Deuteronomy 26

labourers be suitably recompensed; and, by parity of reason, ministers, who are instrumental to men’s salvation, should be maintained comfortably at their expense.—In all our actions we ought to aim at the good of those around us, especially of the Lord’s people; and to promote the continuance of true religion in the next generation, and its diffusion into those places which are at present destitute of it: and in contracting marriage particularly we should “‘seek a godly seed,’ who may preserve the name of deceased believers, and fill up their places in the church; in every way showing respect to dead, as kindness to living relatives: for whatever disgrace we, without cause, put upon others, will in the event rebound upon ourselves.—A solemn and testified ratification ought to distinguish the honourable relation of marriage from all illicit connexions; and married persons should be known as such, to preserve them and others from temptation: and though affections cannot be forced, yet they should be subordinated to reason and religion.—The customs and manners of different ages may render that consistent with female delicacy at one time, which would not be deemed so at another: but there are certain outrages to modesty, which no age can tolerate, no provocation or extremity palliate; but which must ever be branded with infamy, and should be punished with unpitying severity.—Every kind and degree of fraud is abhorred by the righteous God, and should be dreaded by us; for dishonest gain always brings a curse upon men’s property, families, and souls: and the day of judgment will bring strange things to light in this respect.

Happy they who now judge themselves; and thus repent, and forsake their sins, that they may not be condemned at that awful season.—Let every persecutor and injurer of the Lord’s people hear, and take warning from the example of the Amalekites: however they now cast off the fear of God, and behave with cruelty and despite to the meek and poor; he will one day plead the cause of his servants, avenge all the injustice done them, and “blot out the name of every enemy from under heaven:” and the longer judgment tarries, the more dreadful will be its execution at last.— T°. Scott. CuHap. XXVI. Ver. 1—19. The covenant between Israel and their God.—The law of first-fruits we have had before; ((Exodus 22:19).3; xxxiv. 26. (Numbers 18:13).) but there is something very pathetic and devotional in the manner in which the subject is here introduced; for the words in fact contain the confession which every Israelite was to make when he brought his basket of first-fruits, and set it down before the altar. “A Syrian ready to perish was my father.” The three great patriarchs were in fact all Syrians, (or Aramites:) but this evidently refers to the case of Jacob, when he fled from the face of his brother Esau, and with his staff only passed the Jordan, and was glad to enter the service of his uncle Laban as a shepherd, for subsistence. The purport of this confession is an acknowledgment of their humble origin and that they owed all their increase, both in numbers and property, to the fostering hand of that kind Providence, which had led them in all their wanderings, guarded them in all their dangers, and supplied them in all their necessities; and is therefore entitled to the first-fruits of their fields and of their [increase]. But joy and benevolence must be mingled with our gratitude: and certainly no man enjoys the blessings of Providence like him who possesses a grateful and a generous heart.

The ungrateful man loses the zest of his enjoyments: while the charitable and benevolent have a double relish of them, in partaking and in communicating. In what follows, the Israelite was required to declare his conformity to the injunctions of the Mosaic law, especially in his regard to the rights of charity:—“to the Levite who had no inheritance, to the stranger who had no home, and to the poor who had no property.” The prayer in ver. 15, “Look down from thy holy habitation,” &c. is very sublime; and the following summary of the covenant between Israel and Jehovah their God, needs no commentary to render it most interesting to every Christian, as it points out the great design of God as to us, and the summary of our duty as to God, in one word—Holiness!

Notes on the verses

Chap. XXVI. Ver. 5. A Syrian.—[Aramæan word here, which has been variously rendered both by ancient and modern translators. The LXX. has, “My father abandoned Syria;” Vulgate, “A Syrian persecuted my father;” Targum of Onkelos, “Laban the Syrian sought to destroy my father.” However, the common version, however, is preferable; Jacob being called a Syrian from his long residence in Padan-aram.—Bagster.] Ver. 12. When thou hast made an end of tithing, &c.—This relates to the second tithing, mentioned (Deuteronomy 14:22-29). The very learned Mede thus explains the different tithings: “‘Two years together they = the Levites’ tithe, and the festival tithe; but in the third year, they paid the Levites’ tithe, and the poor man’s tithe; that is, what was wont in other years to be spent in