I have not eaten thereof in my mourning, neither have I taken away ought thereof for any unclean use, nor given ought thereof for the dead: but I have hearkened to the voice of the LORD my God, and have done according to all that thou hast commanded me.

I have not eaten thereof in my mourning - in a season of sorrow, which brought defilement upon sacred things; according to a second class of commentators-`I have not eaten thereof, under a pretence of poverty, and grudging to give any away to the poor;' according to a third class, the words expressed a repudiation of an idolatrous custom of the Egyptians, who, in offering their first-fruits to Isis, invoked that deity in mournful strains.

Neither ... for any unclean use - i:e., any common purpose, different from what God had appointed, and which would have been a desecration of it.

Nor given ought thereof for the dead - on any funeral service, or, as some refer the words, to an idol, which is a dead thing-a lifeless image, or a hero deified after his decease.

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