Deuteronomy 12:17

Thou mayest not eat within thy gates the tithe of thy corn, or of thy wine, or of thy oil,.... This cannot be understood of the tithe given to the Levites, or of that which the Levites out of theirs

Thou mayest not eat within thy gates the tithe of thy corn, or of thy wine, or of thy oil, or the firstlings of thy herds or of thy flock, nor any of thy vows which thou vowest, nor thy freewill

Thou; either, 1. Thou, O Levite; or rather, 2. Thou, O Israelite, whom he distinguisheth from the Levite, , accordingly as the following particulars agree to the one or to the other of you. Within thy gates, i.e. in your private habitations, here opposed to the place of God’ s worship, . The tithe of thy corn, or of thy wine, or of thy oil. Here seems to be a great difficulty, not yet sufficiently observed nor cleared by interpreters. There were divers kinds of tithes: 1. The tithes given to the Levites out of all, of which ,24 Deuteronomy 14:22 . 2. The tithe of those tithes, which were to be given by the Levites to the priests, of which ,24 Deuteronomy 14:29 . 3. The third year’ s tithe, of which . To which some add another tithe, which they call the second tithe, which they say was taken after the Levites’ tithe was laid by. Now each of these hath its difficulty. It seems this place cannot be understood, 1. Of the Levites’ tithe; partly, because it might seem a great and wholly superfluous trouble to carry all their tithes up to Jerusalem, and to carry them back to their several habitations for their use; partly, because those were holy to the Lord, , and not to be eaten by the people, ; whereas these belonged principally to the people, the Levites being only taken in as accessories to eat with them, as it is here, ; and partly, because those might be eaten in every place, as it is expressly affirmed, Nor, 2. Of the tithe of the tithe, which was the priest’ s; and neither Levites nor others might eat of it, except they were of or in the priest’ s household. Nor, 3. Of the third year’ s tithe, because that was to be eaten within their gates, ,29, as this was not. I do therefore humbly conceive that this is meant of the second tithe, spoken of ; and that this was the very same tithe with that third year’ s tithe, with this only difference, that in the third year they were to eat them together with the Levites within their gates, ,29, but in the two first years they were to eat them, together with the Levites also, in the place of God’ s worship, as it is prescribed here and . And that it is one land the same tithe which is spoken of , and , seems more than probable, both because they are called by the same name, all the tithe of their increase, and because that manifestly looks back to that , and because otherwise every third year the Israelites were to pay three several tithes one after another, which Scripture no where affirms, and it seems to make the people’ s burdens and the Levites’ provisions too great. For the objection taken from ,13, it shall be considered in its place.

(17) The tithe.—This is understood by Jewish commentators of what is called “the second tithe.” The disposal of it is more particularly specified in Deuteronomy 14:22-29. (See also on Deuteronomy 26:12, &c.)

I. First Division of the Laws: on Worship and Religious Institutions—Deuteronomy 12:2 to Deuteronomy 16:17, Deuteronomy 16:21 to Deuteronomy 17:7 Some 16 laws occupying because of their subject the premier place in the Code. 2–28. The Law of the One Altar and its Corollary As we have seen the law of One Sanctuary for Israel was, in the circumstances of that people in the 7th century, an inevitable consequence from the prophetic proclamation of One God for Israel. For the practice of worshipping Him at many shrines, sanctioned by Himself in the earlier period of Israel’s settlement, had, especially as many of the sites chosen were those of the Canaanite worship of local Ba‘alim, tended to break up the people’s belief in His Unity. He became to their minds many Jehovahs (see above on Deuteronomy 6:4); and at the same time their conceptions of Him were degraded by the confusion of His attributes with those of the deities to whose shrines He had succeeded. Therefore as the Unity of Jehovah and His ethical character are the burden of the Miṣ ?wah or Charge introductory to the Code it is appropriate that the first of the laws should be that abolishing the custom of sacrifice at many sanctuaries and limiting His ritual to a single altar. Note, too, how this is immediately followed by a warning against the worship of other gods (Deuteronomy 12:29-31); and that the next laws (Deuteronomy 12:32 to Deuteronomy 13:18) deal with those who entice, or are enticed, to that worship. Nothing could more clearly show how urgently the concentration of the worship of Jehovah was required in the interest of faith in His Unity and in His spiritual nature. How thoroughly such a law contradicts the earlier legislation about altars, as well as the divinely sanctioned practice of sacrifice in Israel after the settlement; and how far it is incompatible with the corresponding laws in P, will appear in the notes. The chapter has some obvious editorial insertions disturbing the connection (Deuteronomy 12:3; Deuteronomy 12:15-16; Deuteronomy 12:32); but there are besides repetitions of the central injunction of the law in the same or similar phraseology and introduced or followed by different reasons for it. A careful analysis shows that these are not due to the discursiveness of one writer, but are statements of the same law from different writers of the same religious school. This conclusion is confirmed by the prevalence in Deuteronomy 12:2-12 of the Pl. and in Deuteronomy 12:13-28 of the Sg. form of address. But even within Deuteronomy 12:2-12 there is a double statement of the central injunction; on the other hand in Deuteronomy 12:13-28 the repetitions are either clearly editorial insertions, or due to the necessity of repeating the central injunction of the law in a practical corollary permitting the non-sacrificial enjoyment of flesh to Israelites, too far from the One Altar to be able regularly to consecrate it there.

17. Thou mayest not eat… the tithe of thy corn — The tithes mentioned differ from those in Leviticus 27:30-32. Those include all the products of the flock, the herd, and the field, and are spoken of as the Lord’s.