Chapter Twenty-Six

The law on firstfruits and tithes.

Deuteronomy 26:1. When you come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, and you take possession of it and settle in it, Deuteronomy 26:2. you shall take some of the first of all the fruit of the ground that you harvest from the land that the Lord your God is giving you, and you shall put it in a basket, and go to the place that the Lord your God will choose, that his name may dwell there. Deuteronomy 26:3. And you shall go to the priest who is in office at that time and say to him: I declare today before the Lord your God that I have come into the land that the Lord swore to our fathers to give us. Deuteronomy 26:4. The priest shall take the basket from your hand and set it down before the altar of the Lord your God. Deuteronomy 26:5. And you shall respond and say before the Lord your God: My father was a wandering Aramean, and he went down to Egypt and lived there as a foreigner with few people, and there he became a nation — great, mighty, and numerous; Deuteronomy 26:6. but the Egyptians dealt harshly with us and oppressed us and laid upon us hard labor; Deuteronomy 26:7. and we cried out to the Lord the God of our fathers, and the Lord heard our voice and saw our misery, our toil, and our oppression; Deuteronomy 26:8. and the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with great terror, and with signs and wonders, Deuteronomy 26:9. and he brought us to this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey; Deuteronomy 26:10. And now, behold, I have brought the firstfruits of the ground that you, O Lord, have given me, from a land flowing with milk and honey. And you shall set it before the Lord your God, and worship before the Lord your God, Deuteronomy 26:11. and you shall rejoice in all the good things that the Lord your God has given to you and to your household — you, and the Levite, and the foreigner who is among you. At the feast of Passover the offering of the first sheaf was made (Lev 23:10-14), and at the feast of Weeks (Pentecost) the offering of the first loaves from new grain (Lev 23:15-17). The verses under commentary mark a new type of offering, whose time and quantity the law does not specify, leaving these to the discretion and pious disposition of the offerant. The patriarch Jacob is called “a wandering Aramean” because he spent a long time with the flocks of his father-in-law Laban in the country called Aram. The Greek-Slavonic text gives a different reading: the LXX has Συρίαν ἀπεβαλεν ο πατηρ μοῦ, the Slavonic — “Syria abandoned my father.” Probably the LXX read not “arammi obed (avi)” as in the Masoretic text, but “Aram (Syria) jobed (avi).”

Deuteronomy 26:12. When you have finished tithing all the produce of your ground in the third year, the year of tithing, and have given it to the Levite, the foreigner, the orphan, and the widow, so that they may eat within your towns and be satisfied, Deuteronomy 26:13. then you shall say before the Lord your God: I have removed from my house what was sacred and have given it to the Levite, the foreigner, the orphan, and the widow, in accordance with all your commandments that you commanded me; I have not transgressed your commandments and I have not forgotten; Deuteronomy 26:14. I have not eaten of it while in mourning, and I have not removed any of it while unclean, and I have not given any of it to the dead; I have obeyed the voice of the Lord my God, I have done everything you have commanded me; Deuteronomy 26:15. Look down from your holy dwelling, from the heavens, and bless your people Israel and the land that you have given us — as you swore to our fathers to give us a land flowing with milk and honey. See the note to Deut 12:6-14. “I have not eaten of it while in mourning”: mourning is incompatible with the meaning of a joyful offering to the Lord from the firstfruits of those blessings with which he has endowed the person. “I have not removed any of it while unclean,” that is, while in a state of purification from defilement (Lev 7:21-22). “I have not given any of it to the dead,” according to the custom of pagans who brought food to the graves of the dead and held funeral feasts there (Ephrem the Syrian, Commentary on Deut., ch. XXVI).