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Deuteronomy 14:1-2

Moses continues instructing the Israelites in the law, by showing fidelity to Yahweh excludes anything resembling Canaanite practices.  As children of God, they were to be holy to the Lord and set apart in the world.  They were not to adopt practices from the culture around them.  One of these practices to be excluded was mourning and dealing with death.

We can see in the story of Lazarus’s death in the gospel of John that there were rituals and customs associated with death.  Mourning was important to them.  The body was prepared and buried immediately.  Some of the customs were adopted because it was practical.  They believed that the person's soul hovered near the body for three days, looking for an opportunity to re-enter the body.  After three days, the stench from corruption became obvious.  The tomb was sealed, and the soul moved on, understanding there was no longer a chance of entering the decaying body.

Some of the practices of mourning were very private and hard to regulate.  Memorializing the dead was important to the culture.  However, Moses put a boundary around this.  He warned them not to cut themselves for the dead like those worshiping Baal.  This was a widespread practice in the Middle East along with shaving the head.  God prohibited such behavior so as not to be associated with other gods and their practices.

These practices were probably understood differently in different cultures. Some scholars think that they were believed to have an effect on the ghost of the dead person, either as offerings of blood and hair to strengthen the ghost in the nether world or to assuage the ghost’s jealousy of the living by showing it how grief-stricken they are. These rites could also be acts of self-punishment expressing feelings of guilt, which are often experienced by survivors after a death. Beating the breast is a mild and permitted way of expressing such feelings, while gashing and pulling out hair is extreme and, therefore, forbidden.

Tigay, J. H. (1996). Deuteronomy (p. 136). Jewish Publication Society.

Israel was the Lord’s special treasure.  This was a widely known phrase normally used as a claim by kings claiming they were a special treasure to their god.  The nation is designated as a special treasure by their God.  Notice they were a treasure “above all the peoples on the face of the earth.”  A people group freed from being subject to a king and placed under subjection to God was given sacred status.  Israel is a kingdom of priests serving a priestly role to the nations. 

Deuteronomy 14:3-21

The dietary restriction would remain in place when they entered the land.  Even though in verse 12 they could slaughter from their herds and flocks without taking the animal to the temple.  They were not to eat the detestable things.  Detestable means loathsome, abhorrent, or abominable as determined by God, not man. 

• Animals from the herds
• Animals with split hoof and that chews the cud
• Fish with fins and scales
• Clean Birds (birds that don’t eat dead things)
• Creeping things that fly are unclean – but Leviticus makes an exception for those that have jointed legs, so locusts, crickets, and grasshoppers are permitted as food.

An animal that died from natural causes was restricted for food.  It’s blood would not have been properly drained.  This seemed like a waste of meat.  The Lord allowed it to be given to the alien or be sold to the foreigner.

The prohibition against cooking a young goat in its mother’s milk doesn’t show up in Leviticus’ dietary law.  It is first seen in Exodus 23:19.  This is likely something the Canaanite cults did in their worship.  Although there may be other considerations.

Meat boiled in sour milk (leben) was probably regarded as a delicacy, as it is by Arabs, since it is tastier and more tender than meat boiled in water. The point of this prohibition is that the animal’s own mother’s milk may not be used. It is similar to the rules against slaughtering cattle on the same day as their young and capturing a mother bird along with her fledglings or her eggs, and the requirement that newborn cattle remain with their mothers at least a week before they may be sacrificed. All of these rules have the humanitarian aim of preventing acts of insensitivity against animals. It is likely, therefore, that the present rule also applied to lambs and calves, and that kids are mentioned only because goats were the most commonly owned type of cattle or because their meat is most in need of tenderizing and flavoring.  [Tigay, J. H. (1996). Deuteronomy (p. 140). Jewish Publication Society.]

Deuteronomy 14:22-27

The requirements of the tithe are also found in Numbers18:20-24, and it designates the tithe for the Levites.  The tithe was both a tax and a means of worship.  It was a representative portion brought before the Lord as if to say, “Lord, it’s all yours!”  All the grain, new wine, oil, and the firstborn of the herds and flocks were to be tithed to the Lord.  This may presume a thank offering made before the Lord and eaten gratefully in worship to the Lord that had blessed them greatly.

The tithe was to be brought before the Lord at the Tabernacle.  Here, it says it was to be eaten before the Lord there.  Where in Numbers it speaks of the tithe as the Levitical provision. 

If a person was too far away to take all those tithes to the Lord, then they could sell the tithe and take cash their money to the temple and buy animals to offer their sacrifices and tithes to the Lord.  Then they were to eat there before the Lord.

Moses once again reminds the people that their tithes were the provision of the Levites.  They were not to forget their responsibility. 

All this was done so that they may learn to fear the Lord.  Do our tithes have the same purpose?

Deuteronomy 14:28-29

The interests of the poor and needy are bound up with the interest of God.  His heart for those who were without someone to care, provide, or guard them is apparent in the law.  In addition, His car for the Levites who received the Lord as an inheritance is visible in His commands.

This appears to be a modification of the original law of tithing.  Every third year, the tithes would be kept in a local storehouse to provide for the Levite, the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow.  This may have been managed by different tribes or regions rotating their third year so the provision to the tabernacle priests was stable and consistent.

Like all the commands of God, this is linked to God’s blessing toward them.  To hold back the tithe was to remove God’s blessing from the work of your hand.  (Mal 3:8-10)

©2007, 2023 Doug Ford, Calvary Chapel Sweetwater