Deuteronomy 14:29

the Levite because he is landless and through the abolition of the local shrines has been deprived of his means of subsistence, and of

the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow for they also are landless. D frequently emphasises the duty of caring for them, Deuteronomy 16:11; Deuteronomy 16:14; Deuteronomy 24:17; Deuteronomy 24:19 ff., Deuteronomy 26:12 f.

shall eat and be satisfied Here the words before Jehovahand rejoice, used in connection with the eating of tithes at the Sanctuary, are omitted; for this is not like that, a festal celebration. On the contrary the third year tithe is designed for the common daily sustenance of those poor persons. This secularisation of the tithe (as it would be called to-day) is interesting; see Additional Note.

that the Lord thy God may bless thee Deuteronomy 26:15. Such devotion of the tithe to the poor is a condition of the increase of the crop from which it is made.

Additional Note on Tithes

According to 1 Samuel 8:15; 1 Samuel 8:17, a king if granted to Israel would be expected in conformity with the practice of several ancient monarchies to exact a tithe of his subjects" cereal crops, vines, olives, herds and flocks. No religious offering under the name of tithe appears in the earlier legislation, the Holiness Code (Leviticus 17-26), or Ezekiel. Yet all these require an offering of the firstfruits of the soil: E, Exodus 22:29 (28), thou shalt not delay thy fulness nor thy trickling(see Driver's note), LXX firstfruits of thy threshing-floor and wine-press, like D's law of tithes associated with firstlings, Exodus 22:30 (29); H, Leviticus 23:11 demands merely a sheaf of the firstfruits (reshîth) of harvest; Ezekiel 20:40, I will require your contributions(terumôth) and the firstfruits(reshîth) of your oblations. In the 8th century titheswere offered on the 3rd day of the feast at the royal sanctuary at Bethel (Amos 4:4: see Wellh."s note); and E, Genesis 28:22 ascribes to Jacob at the same sanctuary the promise to God to titheall He would give him.

From these data several inferences have been drawn: (1) that the tithesof D and the later legislation (see below) were the same as the first-fruits (reshîthand bikkurim) of the earlier (Nowack, Hebr. Arch.ii. 257 ff.), cp. the synonymousness of ἀπαρχαί and δεκάται, Dion Halic. i. 23 f. and Philo's ἀπαρχῆς ἀπαρχή for the priests" titheof the Levites" tithein P (De Mut. Nom.1607, Mangey); (2) that the same offering was called firstfruitsat some sanctuaries, tithesat others (Now., G. F. Moore, E.B.art. -Tithes" § 1); (3) that tithesis the later name (W. R. Smith, Rel. Sem.226 ff.); (4) that the use of this name at Bethel, a royal sanctuary, was due to the appropriation of the king's tithe to the support of the shrine, the result of Phoenician influence in N. Israel, for the earliest reference to a religious tithe is Phoenician (ibid.); (5) that these titheswere the material of a feast for not only the offerers but all the worshippers, including the poor, whose rights to them were sometimes cruelly absorbed by the rich (ibid.). What is sure is that from the time of their settlement Israel shared the belief of many primitive peoples (Frazer, Golden Bough2, ii. 459) that they might not enjoy their harvests till they offered the Deity some of the firstfruits. This was done at the local sanctuaries and became the occasion of a joyful feast, in which the officiating priest, the poor and all who had gêr, or guest, rights at the sanctuary would share. At some places these offerings were called tithes, either because it was found to be necessary to fix their proportion to the whole harvest, or because the royal tithewas actually appropriated to the support of the sanctuary and the solemn entertainment of the worshipping guests.

The tithe-laws of D imply that some such custom prevailed at the rural sanctuaries; but like many others it had to be adapted to D's law of One Sanctuary. This was done by dividing the tithe between religious and charitable uses. Two years out of three the Israelite farmer must take the tithe, either in kind or in money, to the one sanctuary and (that he might learn to fear God) eat it there before God, with his household and the Levite, who by the abolition of his shrine had lost his opportunity of eating before God. But this deprived both the latter and the other landless poor of their rights in what had included benefactions for them all. Therefore every third year (see on 28 f.) allthe tithe was to be stored and reserved for their sustenance, without any religious rites, either in the offering of it (except the prayer Deuteronomy 26:12 ff.), or in their enjoyment of it (note the omission in 28 f. of eating before Jehovah). Some think indeed that this third year tithe is the oldest element in D's law and in fact had been the only real tithe (cp. the expression the year of tithing; Deuteronomy 26:12). But all that is older in it is the right of the Levite and the poor and the gçrîmto a share of the annual tithes offered at the local sanctuaries. When these were disestablished and the purely religious interests involved in the tithe could only be satisfied at the One Sanctuary, D compensated the rural Levites and the poor by granting them the whole of the third year's tithe.

In P the tithe-law, Numbers 18:21-32, is very different. All the tithe in Israel, the tithe of the children of Israel which they offer as a contribution to Jehovahis given as an inheritanceto the landless Levites, for the service which they serve, even the service of the tent of the meeting, the central sanctuary, and they in turn are to give a tithe of this tithe to Aaron the priest. And this was that part of the law of God given by Mosesand sworn to by the people under Nehemiah, according to which they were to bring in the tithes of their ground to the Levites the Levites take the tithes in all the townships of our tillageand the Levites were to bring the tithe of their tithe to the house of God (Nehemiah 10:37 f.). These injunctions are irreconcileable with those of D. The tithe, which in D is enjoyed by the offerers, by the Levites of the rural sanctuaries, and by the poor and the gçrîm, is in P the inheritanceof the Levites at the central sanctuary. D and P represent not, only differing practices, but incompatible principles of practice. Which is the earlier of the two? It is of course possible to argue that the original disposition of the tithe was purely religious or ecclesiastical and that D represents a later and more liberal spirit, which extended the enjoyment of it to the laity. But the converse is far more probable in view of that steady increase of all the priests" establishments and revenues with the consequent encroachments on the rights of the people which is so fully illustrated in the historical Books. For an interesting and suggestive discussion of the problems arising from this subject see -The Deuteronomic Tithe" by Prof. J. M. Powis Smith in The Amer. Journ. of Theology, January, 1914.