the peace of Jerusalem; they shall prosper that love thee. Peace be within thy walls, and prosperity within thy palaces. For my brethren and companions’ sakes, I will now say, Peace be within thee. Because of the house of the Lord our God I will seek thy good." (Ps. 122)
Jerusalem was the centre for Israel’s twelve tribes, in days gone by, and it will be so in the future. To apply the above and similar passages to the church of God here or hereafter, on earth or in heaven, is simply turning things upside down, confounding things essentially different, and thus doing an incalculable amount of damage both to scripture and the souls of men. We must not allow ourselves to take such unwarrantable liberties with the word of God.
Jerusalem was and will be God’s earthly centre; but, now, the church of God should own no centre but the glorious and infinitely precious Name of Jesus. "Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them." Precious centre! To this alone the New Testament points, to this alone the Holy Ghost gathers. It matters not where we are gathered, in Jerusalem or Rome, London, Paris or Canton. It is not where but how.
But be it remembered, it must be a divinely real thing It is of no possible use to profess to be gathered in or to the blessed Name of Jesus, if we are not really so. The apostle’s word as to faith may apply with equal force to the question of our centre of gathering. ’What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say "he is gathered to the Name of Jesus? God deals in moral realities; and while it is perfectly clear that a man who desires to be true to Christ cannot possibly consent to own any other centre or any other ground of gathering but His Name, yet it is quite possible - alas! alas! how very possible - for people to profess to be on that blessed and holy ground, while their spirit and conduct, their habits and ways, their whole course and character go to prove that they are not in the power of their profession.
The apostle said to the Corinthians that he would "know not the speech but the power." A weighty word, most surely, and much needed at all times, but specially needed in reference to the important subject now before us. We would lovingly, yet most solemnly press upon the conscience of the Christian reader his responsibility to consider this matter in the holy retirement of the Lord’s presence, and in the light of the New Testament. Let him not set it aside on the plea of its not being essential. It is, in the very highest degree, essential, inasmuch as it concerns the Lord’s glory, and the maintenance of His truth. This is the only standard by which to decide what is essential and what is not. Was it essential for Israel to gather at the divinely appointed centre? Was it left an open question? Might every man choose a centre for himself? Let the answer be weighed in the light of Deuteronomy 14. It was absolutely essential that the Israel of God should assemble round the centre of the God of Israel. This is unquestionable. Woe be to the man who presumed to turn his back on the place where Jehovah had set His Name. He would, very speedily, have been taught his mistake. And if this was true for God’s earthly people, is it not equally true for the church, and the individual Christian? Assuredly it is. We are bound, by the very highest and most sacred obligations, to refuse every ground of gathering but the one body; every centre of gathering but the Name of Jesus; every power of gathering but the Holy Ghost; every authority of gathering but the word of God. May all the Lord’s beloved people, everywhere, be led to consider those things in the fear and love of His holy Name!
We shall now close this section by quoting the last paragraph of our chapter, in which we shall find some most valuable practical teaching.
"At the end of three years thou shalt bring forth all the tithe of thine increase the same year, and shalt lay it up within thy gates; and the Levite, (because he hath no part nor inheritance with thee,) and the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow, which are within thy gates, shall come, and shall eat, and be satisfied; that the Lord thy God may bless thee in all the work of thine hand which thou doest."
Here we have a lovely home-scene, a most touching display of the divine character, a beautiful outshining of the grace and kindness of the God of Israel. It does the heart good to breath the fragrant air of such a passage as this. It stands in vivid and striking contrast with the cold selfishness of the scene around us. God would teach His people to think of, and care for, all who were in need. The tithe belonged to Him, but He would give them the rare and exquisite privilege of devoting it to the blessed object of making hearts glad.
There is peculiar sweetness in the words, "shall come" - "shall eat" - "and be satisfied." So like our own ever Gracious God! He delights to meet the need of all. He opens His hand, and satisfies the desire of every living thing. And not only so, but it is His joy to make His people the channel through which the grace, the kindness and the sympathy of His heart may flow forth to all. How precious is this! What a privilege to be God’s almoners, the dispensers of His bounty, the exponents of His goodness! Would that we entered more fully into the deep blessedness of all this! May we breathe more the atmosphere of the divine presence, and then we shall more faithfully reflect the divine character!
As the deeply interesting and practical subject presented in verses 28 and 29 will come before us in another connection, in our study of chapter 26, we shall not dwell further upon it here.
C. H. Mackintosh, Notes on the Pentateuch — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain Vers. 1-21. Israel, as the people of God, chosen…
HEATHEN CUSTOMS OF MOURNING TO BE AVOIDED. NO ABOMINABLE THING TO BE EATEN. MEATS CLEAN AND UNCLEAN. TITHES.
Vers. 1-21. Israel, as the people of God, chosen by him to be his children by adoption, must not only abstain from idolatry, but also avoid all heathenish usages and practices, such as those connected with mourning for the dead, and those pertaining to the use of food.
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Ye are the children of Jehovah your God (cf. Exo_4:22, etc.) As his children, it behooved them to avoid all that would be offensive to him or indicate distrust in him. Ye shall not cut yourselves , etc. (cf. Lev_19:28 Lev_21:5; Jer_16:6 Jer_48:36, Jer_48:37; Eze_7:18 Eze_27:31) ("Ex hac opinions sunt ilia varia et detestabilia genera lugendi, paedores, muliebres lacerationes genarum, pectoris, feminum, capitis percussiones." Cicero, "Tusc. Quaest.," 3:26; see also " De Legibus," 2:25.)
HOMILETICS.
Vers. 1, 2. The people of God when death is in the home.
If God chose out a people for himself, with the view of planting in the world a new and nobler faith, it is no wonder if he would have the people super add to that a new and higher life. But if the life is to be higher in any sense which could be acceptable to Jehovah, it must be one based on the new faith and manifesting itself to others in a new deportment, i.e. it must be both an outer and inner life. But if the people are just emerging from a semi-barbaric condition, it is not at all improbable that they may need to be dealt with as we deal with children. We give them technical rules first, and they have to learn reasons afterwards. Possibly, as the child grows up and gets beyond the rules which bound him once, he may smile at them, or rather at the childishness which needed them in earlier years; while at the same time he would, or at any rate he should, feel thankful to those who stooped to teach him so that he could understand them.
In this chapter, we have several illustrations of God"s thus dealing with Israel. We now take the one in the first two verses. It is well known that heathen nations were very violent in their shows of grief over their dead, tearing the hair, cutting the face, beating the breast, etc., while the cutting of the flesh was likewise submitted to in honor of their gods (see Exposition, in loc.). Now, it was of vast importance to give Israel to understand how entirely they were to be the Lord"s, how fully he was theirs, and how the blest mutual relation changed the very aspect of that frequent and certain family sorrow death. We have not here any full opening up of that, but there is scarcely any room to doubt that it formed a very important part of Hebrew teaching; for the fact that all these heathen rites and orgies over the dead were entirely forbidden would be sure to lead many, especially of the young, to ask for the reason of such prohibition. And when we remember how careful was the preparation for meeting the inquisitiveness of childhood in other matters, we cannot imagine that this was an exception to the general rule. The prohibition of old customs would clear the way for teaching a new doctrine. And, as applied to Israel of old, the following six positions may be asserted and maintained.
1. They were to be a separate people to the Lord their God, not only in all the varied relations of life, but also in the presence of death.
2. Old customs of surrounding nations, at the death of their friends, were to be done away, as a sign of the different meaning and aspect of death, to the people of the Lord.
3. This changed aspect of death followed from their blessed relationship to God, and from God"s blessed relationship to them.
4. This relationship involved and assured Israel of the continued life of their holy dead in God. Surely it was scarcely possible for them to think of Enoch, Noah, Abraham, as extinct. True, the light on the unseen life in the grave was dim, and the gloom of the grave was deep. But still, it was very far from having about it the hopelessness which marked the heathen world.
5. For, stretching far away in the future, there was the hope of a resurrection at the last day. This was involved in God"s words to Moses, "I am the God of Abraham," etc. Many, perhaps the mass, of the people might not see that. But our Lord assures us that the doctrine is wrapped up there.
6. Consequently, there was no reason to justify a hapless, hopeless wail in the presence of death. Whence our subject for meditation is suggested to us
THERE OUGHT TO BE A GREAT DIFFERENCE BETWEEN GOD"S PEOPLE AND OTHERS IN THE PRESENCE OF DEATH. In one sense, indeed, there is none; or, at least, none which can be discerned. One event cometh alike to all, even to the righteous and the wicked, and the horse of the good man may be as frequently darkened by "the shadow of death" as that of another who fears not God. But still, when death does come, there may well be a very wide difference between those who are the children of God and those who are not, especially when the departed one is a member of" the whole family in heaven and on earth" (and such cases only do we note in this Homily). When the Christian expositor is opening up the principle contained in these verses, he can do so from much higher vantage-ground than one who confines himself to the Old Testament teaching. Some such main lines of thought as the following will be the Christian unfolding of the principles so long ago laid down.
1. There is a blessed relationship between God and his people. It is initiated in the new birth by the Holy Ghost. Those thus born anew are children of God not merely under a national covenant, as sharing a common privilege, but as brought into a personal covenant through the impartation of a new life. The mark of this new birth is the saving reception of Christ by faith, and the effect of it is to transfer men from the region of darkness to that of light, "from the power of Satan unto God," and from being subjects of a kingdom, to their being citizens in God"s city and sons in God"s family of the saints and of the household of God.
2. This blessed relationship is sealed and made sure by "the blood of the everlasting covenant." They are redeemed with the "precious blood of Christ.
3. It is ratified by the resurrection of Jesus Christ. He is the Firstborn out of the dead, and has "opened the kingdom of heaven to all believers.
4. This blessed relation continues undisturbed by the accident of death. "Christ died for us, that whether we wake or sleep we should live together with him;" "whether we live or die, we are the Lord"s;" "Christ both died, and rose, and revived, that he might be Lord of the dead and of the living.
5. The resurrection of Christ"s own will as surely follow his as the harvest follows the firstfruits. "Now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the Firstfruits of them that slept.
6. The distinctive features of the resurrection of the body are laid down for us by the Apostle Paul in 1Co 15. Of these there are four.
(1) That the body, as the seed, must be buried before it can rise again,
(2) That the body sown is not the body that shall be.
(3) That to every seed there is its own body,
(4) That the precise relation or connection between the body that is sown and the body that will be raised is a secret in the mind of God. "God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him." These things we know: we know no more. If we let our affirmations go beyond the statements of Scripture, we shall plunge ourselves into inextricable difficulties, and we shall be even risking the credit of Scripture, since many will think that, in disposing of our affirmations, they demolish the teaching of the Book. In confining ourselves to the four points named by Paul in his great argument, we shall be remaining on ground that will ever be firm, and that can never be invaded. No physical science can affirm or deny either one or the other. There never lived, there never will live, the man who on scientific grounds can weaken either of them. Our holy and glorious faith is beyond such reach.
7. Therefore the reason for avoiding the hopeless sorrow of the pagan world is even vastly deeper and stronger than it was under Moses. If Israel might not sorrow as those without hope when they had the assurance," I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob," how much less should we, when earth has seen the Firstfruits of the great resurrection from the dead! How much light is thrown by Christ"s grace and love into the portals of the grave, and what a hallowed and hallo-wing calm may pervade the chamber of death if our Lord is with us there! Yea, there is no real death to the believer. "Our Savior Jesus Christ hath abolished death." He hath said," If a man keep my sayings, he shall never taste of death." Then we may well bless our God that, amid the changing scenes of earth, we stand on ground which can never be shaken. There ariseth light in the darkness.
With joy we tell the scoffing age, He that was dead has left his tomb; He lives above their utmost rage, And we are waiting till he come.
HOMILIES BY J. ORR. Vers. 1-3. Self-respect in mourning.
Mourning customs have significance, as testifying to the ideas of God, of human worth, and of immortality, held by those who practice them. Those here forbidden were degrading in their own nature, and embodied the false idea that God is pleased with the self-inflicted miseries of his creatures. They are condemned
I AS DISHONORING TO THE CREATOR. God, the Creator of the body, cannot take delight in seeing it abused. This proposition seems self-evident. The idea above referred to, and which lies at the root of so many false religions, viz. that it is pleasing to the Deity to see his creatures torturing and defacing themselves, is a libel on the Divine character. The body is rather to be reverenced as one of the noblest of God"s works. It is to be studiously preserved and cared for. Religion, with reason, enjoins, "Do thyself no harm". (Act_16:28)
II AS INCONSISTENT WITH SELF-RESPECT. There is a propriety and decorum becoming in beings who possess reason. Wild and excessive grief, indicating the absence of power of self-control, lowers us beneath the dignity of rational existences. Neglect of the person, and, still more, wanton self-injury, in grief, betokens a like absence of proper self-respect. Least of all is such conduct excusable in those who claim the dignity of being God"s children. They, of all others, ought to set an example of propriety and seemliness in behavior. They are "a holy people," and must study to deport themselves worthily of their high calling. The priests of (1Ki_18:28) behaved like maniacs. David and Job behaved like religious men. (2Sa_12:20; Job_1:20, Job_1:21)
III AS IMPLYING THE ABSENCE OF RELIGIOUS CONSOLATIONS. The early Jews were not without these. (Heb_11:13, Heb_11:14) We in the Christian age have them still more abundantly. Therefore must we not sorrow "as those which have no hope". J.O. (1Th_4:13)
HOMILIES BY R.M. EDGAR
Vers. 1, 2. Sorrow is to be in holy hopefulness.
After guarding them so carefully from all idolatry, Moses next charges the Israelites not to imitate the heathen nations by mutilating themselves or making themselves bald for the dead. The reason assigned is their consecration unto the Lord. There must have been, therefore, in these heathen practices something unholy expressed. Let us first consider what this was, and then proceed to the lessons in the prohibition.
I WHAT WAS MEANT BY CUTTING ONE"S SELF AND MAKING ONE"S SELF BALD FOR THE DEAD? It implied manifestly some postmortem merit and service. It was akin to the sacrifices which often have been presented in connection with death. It was the sacrifice of something short of life, but yet valuable. It was the sacrifice of sightliness, if not of beauty, in the interests of the dead. It implied that something could be done for the departed by those who remained, and which self-denying love gladly undertook. Hence these practices brought out the hopelessness of sorrow as it exists in the heathen world, and the desire to propitiate offended Deity by sympathetic suffering and sacrifice.
II THE PROHIBITION SUMMONED THE JEWS TO HOPEFUL SORROW. The dead were to be regarded as in the hands of God, and he was to be trusted with them absolutely. No post-mortem sacrifices were to be attempted, but the cases left with implicit confidence to the ever-living and gracious Father. "Prayers for the dead" and "Masses for the dead" but express the pitifulness of human hope, and the dread and doubt with which the dead are left in the hands of God. Israel was prohibited from any such infirmity.
III THEY WERE EVEN TO REGARD THEMSELVES AS CONSECRATED TO THE LIVING GOD, AND CONSEQUENTLY NOT TO BE DESECRATED THROUGH MUTILATION FOR THE DEAD. The danger sometimes is for people to forget their dedication to God amid all the loneliness of their sorrow. The dead absorb attention. God has been removing "idols," but the idols have become, through death, more and more to them. Too much cannot be made of the dead, they think, and so they would make a perpetual dedication of themselves to the dead, forgetful of their relations to the living God above. Now, it is this everlasting relation which God insists upon. Nothing can be better, surely, than in sorrow to be reminded, "Thou art a holy people unto the Lord thy God, and the Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be a peculiar people unto himself, above all the nations that are upon the earth." It is just this which bereavement is intended to make emphatic. God claims us as his own: let not the dead make perpetual marks upon your persons, as if they had the right to your life-long service. This is desecration instead of consecration. Unreasonable attachment to the dead may be the denial of due consecration to the living God.
IV UNCOMMON CONSECRATION TO GOD SHOULD BE OUR IDEAL. Israel was to be a peculiar people unto God "above all the nations that are upon the earth." All nations glorify God in some degree, even in spite of themselves. But his own people are wise in aiming at special consecration. There is nothing so important as the highest possible ideal. Devoted to this, we attain to something higher and nobler than is possible otherwise.
Lord, we can trust thee for our holy dead, They, underneath the shadow of thy tomb, Have entered into peace; with bended head We thank thee for their rest, and for our lightened gloom. R.M.E.
HOMILIES BY D. DAVIES Vers. 1, 2. Against conformity with heathen customs.
Israel had been called to honorable privilege; therefore it was fitting there should be seemly conduct. Royal children should be royal in all their acts.
I ISRAEL"S SPECIAL PRIVILEGE. They enjoyed a position superior to all the nations of the earth.
1. They were the objects of Gods choice. Out of all the peoples and tribes which dwelt on this round globe, Israel had been selected for a noble purpose. We may not be able to divine the reason, for our knowledge is exceedingly small. Yet God, who does nothing unwisely, did in this matter the wisest thing.
2. They had been chosen to sonship. God had revealed himself to these Hebrews in a special and endearing character. Had he not informed them of his dispositions towards them and his loving interest in them, they would not have dared to call him Father. In special condescension he informed them that he would treat them, in all substantial respects, as a father doth his children.
3. They had been chosen to righteous character. By virtue of this choice, they were on the high road to perfection. Their destiny was not secured irrespective of their own will and choice. They were now consecrated to the Divine service of Jehovah, and must perform holy actions, foster holy habits, so as to acquire a holy character. This is man"s highest reward a heaven within.
II A SPECIFIC PROHIBITION. A prohibition against serf-mutilation. There were natural outlets for abundant grief tears, sighs, and moans; these self-mutilations were unnatural and irrational.
1. Because inordinate sorrow for the death of friends is sinful. Moderate grief is allowable: it is the necessary concomitant of strong affection. But as we should enjoy every friend as a gift of God, so our sorrow at separation should be accompanied by filial submission.
2. Because such symbols of mourning were often pretences. Frequently, if not usually, this manifest sorrow was assumed. "Twas mere trickery and falsehood. Such actions injured and deteriorated character.
3. Because even the body is the property of God. There is no part of his nature which the true Israelite does not recognize as belonging to God. Throughout, he is Jehovah"s temple. Every faculty of body, every organ and member, is to be utilized for God, is to be preserved in health and vigor to do credit to Jehovah. "His Name is to be upon our foreheads.
4. Because this stir-mutilation would be conformity with heathen customs. The practices connected with idol-worship were dictated by a spirit of cruelty by the genius of Satan. Far as the east is from the west, or north pole from the south, were the followers of God to-withdraw from heathen practices. As sane men flee from pestilence, so should pious men avoid the neighborhood of sin. D.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain At the end of every seven years . .…
Deu_14:1-2
At the end of every seven years . . . a release.
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Economical laws
One of the things that strikes a reader of Deuteronomy, and indeed of the Old Testament in general, is the way in which all kinds of subjects are brought under the scope of religion. The modern mind is ready with distinctions, and classifies subjects as religious, moral, political, scientific, economical, and so forth; but the Israelitish lawgivers, men with the prophetic spirit in them, subordinate politics, economics, and morals alike to religion. Laws, to whatever department of life they are applicable, are to be made and administered in the Spirit of God; they are not an end in themselves; their one end is to enable people so to live as that the purposes may be fulfilled for which God has called them into being and constituted them into societies. This high point of view must always be retained. If we know better than the Israelites the life which God intends human beings to live, we shall have a higher standard for our legislation than they; we shall be more bound than they to remember that law is an instrument of religion, a means to a spiritual end, and that it rests with us who make our own laws to adapt them, over the whole area of national life, to the ends which God sets before us.
1. In the first place, there is legislation regarding land. It proceeds upon the idea that the land belongs to God, and has been given by Him to the nation that on it as a foundation it may live that life of labour, of health, and of natural piety to which He has called it. Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as unrestricted private property in land. An individual does not have the power of alienating any part of it forever. One result, and no doubt one purpose of this was, to prevent a single worthless person from ruining his posterity by parting forever with what he really held in trust for them; another, was to prevent the accumulation of great masses of landed property, which was then the only kind of property, in the hands of individuals. Such accumulations, in the circumstances, and in most circumstances, could only lead to the practical enslavement of those who tilled the land to those who owned it. These aims of the land laws in Israel will very generally be acknowledged as worthy of approval. I suppose there is not a statesman in Europe who would not give a great deal to resettle on the land hundreds of thousands of those who have been driven or drawn into the towns. There is not one but sees that private property in land must, if the moral ends for which society exists are to be attained, be limited somehow. Similarly, legislation is justifiable--that is, it is in the line of a Divine intention--which aims at making it hard to beggar the poor, and hard to heap up wealth without limit. It is not a morally healthy situation in which one man of enormous wealth has thousands practically at his mercy. It is not good for him--I mean for his soul; it is not good for their souls either; and the law may properly aim, by just methods, at making it hard to create such a situation and impossible to perpetuate it. Unhappily, in most new countries the need of bribing settlers and capital has proved a temptation too strong to be resisted; and land has been parted with in masses, to individuals, on terms which have simply sown for future generations the seed of all the trouble under which older countries labour. The instinct for gain has proved stronger titan the devotion to ideal moral ends. The future has been sacrificed to the present, the moral interests of the community to the material interests of a few.
2. Besides the land, the Book of Deuteronomy contains a variety of laws regarding money, and particularly the lending of money. To begin with, the lending of money for interest was absolutely forbidden. The Israelites were not a commercial, but a farming people, and when a man borrowed, it was not to float a venture too great for his own means, but because he had got into difficulties, and wanted relief. To assist a brother in difficulty was regarded as a case of charity; he was to be relieved readily and freely; it were inhuman to take advantage of his distress to get him into ones power, as a money lender does his victim. It may be said, of course, that the effect of this law would be to discourage lending altogether; people would not be too ready to part with their money without some hope of profit. Probably this might be so, and to some extent with good effect. There are some people who borrow, and who ought not to do so. They ought not to have money lent to them. It is a mercy not to lend him money: it is a special mercy to protect him, as this law does, against the money lenders. But I am not sure that the law which prohibits lending money for interest has not another moral idea at the heart of it. As distinguished from agriculture, commerce, which depends so much more upon credit, i.e. upon money lent for interest, has a much larger element of speculation in it; and speculation is always to be discouraged, on moral grounds. Everyone knows that there are persons with little money of their own who contrive to make a livelihood by watching the ups and downs in the price of shares. This is a vocation which depends for its very existence on the lending of money for interest, and no one will say that it is morally wholesome, or that, whatever sensitiveness it may develop in certain of the intellectual faculties, it is elevating for the whole man. It would be far better for him to be doing field labour. But there is more still in this law. As it stands, I do not believe it is applicable to the vastly different conditions of modern life, especially in a trading community; here, to lend a trustworthy person money to carry on or extend his business may be what the law intended all lending to be, an act of charity. But the lender must consider his own position--I mean his moral position. His whole income may come--in many cases it does come--from investments. He lives on the interest of money he has lent. He takes no care of it, except to see at first that the investments are sound. He does no work in connection with it. He is largely ignorant of the use made of the power which it bestows. I am not going to say that no one should live on such terms: for many, life would be impossible otherwise. For many it is the proper reward of a life of labour: they are only reaping the fruit of their toils in earlier years. To such it is not likely to do any harm. But those who have inherited such a situation are undoubtedly exposed to moral perils of which they may easily become unconscious. They can live without needing to make their living; and there are very few people in a generation good enough to stand such a trial. Those who labour with the money are conscripts; let those who lend it be volunteers in all the higher services which society requires from its members. Let them be leaders in all philanthropies and charities, in all laborious duties which have it as their object to raise the moral and spiritual status of men.
3. A third class of economical laws which bulks largely in the Book of Deuteronomy, and to which special attention is due, is occupied with the care of the poor. This fifteenth chapter has a number of enactments bearing on this subject. The first is rather obscure, At the end of every seven years thou shalt make a release. In the Book of Exodus (Exo_23:10) this law refers to the land, and its meaning is that every seventh year it is not to be cropped. Here, there is a year of release established for debts, though it is not clear whether it means that a debt due seven years was to be irrecoverable by legal process, or that every seventh year there should be a period of grace, during which no debt should be recoverable by law. Then, in the laws about lending, the duty of charity is strongly enforced. The forgotten sheaf in the field, or the gleanings of the vineyard and the olive are not to be too carefully gathered in; they are to be left for the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, that the Lord thy God may bless thee in all the works of thine hand. God is interested in humanity; He sees such consideration and rewards it, just as He sees inhumanity and judges it. But the most striking thing in these ancient poor laws is the way in which they realise the actual conditions of the life of the poor, and consider them. The lender is allowed to take a pledge, but if he takes the upper garment of the borrower he must not keep it all night. It is not only the poor mans cloak, but his blanket; he has nothing else to cover himself with, and God is angry with the man who inhumanly leaves his poor brother to shiver in the cold night air. So, too, no one may take the hand mill or the upper millstone as a pledge; that is to rob the poor of the means of grinding the handful of corn with which he keeps the breath in his body. We see from laws like these how excessively poor they were, yet the lawgiver who has the Spirit of God in him enters into this deep poverty, realises the conditions of life under it, and insists on due consideration for them. Business is business, of course; but humanity is also humanity, and it is an interest which no consideration of business will ever displace before God. And to refer in this connection to only one point more, what could be more beautiful than the law we find in verses 10 and 11 of Deu_24:1-22? It is a mean and inhuman temper, which is here reproved by God. The poor man is not to be insulted because he is in distress; he is to be treated by the lender as courteously and respectfully as if he were--what he is--his equal. The sacredness of his home is to be respected; he is not to be needlessly affronted before his children by having an unfeeling or insolent stranger walk into the house and carry off what he pleases. Laws like these move us to reflection on the provision which we ourselves make for the poor. On what a large scale poverty exists in the great cities! The practical difficulties of relieving distress without doing moral injury are undeniably very great, but I do not believe they will be overcome by men whom habitual contact with dishonesty and incapacity has rendered hard and inhuman. Those who have the care of the poor should care for them with humanity. They should care for their feelings too, and respect the common nature which is in them. If they do not, they suffer for it themselves, and one can hardly find a more odious type of human being than the man who has been hardened and brutalised by the administration of charity. There is one kind of criticism which has often been passed, and will no doubt continue to be passed, on such laws as these. It is this: they have never been kept. There is no evidence, for instance, that the law of the jubilee year, when all property returned to its original owners, was ever observed in Israel: as a means for preventing the dissipation of family property, or its accumulation in a few hands, it was a failure. So have all laws been which attempted to regulate the business of lending money, either by prohibiting interest altogether, or by fixing a maximum rate of interest. No law written in a book can ever compete with the living intellect of man, with his cunning and greed on the one hand, with his distress, his passions, or his stupidity on the other. There is a certain quantity of truth in this; but taken without qualification it is only a plea for anarchy--an invitation to give up the whole of the economical side of social existence to the conflict of ability, selfishness, and capital with incompetence, need, and passion. Surely there is a moral ideal for this side of existence; and surely if there is, it must find some expression, however inadequate, some assistance, however feeble, from the laws. We cannot by law protect people against the consequences of their vices or their follies; but we can provide in the law a safeguard for those interests which are higher than private gain or loss. We can make it impossible for anyone in the pursuit of private gain to trample humanity under foot. (James Denney, D. D.)
Proclamation of release
My text was intended as an especial law to the ancients, and prefigured to all ages Gospel forgiveness. The fact is that the world is loaded down with a debt, which no bankrupt law or two-third enactment can alleviate. The voices of heaven cry, Pay! Pay! Men and women are frantic with moral insolvency. What shall be done? A new law is proclaimed, from the throne of God, of universal release for all who will take advantage of that enactment.
1. In the first place, why will you carry your burden of sin any longer? The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from sin. Cut loose the cables which hold your transgressions, and let them fall off. Spiritual, infinite, glorious, everlasting release! Blessed is the man whose transgressions are forgiven and whose sins are covered.
2. Some of you, also, want deliverance from your troubles. God knows you have enough of them. Physical, domestic, spiritual, and financial troubles. How are you going to get relief? The Divine Physician comes, and He knows how severe the trouble is, and He gives you this promise: Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning. Does it not take effect upon you? Here, then, He pours out more drops of Divine consolation, and I am sure this time the trouble will be arrested: All things work together for good to those who love God. All the Atlantic and Pacific oceans of surging sorrow cannot sink a soul that has asked for Gods pilotage. The difficulty is, that when we have misfortunes of any kind, we put them in Gods hand, and they stay there a little while; and then we go and get them again, and bring them back. A vessel comes in from a foreign port. As it comes near the harbour it sees a pilot floating about. It hails the pilot. The pilot comes on board, and he says: Now, captain, you have had a stormy passage. Go down and sleep, and I will take the vessel into New York harbour. After a while the captain begins to think: Am I right in trusting this vessel to that pilot? I guess Ill go up and see. So he comes to the pilot, and says: Dont you see that rock? Dont you see those headlands? You will wreck the ship. Let me hold the helm for a while myself, and then Ill trust to you. The pilot becomes angry, and says: I will either take care of this ship or not. If you want to, I will get into my yawl and go ashore, or back to my boat. Now we say to the Lord: O God, take my life, take my all, in Thy keeping. We go along for a little while, and suddenly wake up, and say: Things are going all wrong. O Lord, we are driving on these rocks, and Thou art going to let us be shipwrecked. God says: You go and rest; I will take charge of this vessel, and take it into the harbour. It is Gods business to comfort, and it is our business to be comforted. At the end of seven years thou shalt make a release.
3. But what is our programme for the coming years? It is about the same line of work, only on a more intensified and consecrated scale. Ah, we must be better men and women. (T. De Witt Talmage.)
A new chance
God is putting lines of mercy amid all the black print of the law. It would seem as if wherever God could find a place at which He might utter some word of pity or compassion, He filled up that place with an utterance of His solicitude for the welfare of man. Flowers look lovely everywhere, but what must be the loveliness of a flower to the wanderer in a desert? So these Gospel words are full of charm wherever we find them, but they have double charmfulness being found in connection with institutions, instructions, precepts, and commandments marked by the severest righteousness. In the midst of time God graciously puts a year of release. We find in this year of release what we all need--namely, the principle of new chances, new opportunities, fresh beginnings. Tomorrow, said the debtor or the slave, is the day of release, and the next day I shall begin again: I shall have another chance in life; the burden will be taken away. The darkness will be dispersed, and life shall be young again. Every man ought to have more chances than one, even in our own life. God has filled the sphere of life with opportunities. But moral releases can only be accomplished by moral processes. The man who is in prison must take the right steps to get out of it. What are those right steps?--repentance, contrition, confession--open, frank, straightforward, self-renouncing confession; then the man must be allowed to begin again; God will, in His providence, work out for such a man another opportunity; concealment there must be none, prevarication none, self-defence none. Where the case lies between the soul and God--the higher morality still--there must be an interview at the Cross--a mysterious communion under the blood that flows from the wounded Christ. All this being done on the part of the creditor and the owner, what happens on the side of God? The answer to that inquiry is: The Lord shall greatly bless thee in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance to possess it (Deu_24:4). God never allows us to obey the law without immediate and large compensation. We cannot obey the laws of health without instantly being the healthier; we cannot obey the laws of cleanliness without the flesh instantly thanking us, in stronger pulsations and wider liberties, for what we have done to it. A blessing is attached to all obedience, when the obedience is rendered to law Divine and gracious. The reward is in the mans own heart: he has a reward which no thief can take away from the sanctuary in which it is preserved; heaven is within. None can forestall God, or outrun God, or confer upon God an obligation which He cannot repay; He takes the moisture from the earth only that He may return it in copious showers. No man can serve God for nought. (J. Parker, D. D.)
The year of release
I propose to consider death as the Christians release, and then you will easily perceive what pleasure it must give to the believer, who is waiting for his discharge, to be told that the year of release is at hand.
I. For they shall be released from all labour and sorrow.
1. From labour (Rev_14:13). They know little of religion who think that a Christian has nothing to do. When Christ first calls us, He says: Go, work today in My vineyard. There is not only a great variety of employments, but that which requires much application and labour. To mortify sin is difficult work. But courage, Christians, the year of release is at hand. In heaven there will be much service, but no kind of labour. They rest not, day nor night, from rapturous adorations, and yet feel no fatigue, for the joy of the Lord is their strength.
2. But I said also that you shall be released from sorrow as well as from labour. The sources of present grief are almost innumerable. There are personal, family, and national troubles; and these sometimes follow one another so quickly, that many have tears for their meat, night and day. But courage, Christians, the year of release is at hand, when they that sow in tears shall reap in joy.
II. There will be a release from sin. Though you go out of this world lamenting your numerous infirmities, you shall be presented before the throne of God without spot or wrinkle or any such thing.
III. It will be a release from temptation. Within the gates of the New Jerusalem you shall be free from all assaults and troubles whatever, and be proclaimed more than conquerors through Him that loved you.
IV. There will be a release from this state of exile and confinement. Mysteries of Providence will then be unfolded, and the most delightful discoveries made of the infinite wisdom and goodness of God. The much greater mysteries of grace shall be also laid open; and fill our hearts with love and admiration, and our mouths with never-ending praises. (S. Lavington.)
Forgiveness, freedom, favour
I. The release which the Lord desired His people to give.
1. They were, at the end of every seven years, to release every man his debtor from the debt which he had accumulated. A man might pay if he could, and he should do so. A man might, at some future time, if his circumstances altered, discharge the debt which had been remitted; but, as far as the creditor was concerned, it was remitted.
2. They were never to exact that debt again. The moral claim might remain, and the honest Israelite might take care that his brother Israelite should not lose anything through him; but, still, according to the Divine command, there was to be no exacting of it. None but a generous Lawgiver would have made such a law as this. It is noble-hearted, full of loving kindness; and we could expect that none but a people in whose midst there was the daily sacrifice, in the midst of whom moved the high priest of God, would be obedient to such a precept.
3. They were to do this for the Lords sake: because it is called the Lords release. It is not enough to do the correct thing; it must be done in a right spirit, and with a pure motive. A good action is not wholly good unless it be done for the glory of God, and because of the greatness and goodness of His holy name. The most powerful motive that a Christian can have is this, For Jesus sake. You could not forgive the debt, perhaps, for your brothers sake; there may be something about him that would harden your heart; but can you not do it for Jesus sake? This is true charity, that holy love which is the choicest of the graces. And then, like the Israelites, we may look believingly to the gracious reward that God gives. We do not serve God for wages; but still we have respect unto the recompense of the reward, even as Moses had. We do not run like hirelings; but yet we have our eye upon the prize of our high calling in Christ Jesus. They were not only to perform this kindness once, but they were to be ready to do it again. It is the part of Christians not to be weary in well doing; and if they get no reward for what they have done from those to whom it is done, still to do the same again. Remember how gracious God is, and how He giveth to the unthankful and the evil, and maketh His rain to fall upon the field of the churl as well as upon the field of the most generous.
5. While they were to forgive and remit, on this seventh year, the loans which remained unpaid, they were also to let the bondman go. It was not to be thought a hardship to part with a servant man or woman. However useful they might have been in the house or field, however much they were felt to be necessary to domestic comfort or farm service, they were to be allowed to go; and, what was more, they were not to go empty handed, but they were to receive a portion out of every department of the masters wealth.
6. Further, this setting free of their brother at the specified time was to be done for a certain reason: Thou shalt remember, etc. How can you hold another a bondman when God has set you free? How can you treat another with unkindness when the Lord has dealt so generously with you? Down at Olney, when Mr. Newton was the rector of the parish, he put in his study this text where he could always see it when he lifted his eyes from his text while preparing his sermon, Remember that thou wast a bondman in the land of Egypt, and the Lord thy God redeemed thee. Would it not do many Christians good if they had that text often before their eyes? Would it not excite gratitude to their Redeemer, and tenderness towards those who happened to be in subjection to them, tenderness to every sinner that is a bondslave under the law, tenderness to the myriads that swarm these streets, slaves to sin and self, and who are perishing in their iniquity?
7. The spirit of this release of the Lord is this, Never be hard on anybody. It is true that the man made the bargain, and he ought to keep to it; but he is losing money, and he cannot afford it; he is being ruined, and you are being fattened by his mistake. Do not hold him to it. No Christian man can be a sweater of workers; no Christian man can be a grinder of the poor; no man, who would be accepted before God, can think that his heart is right with Him when he treats others ungenerously, not to say unjustly.
II. The release which the Lord gives to us.
1. Let me proclaim to every sinner here, who owns his indebtedness to God, and feels that he can never discharge it, that if you will come, and put your trust in Christ, the Lord promises oblivion to all your debt, forgiveness of the whole of your sins.
2. This release shall be followed up by a nonexacting of the penalty forever.
3. God will do all this for thee on the ground of thy poverty. See the fourth verse: Save when there shall be no poor among you. When you cannot pay half a farthing in the pound of all your great debt of sin, when you are absolutely bankrupt, then may you believe that Jesus Christ is your Saviour.
4. I may be addressing a soul here that says, I like that thought, I wish I could catch hold of it; but I feel myself to be such a slave that I cannot grasp it. Well, the Lord may allow a soul to be in bondage for a time; indeed, it may be needful that He should. The Hebrew might be in bondage six years, and yet he went free when the seventh year came. There are reasons why the Spirit of God is to some men a Spirit of bondage for a long time. Hard hearts must be melted, proud stomachs must be brought down.
5. The man was set free at the end of the sixth year, paying nothing for his liberation. Though not freeborn, nor yet buying his liberty with a great sum, yet he was set free. O Lord, set some soul free tonight!
6. And when the Lord sets poor souls at liberty, He always sends them away full-handed. He gives something from the flock, and from the threshing floor, and from the wine press.
7. This act never seems hard to the Lord. He says to the Hebrew, in the eighteenth verse, It shall not seem hard unto thee, when thou sendest him away free. It never seems hard to Christ when He sets a sinner free.
8. One thing I feel sure of, and that is, if the Lord sets us free, we shall want to remain His servants forever. We will go straight away to the door-post, and ask Him to use the awl; for, though we are glad to be free, we do not want to be free from Him. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain CRITICAL NOTES.—The people were not only to suppress idolatry,…
CRITICAL NOTES.—The people were not only to suppress idolatry, but their whole life and conduct must be ruled according to their holy character and high calling. They must not, like other nations, disfigure their bodies in passionate grief, nor defile themselves with unclean meat.
Deu_14:1. Cut (Lev_19:28) as idolators in mourning. (1Ki_18:28; Jer_16:6; Jer_41:5; Eze_7:18.) Baldness, A space between the eyebrows left bare in honour of the dead. (Lev_21:5.)
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Deu_14:2. Holy. A super-added motive to induce obedience and “an emphatic elucidation of the first clause of Deu_14:1.”—Del.
Deu_14:3-20. Clean and unclean animals. (cf. Leviticus 11.) Nothing abominable or unclean to be eaten.
Deu_14:4. Beasts. These, whose flesh would be excellent, mentioned here; because the Israelites were about to be settled in the land of promise, on the mountain pastures of which a portion of the tribes were already established, and where these animals abounded. (Jamieson.) Hart, the Syrian deer (cf. Deu_12:15.) Roebuck, the gazelle. Pyrgarg, or bison, a species of antelope, common in tracts which had been frequented by the Israelites. Wild Ox, translated “wild bull.” (Isa_51:20.) Must be distinguished from the re’ em of Num_23:22. Chamois, 14:70., the camel-leopard, i.e., the giraffe. All the creatures here given are classed by Bochart, among the goat and deer kind.
Deu_14:6. Hoof. Those only to be eaten which completely divide the hoof and chew the chud. The exceptions are given here and in Lev_10:4-7.
Deu_14:9-10. Fish. The rule is simple and comprehensive. Any fish from salt or fresh water might be eaten. But shell-fish of all kinds, whether molusks or crustaceans, and cetaceous animals, were prohibited as well as fish which appears to have no scales, like the eel.—Speak. Com. 20. Birds. The same as those in Lev_11:13, sqq.
Deu_14:13. The Glede is added. These are chiefly birds of prey; unclean feeders; needful as scavengers, but not good for food.
Deu_14:21. Dieth of itself. The arrangement is peculiar to the repetition of law in Deut. (Lev_17:15; Lev_22:8. Stranger. A heathen traveller or sojourner; for a proselyte was subject to the law as well as a Jew. Seethe, a third repetition, a prohibition against a Pagan ceremony. (Exo_23:19; Exo_34:26.)
Deu_14:22-23. Tithe. The dedication of a tenth part of the year’s produce in everything was a duty; to be brought to the sanctuary. The tithes and firstlings named here, to introduce certain directions concerning sacred meals celebrated out of them.
Deu_14:24-29. Too Long. An agreement anticipating settlement in Canaan. Distances made it difficult to carry produce to the sanctuary. It might be commuted or sold for money’s worth and the proceeds go towards a social feast. Whatsoever thy soul lusteth after, not in a bad sense, but simply preference or liking. Levite. (Deu_12:19.) Every third year the whole tithe of the year’s produce was set apart, not eaten before the Lord in the sanctuary, as a portion for the Levite, widow and stranger in different towns. This was not a third or. additional tithe, but the former, differently applied. The first and second year’s tithe, was eaten in the sanctuary; the tithe of the third year was for the poor and needy at home. Bless thee. As an encouragement to carry out these instructions, God’s blessing is said to follow (Deu_15:10.)
CONFORMITY TO WORDLY CUSTOMS.—Deu_14:1-3
As the chosen of God, Israel must not only put away idolatry, but abstain from heathen superstitions and practices. They were endowed with nobler life, called to a special position, and must not conform to the customs of nations by whom they were surrounded.
I. Conformity is inconsistent with a Christian’s position. He is called out of the world, separated from it in habits, character and aim: he must not go back to his old course of life. Christians are “a peculiar people,” precious to God and to the world; they must not lose their value and spiritual distinction. They should live near to God and not descend to base and worldly positions. Exalted above others they must keep their dignity, never dishonour their God, nor forget His claims. “I have severed you from other people, that ye should be mine. (Lev_20:26).
II. Conformity is derogatory to a Christian’s character. They are “children of the Lord” and should not be slaves to fashion and habit. As sons of God they must walk in love and free from idols. Walk worthy of the high vocation wherewith they are called (Eph_4:1). They are holy, “a holy people unto the Lord,” and must keep themselves unspotted from the world. (Jas_1:27). Character, righteous character should be the impress of God’s people. To be like God should be their desire and aim. “He that avoids iniquity is the best Christian,” says Calamy. There must not be a mere outward Nonconformity but inward spiritual tranformation which makes life new and holy—new in motive, source and end. “Be not conformed (fashioned) to this world; be ye transformed (transfigured, Mat_17:2; changed, 2Co_3:18) by the renewing of your mind.” (Rom_12:2).
III. Conformity is opposed to Divine purpose in a Christian’s life. “Chosen thee to be a peculiar people unto Himself, above all the nations.” Here we have Divine proprietorship and wonderful exaltation. To be filled with the spirit and fashioned with the influence of the world is to lose sight of God’s purpose in life and duty. Christians should be consecrated to God’s service, acquire holy habits, and foster holy desires. They are chosen and blessed to set forth God’s glory—” to shew forth the praises (virtues, excellences) of Him who hath called you out of darkness (ignorance, sin and misery) into His marvellous light.” (1Pe_2:9).
WORLDLY SORROW.—Deu_14:1-2
“Man’s days are full of trouble from one source or another” (Job_5:7.) “Sorrow is at once the lot, the trial, and the privilege of man,” says Helps. But how different the spirit and the method of expressing it. Israel must not mourn like other nations for the dead. Wordly sorrow is most unbecoming in God’s people.
I. It is excessive in its nature. It is often assumed and unnatural, noisy and passionate in demonstration. Heathens went to excess in their wild paroxysms of grief. It was not the grief of civilisation and softness; but the grief of a savage and a child.
II. It is injurious in its results. It was common among Canaanites and Phœnicians to cut themselves. Excitable nations of the east often made ghastly incisions on their faces, and in other parts of the body, with sharp instruments. The Persians, Abyssinians, Bedouins, and other races, still practide this. It was deemed a token of respect for the dead, and well-pleasing to deities who presided over the grave. The true Israelite is created in God’s image and must not mourn thus. Human suffering and woe are not acceptable to God. That sorrow which leads to bodily injury and drives away from God is the sorrow of Judas who hanged himself—a sorrow which results in no amendment. “For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death” (2Co_7:10).
III. It is hopeless in its aim. It does not propitiate God, nor does it affect the dead. The Christian is taught that God rules all events. Departed friends not taken by chance or accident. They are in the hands of God, and, if His children, beyond the reach of harm. Through “the shadow of death” the believer looks by faith. The “eternal night” of classic authors is illuminated by the resurrection of Christ, who has “become the first fruits of them that slept.” Jesus has “abolished death” (taken away its power, made it of no effect) “and hath brought life and immortality” (incorruptibility) “to light through (by means of) the gospel” (2Ti_1:10). We can, therefore, see through and beyond the grave—know our own lot and the lot of dear friends. “I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope” (1Th_4:13).
HOMILETIC HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS
Deu_14:1-2. Three great blessings.
1. Election, “chosen.”
2. Adoption, “children.”
3. Sanctification, “holy people.”
Distinguished Marks. Distinguished,
1. By the grace of God which made them.
2. By the Providence of God. A herd of poor slaves could not have gained their place and constituted themselves into a nation.
3. By the laws of God. Laws wiser than any other nation.
4. By the purpose of God. Separated from the rest of the world. Associated with great privileges and destined to spread great principles.
Thy God, peculiarly thine as opposed to every other. The object of thy affection and trust (Psa_73:24-28). “God bases all the prescriptions of His law, as the Great Lawgiver, on the ground that those that were to obey were his own chosen, beloved, redeemed, and sanctified people. He begins by declaring first of all, their grand relationship to Him as the Lord their God the King of Israel. “Ye are,” by adopting love, “the children of the Lord your God.” A Covenant God; yours because He has given Himself to to you; yours because ye have deliberately chosen Him; and with a solemn oath have promised, “We will serve the Lord our God.” Well, upon this strong ground, this sure foundation, as affectionate as it is sure, He says, “you shall not imitate the heathen by mourning for the dead as they mourn;” or transferred from Judaism to Christianity. “You shall not weep for your dead as others weep, who have no hope; having a better, surer, nobler prospect, alike of the state of the soul, and the emergence from the grave of the earthly shrine it has left behind it.”—Dr. Cumming.
GOD’S PROVISION FOR MAN’S TABLE.—Deu_14:3-20
Here we have regulations concerning animal food for the Israelites, and cautions against defilement by contact with dead flesh, which they were not permitted to eat. Substantially the restrictions are a repetition, with a little variation of the rules given in Leviticus 11. Though minute and apparently trivial these rules are full of instruction and meaning. They set forth God’s provision for man’s table.
I. Provision, Divine in its source. Israel could not have procured it and would not have known without Divine teaching what was good for them. We can neither catch a fish nor shoot a bird without a Providence. We are helpless and dependent as Israel was, taught to pray for daily bread and to recognise that power which can “furnish a table in the wilderness” Psa_78:19.
II. Provision good in quality. Nothing unclean, nothing unwholesome, was specified. Not anything was to be eaten apt to stimulate gross and sensual passions, or to foster coarse tastes and degrading habits. The laws were subservient to sanitary and religious ends, and the food provided was suitable and distinct from that of idolatrous nations. Divine wisdom decided what was best for the purpose. They were thus preserved in health and vigour, and ceremonially kept from the taint of death.
III. Provisions abundant in quantity. There was no stint in beasts, birds or fish. The articles of food were nutritious and abundant. God’s legislation for our lower reminds of His care for our higher nature. There is no lack anywhere. Temporally and spiritually, means are provided to satisfy our wants and promote our happiness. Let us remember our Benefactor, for Henry says, that we cannot put a morsel of food into our mouths till God puts it into our hands—discern kindness not only in prescribing, but in prohibiting, and be grateful to “the living God who giveth us richly all things to enjoy.” (1Ti_6:17). For a man may be blessed with riches, wealth, and honour; want nothing, “yet God giveth him not power to eat thereof.” (Ecc_6:2).
TOUCHING THE UNCLEAN.—Deu_14:3; Deu_14:21
By eating creatures that are unclean, which are described as “abominable,” the people made themselves abominable and repulsive. Hence the admonition to abstain from objects of defilemement which rob of holy communion with God.
I. Defilement is easy. Involuntary or accidental contact was enough. It was difficult, if not impossible to avoid the touch. So with the attractions and sins of “this present world.” Because it is near and present, it affects the senses, influences the mind, and directs the life. “Touch not, taste not, handle not” its pleasures.
II. Defilement is serious in its consequences. It interrupted fellowship with God and excluded from the sanctuary for a time. It prohibited the touch of sacred things and all intercourse with the legally clean. What a type of sin in polluting the soul and excluding from heaven. “This ye know, that no unclean person hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.” (Eph_5:5).
III. Defilement must be avoided by strenuous effort. This rule necessitated Israel to pay great attention to cleanliness, personal and national. “Touch not—eat not.” If there were no touching there would be no eating, no participation. (Eve and Achan). Daniel refused the food from the king’s table. Entire separation is enjoined. Watch, pray and keep your garments unspotted from the world. “Come out from among them, and be ye separate saith the Lord (separated, Hos_4:17), and touch not the (any) unclean thing.” (2Co_6:17).
HOMILETIC HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS
Deu_14:4. These and these only.
1. That ye may be at mine appointment for your very meat, as chief Lord of all.
2. That there may be a difference betwixt you and all other people.
3. That ye may be taught to study purity, and know that the very creatures are defiled by man’s sin.
4. That ye may have these things as “a shadow of things to come” (Col_2:16-17).—Trapp; Leviticus 11.
Deu_14:6. Cheweth cud. In this combination of parting the hoof and chewing the cud, the union of two moral and spirital qualities is supposed to be spiritualised, viz., sure walking in the way of God’s laws (Rom_2:18; Rom_3:20-22; Gal_2:12-14; Eph_5:15) and meditation upon it (Psa_1:2).—Wordsworth. The hearer of God’s word ought to be like those animals that chew the cud; he ought not only to feed upon it, but to ruminate upon it (St. Aug. on Psalms 46). Clean and unclean.
1. A Sanatary enactment. Unclean were most unhealthy in warm climates, and even now their flesh is not considered wholesome and nutritious.
2. An argument for separation. The distinction in meats would prevent intercourse with heathen nations, and contamination with idolatry and vice. It kept them distinct and peculiar, and raised an impassable barrier to evil customs—a barrier stronger than difference of creed, diversity of language, and system of polity. Christians must stand and live apart from worldly maxims and customs.
3. A type of holy life. The injunction to abstain from unclean meats was a symbol of the holiness and purity that became them as people of God. It set forth that kingdom which “is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost” (Rom_14:17). “The ordinance of Moses was for the whole nation. It was not like the Egyptian law, intended for priests alone; nor like the Hindoo law, binding only on the twice-born Brahmin; nor like the Parsee law, to be apprehended and obeyed only by those disciplined in spiritual matters. It was a law for the people, for every man, woman, and child of the race chosen to be “a kingdom of priests, an holy nation” (Exo_19:6). It was to be one of the foreshadows of the higher spiritual quality, of the better seed of Abraham, which was, in later ages, pronounced “a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people” (1Pe_2:9; cf. Isa_61:6; 1Co_10:17).—Speak. Com.
Deu_14:3-20. In this provision of food we see—
1. A mark of divine condescension. If kings legislated for the diet of their people, is it beneath the King of Israel to appoint the food for his chosen people? “All that we know of God,” says Dr. Cumming, “in creation, in providence, in redemption, leads us to see that He takes as much care of what the world calls, in its ignorance, little things, as He does of what the world thinks, in equal ignorance, great and weighty things.”
2. A proof of divine benevolence. It is kind to provide at all. But what thought indicated, in the choice of animals which multiplied slowly, which were not difficult to obtain, found without leaving the camp, and without danger and contact with heathens around them. All this intended to reclaim and bless!
In ev’ry way, in every sense,
Man is the care of Providence;
And whenso’er he goeth wrong,
The errors to himself belong.
S. BUTLER.
SEETHING A KID.—Deu_14:21
This injunction is here repeated, and must therefore be of some importance (cf. Exo_23:19; Exo_34:26). He may view it—
I. As a protest against superstition. The repetition immediately after directions concerning the first fruits of harvest, indicates specific reference to heathen custom. Idolators at the end of harvest seethed a kid in its mother’s milk and sprinkled the broth as a magical charm on fields and gardens, to make them more productive. Israel must not imitate this custom. None of the gods can send the shower and fertilize the earth. “He causeth the grass to grow for cattle, and herb for the service of man.”
II. As a law of humanity. There was great cruelty in making the milk of the mother, intended for the sustenance of the kid, the means of its destruction. Some have called this prohibition “an excess of legislative refinement,” but in whatever light we look at this custom, it had an appearance of barbarity. “This was a gross and unwholesome dish, calculated to kindle up animal and ferocious passions, and on this account, as well as its barbarity, Moses may have forbidden it.” “The dark places of the earth are full of the habitations of cruelty ‘unjust violence’ ‘homesteads of violence.’ ”—Kay. (Psa_74:20.) But the religion of the Bible is humane (cf. Lev_22:28; Deu_22:16; Deu_25:4.) Rational creatures must be treated kindly, and we must shun everything that blunts our worst sensibilities. If God has tender care for animals so should we have. “A righteous man regardeth the life of his beast; but the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel.” (Pro_12:10.)
I would not enter on my list of friends,
(Tho’ graced with polished manners and fine sense,
Yet wanting sensibility), the man
Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm.—Cowper.
THE DEDICATION OF THE TENTH.—Deu_14:22-23; Deuteronomy 28, 29
A tithing of the produce of cultivated ground and the firstling of herds and flocks were brought to the sanctuary every year. Here a sacrifice meal was prepared for Israel and their households that they might rejoice before the Lord and learn to fear Him always.
I. To meet the claims of God. There must be devout acknowledgment of God as the source of all mercies, without whose care the earth would not yield its produce, nor the flocks their increase. Corn, wine and oil come from Him. In every department of life we must recognise His rights. The seventh of our time, the first fruits of the field and the first-born of the family, the revenues of the family and the Church should be given to him as Owner and Proprietor of all things. “Well may we think our substance due when we owe ourselves,” says Bp. Hall.
II. To support the works of piety. The claims of creative right have strengthened by the infinite price of the Redeemer’s blood. Apart from what is applied to personal, family and civil uses, some portion, if not a tenth, is required for worship, evangelisation and humanity.
1. Religiously. The ministers and ordinances of God’s house must be upheld. Contributions are put upon the principle of willing gifts, rather than of stipulated demands. Though God commanded Israel to bring their offerings, no law compelled the disobedient. Thus we are treated with confidence and consideration. God honours men by permitting them to expend their treasures and skill on sacred edifices and to render solemn worship to Him.
2. Socially. “The Levite and the stranger and the fatherless and the widow shall come and shall eat and be satisfied.” In works of charity we gladden others. The helpless and fatherless must never be forgotten. Real generosity is the surest way of thriving. He that gives shall receive, and he that scatters shall increase. The liberal soul shall be made fat. “Honour the Lord with thy substance, and with the first fruits of all thine increase; so shall thy barn be filled with plenty, and thy presses shall burst out with new wine.” (Pro_3:9-10).
SYSTEMATIC PROVISION FOR BENEFICENT WORK
On this subject we may collect and arrange a few thoughts from a pamphlet by the Rev. John Ross. Such provision is—
I. The duty of God’s people. In Jewish law God claimed tithes and gifts for the worship of the sanctuary and the necessities of the poor. Conspicuous features of these demands are—the priority of God’s claim—that provision for it be made before man’s self-enjoyment, that it bear some suitable proportion to the Divine glory and grace, and that for fulness and power, system is essential; i.e., that the work of God be provided for before man’s indulgence. (Leviticus 19; Numbers 18; Deuteronomy 14). The New Testament has also its plan of meeting God’s claim, containing the same elements of priority, certainly, proportion and system. See 1Co_16:2, sustained and illustrated by the weighty arguments and motives of 2 Cor. chaps. 8, 9
II. The Financial Law of Christ. Christ is sole King in His Church. The constitution of this church is Christian, not Jewish. The apostle Paul was the organiser of churches, and the first epistle to the Corinthians is the great Church organising epistle. In its closing chapter the apostle institutes a system of finance. This system bears the character of an authoritative and repeated law. “As I have given order to the Churches of Galatia, even so do ye.” The method taught by the apostle to provide the revenues of the Church is an expansion of Jewish and Pentecostal church systems, an example for us, an implied and inferential obligation sustained by cumulative and presumptive argument. New Testament institutions are not given with Sinaitic form and severity. They meet us as sacred provisions for urgent occasions. They appeal to a willing heart more than to a legal mind. Christ rules in love, but His will should not have less authority or constraining power on that account. (Joh_7:17.)
III. The necessity of the Age. The present age needs loftiness of aim, seriousness of feeling and ardour of devotion. Faithful consecration of substance to God, elevated by Christian love to a financial rule of life, would nourish every moral and spiritual principle in the soul. Storing the Lord’s portion is the necessity of the age, from its tendency.
1. To check the idolatry of money and to strengthen the love of God in the heart.
2. To meet adequately the demands of religion and humanity.
3. To exhibit the power and beauty of godliness. By a warm Christian liberality—by asserting the supremacy of, and providing for, things spiritual and eternal. By fostering simplicity of life and personal fidelity to God. By liberally sustaining the honour of Christ in the sight of men.
DIVINE CONSIDERATION OF HUMAN CIRCUMSTANCES.—Deu_14:24-25
In the land of Canaan, however, where the people would be scattered over a great extent of country, there would be many for whom the fulfilment of this command would be very difficult—would in fact appear almost impossible. To meet this difficulty, permission was given for those who lived at a great distance from the sanctuary to sell the tithes at home, provided they could not convey them in kind, and then to spend the money so obtained in the purchase of the things required for the sacrificial meals at the place of the sanctuary.—Delitzsch. Here we have—
I. Divine knowledge of man’s circumstances. “If the place be too far for thee.” God knows our distance from his house—the effort and strength required to get there, “if the way be too long for thee,” and the very street and house in which we dwell. “The street called straight, and the house of Judas.” (Act_9:11; Act_10:6). God’s knowledge of human actions and human life in all departments is perfect. He is everywhere present to discern and observe our physical and moral condition. His omniscience extends to all space, and to all creatures.
II. Divine Provision for Man’s Future. This arrangement was made in anticipation of settlement in Canaan. Thus God’s providence goes before us in life. The real meaning of providence is to see to provide beforehand (pro and vides). “God’s providence is mine inheritance,” says one. He anticipates our difficulties and wants, and makes provision beforehand for every exigency. “For thou preventest (goes before) him with the blessings of goodness.” (Psa_21:3).
III. Divine tenderness for Man’s welfare. God seems to consult man’s convenience, does not rigidly exact what he cannot give or do. He is no hard taskmaster, but reasonable in demands (Mat_25:4). We see accommodation to circumstances in the law of sacrifice (Lev_5:7), in rules for commutation (Leviticus 27), and in relaxation of injunctions concerning meat (Deu_12:21). The spirit of the command is more important than the letter. For if there be first a willing mind it is accepted, according “to that a man hath, and not according to that a man hath not.” (2Co_8:12).
CHARITY AT HOME.—Deu_14:28-29
Every third year the tithe was to be devoted to works of charity at home. “Lay it up within thy gates.”
I. Dispensed to the needy. Widows and orphans, helpless and forsaken, are real objects of charity. “To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction” is a part of New Testament religion. (Jas_1:27). Our guests are to be invited from the ranks of the poor. “When thou makest a dinner or supper call not thy friends, lest they bid thee again; but the poor, the maimed, for they cannot recompense thee.” (Lev_14:12-14).
II. Dispensed in a spirit of gratitude. The rich should be thankful to be able to give, and the poor grateful to receive. God gives no scanty measure to us. Increase of family and of stock, corn and wine in rich abundance. We should cherish a deep sense of our unworthiness, a constant dependence upon the Divine bounty, and to feel that we are the stewards only of the treasures which heaven has put into our hands. “Who am I and what is my people, that we should be able to offer so willingly after this sort? for all things come of Thee, and of thine own have we given Thee.”
III. Dispensed under the blessing of God. “That the Lord thy God may bless thee.” We better enjoy what we have by sharing it with others. There is exquisite delight in acts of kindness. That which is cordially devoted to the cause of God and the benefit of man, lives, in its blessed influence, in human hearts—in immortal fruits—of earthly virtues, in perpetual memorial before God and in eternal harvest of joy. “What I saved I lost; what I spent I had; what I gave I have,” said J. J. Gurney. “It is more blessed to give than to receive.”
Man is God’s image: but a poor man is
Christ’s stamp to boot. Both images regard.
God reckons for him; counts the favour His.
Write “So much given to God.” Thou shalt be heard.
Let thy alms go before, and keep heaven’s gate
Open for thee; or both may come too late.
HERBERT.
HOMILETIC HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS
Deu_14:21. Holy peoble. He hath aevered you from the mass of the profane world, and picked you out to be jewels for Himself; He hath set you apart for thiv end, that you may be holy to Him, as the Hebrew word that signifiea holiness imports setting apart, or fitting for a peculiar use; be not then untrue to his design, He hath not called you to uncleannsse, but unto holiness (1 Thes. iv. 7). Therefore be ye holy. It is sacrilege for you to disposeof yourselves after the impure manner of the world, and to a ply yourselves to any profatie use, whom God hath consecrated to Himself.—Abp. Lsighton.
Deu_14:23. The Lord thy God. “This is very emphatic, expressive not only of a truth, but of a privilege, and of a special privilege. It imports more than some who have been denominated rational divines are willing to allow—not simply that Jehovah is our Creator, Preserver, and Sovereign, our Protector, the object of our worship, of our supreme love and adoration; but properly, that he is our portion by a peculiar covenant relation. As an evidence of this, it deserves to be remarked, that He never proclaims Himself nor is He ever styled in Scripture, “the God of Angels.” It must be by virtue of some spiritual transaction, such as never took place with angels, and in which they have no share, that He proclaims Himself our God—all that God or Deity can be to us.”
Deu_14:22. The law of the tithe.
1. A. Divine apointment.
2. A rule of Christian liberality. “All the tithe of the land, whether of the seed of the land, or the fruit of the tree is the Lords; it is Holy unto the Lord.” Lev_27:30 (cf. 2Ch_31:5-6; 2Ch_31:12, Neh_13:12).
Consecrated Funds—how secured; how applied; what results from the application.
Deu_14:21; Deu_14:26-27. Social joy in sacrificial meals.
1. Its nature. “before the Lord.” In His presence, under His control, and bestowed by His mercy. “The joy of the Lord.” “True joy is a serious thing,” says Bonar.
2. Its participators. Levites, strangers, fatherless and widows (Deu_14:29), representatives of God. “God hath left His poor saints to receive His rents.”—Gurnall.
3. Its aim. Not for mere display nor popularity. (a) To sanctify home joy. “That mayest learn to fear the Lord thy God. (b) To secure God’s favour. “That the Lord may bless thee.” “A kind action is never lost.” “Kindness begets kindness.” “He that hath pity upon the poor lendeth unto the Lord; and that which he hath given will He pay him again” (Pro_19:17).
Deu_14:24-29. The conscientious discharge of religious duty.
1. God will have no excuses for disobedience.
2. He makes provision against difficulties in the path of obedience.
3. The spirit of the law may be observed when obedience to the letter is impossible. This is accepted as a real and full obedience.—Bib. Museum.
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 14
Deu_14:1. Shall not. The Christian must not attempt to go with the current of a sinful world; if he does, it will not only hinder, but end his religious progress; but he must go against it, and then every effort of his soul will surely be upward, heavenward, Godward.—Dr. Davies.
Deu_14:2. Holy people. When courtiers come down into the country, the common home-bred people possibly think their habits strange; but they care not for that. “It is the fashion at court.” What need then have the Godly to be so tender-foreheaded, to be out of countenance because the world looks on holiness as a singularity? It is the only fashion in the highest court—yea of the King of Kings, Himself.—Salter.
Deu_14:3-20. Eat. Our nature is so intensely symbolical, that where the outward sign of defilement becomes habitual, the innner is too apt to correspond.—(Mrs Stowe). Clean. Not only man had become unclean, but the irrational creation as well. Sin struck the universe with leprosy to its very heart. Neither four-footed beast, nor bird, nor reptile, escaped the contagion. The animal creation, therefore, needs to be made clean. Now a certain portion of the human world—the Hebrew nation—has been made clean unto God; but the clean nation must have clean food. Behold, then, a small proportion of the rational and irrational creation made clean by the establishment of the kingdom of God; the remainder of the world, however, continues still in its impurity. But the Gospel undertakes the task of cleansing the whole universe.—Cynddyhan Jones.
Deu_14:9. Fins and scales are the means by which the excrescences of fish are carried oft, the same as in animals by perspiration. I have never known an instance of disease by eating such fish; but those that have no fins or scales cause, in hot climates, the most malignant disorders when eaten; in many cases they prove a mortal poison.—Whitlaw.
Deu_14:20. All clean. The good things of Providence may be considered as having this inscription, accipe, redde, cave, that is, “accept us as from God, return us in gratitude to him, and take care not to abuse us.”—Wilson.
Deu_14:21. Stranger in gate. We read in our chronicles of King Oswald, that as he sat at table when a fair silver dish, full of regal delicacies was set before him, and he ready to fall to, hearing from his almoner that there were great store of poor at his gates, piteously crying out for some relief, he did not fill them with words, as “God help them,” “God relieve them!” etc., but commanded his steward presently to take the dish off the table and distribute the meat, then beat the dish all in pieces and cast it among them.—Holdsworth.
Deu_14:22-27. Tithe. It is said of Dr. Samuel Wright that his charity was conducted upon rule; for which purpose he kept a purse, in which was found this memorandum:—“Something from all the money I receive to be put into this purse for charitable puposes. From my salary as minister, which is uncertain, a tenth part—from occasional and extraordinary gifts, which are more uncertain, a twentieth part—from copy money of things I print and interest of my estate, a seventh part.”—Buck.
Deu_14:29. The Lord thy God. A friend calling upon the Rev. Ebenezer Erskine, during his last illness, said to him, “Sir, you have given us many good advices, pray what are you now doing with your own soul?” “I am doing with it,” said he, “what I did forty years ago; I am resting on that word, ‘I am the Lord thy God,’ and on this I mean to die.”
Should boundless wealth increase my store,
Can wealth my cares beguile?
I should be wretched still, and poor,
Without thy blissful smile.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain I. The simplest meaning of this inspired charge is…
Deu 14:21
I. The simplest meaning of this inspired charge is the true one: Thou shalt not blunt thy natural feelings or those of others by disregarding the inward dictates of a Divine humanity. Human nature shrinks from the idea of using that which ought to be the food of a new-born animal to prepare that animal to be man’s food, of applying the mother’s milk to a purpose so opposite to that for which God destined it. Harden not thy heart against this instinct of tenderness and pity on the plea that it matters not to the slain animal in what way it is dressed, or that the living parent, void of reason, has no consciousness of the inhumanity; for thine own sake refrain from that which is hard-hearted and unfeeling, from that which, though it inflicts not pain, springs out of selfishness and indicates a spirit unworthy of man and forgetful of God.
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II. The text seems to teach us most of all the wickedness of using for selfish or wrong purposes the sacred feelings of another; of availing ourselves of the knowledge of another’s affections to make him miserable or to make him sinful; of trifling, in this sense, with the most delicate workings of the human mechanism, and turning to evil account that insight into character with which God has endowed us all, in different degrees, for purposes most opposite, purposes wholly beneficent, pure, and good.
III. Hardness of heart has two aspects: towards man and towards God. Towards God it is brought about by acts of neglect, leading to habits of neglect. Towards man it is produced in us in a similar way: by repeated acts of disregard, leading to a habit of disregard, by blinding ourselves to others’ feelings and saying and doing things that wound them, till at last we become unconscious of their very existence, and think nothing real which is not, in some manner, our own. Watch and pray against hardness of heart. "Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ."
C. J. Vaughan, Memorials of Harrow Sundays, p. 138.
Reference: Deu 15:1-11.—Parker, vol. iv., p. 238.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain Disfigurings for Mourning Forbidden. Clean and Unclean Meats specified
Disfigurings for Mourning Forbidden. Clean and Unclean Meats specified
1. Practices connected with idolatry: see on Lev_19:27, Lev_19:28.
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2. The foundation of the entire moral and ceremonial law is contained in this and the preceding verse. Israel is the people whom Jehovah has chosen and called His children. As such they must be holy: see intro. to Leviticus 17-26.
3-20. On the law of clean and unclean beasts, see Lev_1:1 and notes.
5. The pygarg is probably a kind of antelope. The exact meaning of the Hebrew word is doubtful, as it only occurs in this passage. As the chamois is unknown in Palestine, a species of wild mountain sheep is probably meant.
21. That dieth of itself] For the meaning of this prohibition see on Lev_17:10-16; On the prohibition to seethe a Md in its mother's milk see on Exo_23:19.
22. The produce of the soil is to be tithed and the tithe eaten at the central sanctuary, except when this is inconvenient on account of distance (Deu_14:24), in which case the tithe is to be turned into money, and spent on a sacrificial feast to which the Levites are to be invited (Deu_14:25-27). Every third year the whole tithe is to be devoted to charity. According to the law in Num_18:21 the tithe is given to the Levites exclusively. It has been supposed that the tithe in Deuteronomy is a second tithe, different from that in Numbers, and made after the first, or Levite's tithe, has been deducted from the produce. But, as no mention is made of more tithes than one, the different destination of the tithes may be considered as indicating different stages of legislation. In later times, however, a distinction was made between the first and second tithes, the first being devoted to the Levites, and the second consumed by the offerer.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain 10. The Children of God and Their Separation
10. The Children of God and Their Separation
CHAPTER 14
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1. The declaration of relationship: A holy people (Deu 14:1-2)
2. Their food as a separated people (Deu 14:3-21)
3. Concerning tithes (Deu 14:22-29)
Ye are the children of the Lord your God. Because God had chosen them to be a peculiar people unto Himself, above all the other nations, they were to be an holy people. To them belongeth still “the adoption” (Rom 9:4). God called Israel His firstborn son and that nation holds that place, in the divine purpose, among the nations. Sonship, in the New Testament, bestowed upon the individual believer, who is possessed by the Spirit of Sonship (the Holy Spirit) and who is an heir of God and joint-heir with Christ, is infinitely higher, than Israel’s national and earthly calling. Therefore our responsibility is so much greater. The children of the Lord were not to participate in the sinful customs of the heathen, who have no hope. No disfigurement as mentioned in the first verse was permitted. The Lord whom they served is a Lord of life; they belonged wholly to Him; they were not their own. To sorrow like those who have no hope is also forbidden in the New Testament (1Th 4:13). Then follows once more the reminder concerning the clean and the unclean. See Leviticus 11 and the annotations. The laws concerning the food Israel was to eat and to abstain from were given in Leviticus to Moses and Aaron; in Deuteronomy the whole congregation hears these instructions. A number of animals are also mentioned in Deuteronomy, which we do not find in Leviticus. Thus their separation is once more emphasized. They belonged to a holy Lord and were to be an holy people. We have for our food the living Bread, which came down from heaven. And as we feed on Christ, abiding in Him, we become also like Him. It has been well said “for a Christian to participate in the vanities and follies of a sinful world would be to use a typical phrase, like an Israelite eating that which had died by itself.” How sad the condition of the great majority of those who profess Christianity, who run after this present evil age and are conformed to it!
The tithe mentioned in verses 22-29 is peculiar to Deuteronomy and forms one of the supplementary laws. Israel and the land, they were to possess, belong to Jehovah. The tithe gave expression to the fact of the proprietorship of the Lord. And when they came before Jehovah to eat before Him in the spot where He had placed His Name, they owned in His presence all His goodness and mercies and rejoiced in the Lord. Verses 28 and 29 are more fully developed in chapter 26:12-19. Annotations are given there on the happy scene when, at the end of every third year, the Levite, the stranger, the fatherless and the widow were to eat and be satisfied.
There is a gathering place for His people in the New Testament. “Where two or three are gathered together in My Name there am I in the midst of them.” And when we remember His love at His table, we rejoice in Him and He rejoices in us. But the gathering of Israel in connection with the tithe also looks forward to the coming days when there will be a gathering for Israel and the nations. See Isa 2:1-4; Isa 11:10; Zec 14:16-17.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain Of Unclean Beasts
Of Unclean Beasts
v. 1. Ye are the children of the Lord, your God, and this relation toward the covenant God made them a people of property, of God’s possession, a peculiar people; ye shall not cut yourselves, make incisions in the flesh, nor make any baldness between your eyes for the dead, as a sign of mourning, Lev 19:28.
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v. 2. For thou art an holy people unto the Lord, thy God, and the Lord hath chosen thee to be a peculiar people unto Himself, above all the nations that are upon the earth. For this reason the entire life of the people was to be governed by the obedience, veneration, and childlike confidence which God expected of them and which was to show itself even in the matters of every-day life.
v. 3. Thou shalt not eat any abominable thing, namely, such things as He loathed because they offended His holiness. This section is mainly a repetition of Leviticus 11.
v. 4. These are the beasts which ye shall eat, which would not bring Levitical uncleanness upon them: the ox, the sheep, and the goat,
v. 5. the hart, the common deer of Palestine, and the roebuck, or antelope, and the fallow deer, a sort of mountain sheep, and the wild goat, a species of gazelle, and the pygarg, a small gazelle, and the wild ox, and the chamois, a species of deer of the mountains.
v. 6. And every beast that parteth the hoof, and cleaveth the cleft into two claws, distinct from the front to the rear, and cheweth the cud among the beasts, that ye shall eat, whether true ruminants or not.
v. 7. Nevertheless these ye shall not eat of them that chew the cud, or of them that divide the cloven hoof: as the camel, the rear of whose padded foot is an undivided, yielding ball, and the hare, and the coney, Lev 11:5-6: for they chew the cud, make the movements characteristic of ruminating, but divide not the hoof; therefore they are unclean unto you.
v. 8. And the swine, because it divideth the hoof, yet cheweth not the cud, it is unclean unto you; ye shall not eat of their flesh nor touch their dead carcass, Lev 11:26-27.
v. 9. These ye shall eat of all that are in the waters: all that have fins and scales shall ye eat, such animals as are commonly regarded as true fish;
v. 10. and whatsoever hath not fins and scales ye may not eat; it is unclean unto you.
v. 11. of all clean birds ye shall eat.
v. 12. But these are they of which ye shall not eat: the eagle, and the ossifrage, and the osprey,
v. 13. and the glede, and the kite, and the vulture after his kind,
v. 14. and every raven after his kind,
v. 15. and the owl, or rather, the ostrich, and the night-hawk, and the cuckoo, a species of gull, and the hawk after his kind,
v. 16. the little owl, and the great owl, or the ibis, and the swan, or rather, a species of owl,
v. 17. and the pelican, and the gier eagle, and the cormorant,
v. 18. and the stork, and the heron after her kind, and the lapwing, and the bat. Cf Lev 11:13-19, The list includes such birds and flying animals, as either tear their prey to pieces or feed on carrion and offal.
v. 19. And every creeping thing that flieth, reptiles and insects, with the exception of the locusts mentioned Lev 11:21-22, is unclean unto you; they shall not be eaten.
v. 20. But of all clean fowls ye may eat.
v. 21. Ye shall not eat of anything that dieth of itself, a beast that dies of some sickness or accident; thou shalt give it unto the stranger that is in thy gates that he may eat it, he could use it for food, if he chose; or thou mayest sell it unto an alien, a person not a member of Israel; for thou art an holy people unto the Lord, thy God, wherefore they should abstain from all foods which the Lord loathed. Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother’s milk, Exo 23:19; Exo 34:26. The distinction between foods is no longer a matter of God’s command, Act 10:15, but His warning against every form of spiritual contamination is just as strict as ever, 1Th 4:4.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 General Information:
General Information:
Moses continues speaking to the people of Israel.
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You are the people ... you are a nation ... has chosen you
All occurrences of "you" refer to the people of Israel. Moses was included as a part of the people. AT: "We are the people ... we are a nation ... has chosen us"
Do not cut yourselves, nor shave any part of your face for the dead
These were ways the people groups living in Canaan showed that they were grieving over people who had died. Moses is telling the people of Israel not to act like them. The full meaning of this statement can be made explicit. (See: Symbolic Action and Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)
nor shave any part of your face
"nor shave the front of your head"
For you are a nation ... surface of the earth
See how you translated these words in Deuteronomy 7:6.
you are a nation that is set apart to Yahweh your God
Yahweh choosing the people of Israel to belong to him in a special way is spoken of as if Yahweh set them apart from all other nations. This can be stated in active form. AT: "Yahweh your God has set you apart from other nations" (See: Metaphor and Active or Passive)
Yahweh has chosen you to be a people for his own possession
This means basically the same thing as the first part of the sentence. They both mean that the people of Israel belong to Yahweh in a special way. (See: Parallelism)
a people for his own possession
"a people for his treasured possession" or "his people"
more than all peoples that are on the surface of the earth
"out of all the people groups in the world"
translationWords
people of God
Yahweh
die
set apart
God
chosen one
possess
earth
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 14:1-21 See “Clean, Unclean, and Holy” Theme Note.
14:1-21 See “Clean, Unclean, and Holy” Theme Note.
14:1 cut yourselves: This pagan custom was usually associated with mourning rites, perhaps to induce the dead to come back to life (see 1 Kgs 18:28; Zech 13:4-6). • shave the hair: This practice also pertained to lament for the dead (see Lev 19:27-28; 21:5-6), but the exact meaning of this rite is unknown.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.