Chapter Twelve

Moses’ charge to the people to eliminate all traces and manifestations of idol worship in the promised land. — Safeguarding the statute on sacrifices and the unity of the place of worship.

Deuteronomy 12:3. and you shall tear down their altars and shatter their pillars and burn their groves with fire, and cut down the carved images of their gods, and destroy their name from that place. “Pillar” (“massebah”) — a wooden cylindrical image in honor of Astarte; “grove” (Russian) or “oak grove” (Slavonic), Hebrew “asherah” — branching trees (cf. Hos 4:13) with altars in honor of the same goddess. “To destroy their name from that place,” so as to wipe out even the memory of the idol worship that had taken place there. This is what the Reubenites did, for example, by changing the names of the cities Nebo and Baal-meon (Num 32:38).

Deuteronomy 12:5. but to the place that the Lord your God will choose from all your tribes to make His name dwell there, you shall go and come, That is, to the place where the tabernacle would reside and later the temple.

Deuteronomy 12:6. and there you shall bring your burnt offerings and your sacrifices, your tithes and the contribution of your hands, your vows and your freewill offerings, [and your peace offerings,] and the firstborn of your herds and your flocks; Deuteronomy 12:7. and you shall eat there before the Lord your God, and you shall rejoice, you and your households, in all that you undertake, in which the Lord your God has blessed you. Deuteronomy 12:8. You must not do everything as we are doing here today, everyone doing whatever seems right to him; Deuteronomy 12:9. for you have not yet come to the resting place and to the inheritance that the Lord your God is giving you. Deuteronomy 12:10. But when you cross the Jordan and settle in the land that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, and when He gives you rest from all your enemies around you, and you live in security, Deuteronomy 12:11. then to the place that the Lord your God will choose, to make His name dwell there, you shall bring everything that I am commanding you [today]: your burnt offerings and your sacrifices, your tithes and the contribution of your hands, and all your choice vow offerings that you have promised to the Lord [your God]; Deuteronomy 12:12. and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God, you and your sons and your daughters, your male servants and female servants, and the Levite who is within your settlements, for he has no portion or inheritance with you. Deuteronomy 12:13. Take care that you do not offer your burnt offerings in every place that you see; Deuteronomy 12:14. but only in the place that the Lord [your God] will choose in one of your tribes, you shall offer your burnt offerings and do everything that I command you [today]. Deuteronomy 12:17. You may not eat within your settlements the tithe of your grain or of your wine or of your oil, or the firstborn of your herd or of your flock, or any of your vow offerings that you have promised, or your freewill offerings, or the contribution of your hands; Deuteronomy 12:18. but you shall eat them [only] before the Lord your God in the place that the Lord your God will choose — you and your son and your daughter, your male servant and female servant, and the Levite [and the sojourner] who is within your settlements — and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God in all that you undertake. Deuteronomy 12:19. Take care that you do not neglect the Levite for all the days [that you live] on your land. Deuteronomy 12:26. However, your holy things that you may have, and your vow offerings, you shall take and go to the place that the Lord [your God] will choose [so that His name may be called upon there]; Deuteronomy 12:27. and you shall offer your burnt offerings, the flesh and the blood, on the altar of the Lord your God; but the blood of your other sacrifices shall be poured out beside the altar of the Lord your God, and you shall eat the flesh. When offering their sacrifices at the designated place, the Hebrews were to eat there also the tithes of produce, the firstborn of livestock, and their vow and freewill offerings, inviting the Levites and sojourners to the meal. According to law, tithes went to the benefit of the Levites (Lev 27:30-33; Num 18:20-32); firstborn males belonged to God (Exod 13:1-2); and finally vows, by their very nature, were to belong to the Lord. Yet in the present passage, both tithes and firstborn and vows are said to be eaten by the one who brings them, with the participation of the Levites and the poor. It is evident that what is meant here is not the usual tithes, firstborn, and vows. Commentators suppose that in addition to the tithe mentioned above, which went to the Levites (Lev 27:30-33), there existed a so-called second tithe, which the Hebrews were to devote to works of charity. From Deut 14:22-29 it is apparent that this tithe could be brought to the tabernacle in kind, or (if the tabernacle was far away) converted to money, which was then used for charitable purposes. Every two years out of three the second tithe could be eaten at home (not at the tabernacle), with the Levites and the poor invited to the meal (Theodoret, Commentary on Deuteronomy, qq. 10, 13).

Deuteronomy 12:15. However, whenever you desire, you may slaughter and eat meat within any of your settlements, according to the blessing of the Lord your God that He has given you; the unclean and the clean alike may eat it, as they eat the gazelle and the deer; Deuteronomy 12:16. only you shall not eat the blood; pour it out on the ground like water. Deuteronomy 12:20. When the Lord your God enlarges your territory, as He has promised you, and you say: “I will eat meat,” because you desire to eat meat — then you may eat meat whenever you desire. Deuteronomy 12:21. If the place that the Lord your God will choose to make His name dwell there is too far from you, then you may slaughter from your herd and flock that the Lord [your God] has given you, as I have commanded you, and you may eat within your settlements, whatever you desire; Deuteronomy 12:22. but eat them just as the gazelle and the deer are eaten; both the unclean and the clean [among you] may eat them; Deuteronomy 12:23. only be strong and steadfast in not eating the blood, for the blood is the life; do not eat the life together with the flesh; Deuteronomy 12:24. you shall not eat it; pour it out on the ground like water; Deuteronomy 12:25. you shall not eat it, so that it may go well with you and with your children after you [forever], if you do [what is good and] right in the sight of the Lord [your God]. In the wilderness it was forbidden to slaughter a clean animal except at the tabernacle, that is, as a sacrifice to the Lord (Lev 17); but upon entering the promised land the Israelites received the right, “whenever they desired, to slaughter (wherever they wished) and eat the flesh” of clean animals given to them “by the blessing of the Lord.” Such a meal did not have the character of a sacrifice: “the unclean and the clean” could eat it, just as one eats (the meat of) a gazelle and a deer (v. 15). “Only do not eat the blood,” the lawgiver notes, “pour it out on the ground like water, for the blood is the life; do not eat the life together with the flesh” (vv. 16, 23). In consideration of the need for more nourishing food for human nature weakened by sin, the Hebrews receive a confirmation of their right (Gen 9:3) to eat meat, but at the same time receive also the warning that God gave when blessing meat as food (Gen 9:4-5). Blood, as the condition of the vitality of the bodily organism (in Lev 17:14 we read: “the life of every body is its blood”) and also as a symbol of the principle of life in general, was to be sacred in the eyes of a Hebrew. In the ordinances concerning Old Testament sacrifices, the blood of sacrificial animals is assigned a purifying significance: “the life of the body is in the blood,” says the Lord, “and I have designated it for you for the altar, to make atonement for your lives, for this blood makes atonement for the life” (Lev 17:11). It makes atonement, of course, not by itself, but by virtue of the moral disposition that the repentant sinner who offered the sacrifice was to experience, and above all by virtue of its typological relationship to the redemptive blood of the New Testament Lamb. In the opinion of Theodoret, the prohibition against eating the blood of clean animals “heals in the Israelites their tendency toward bloodshed. Indeed, if eating the blood of irrational animals was considered ‘eating the life,’ then it is all the more unlawful to separate the rational soul from the body” (Commentary on Deuteronomy, question 11). In the book Gen 9:5, immediately after the fifth verse, we find the meaningful words: “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for man is made in the image of God” (Gen 9:6).