Today, I am reading and commenting on  Deuteronomy 14-17.

I do not have any profound thoughts about today’s passage, but there are a couple of things which inspire thoughts about how we interpret Scripture.  The first of these has to do with the way in which Orthodox Jews interpret kosher food laws.  In particular this phrase from verse 21 of chapter 14: “Do not cook a young goat in its mother’s milk.”  The traditional Jewish interpretation of this command leads them to not cook any meat with any dairy products.  But this passage does not say anything about sheep or cattle, just goats, as do all of the other places where the Torah (the first five books of the Old Testament) repeats this command.  Looking at this causes me to observe how often we read more into a passage then is actually there.

Following that is an injunction to set aside a tenth of what the fields produce, the tithe.  Moses instructed the Israelites to set aside a tenth of what their fields produced and take it to a central location where they would all worship God together.  When they got there they were to eat the tithe.  So, the purpose of the tithe was to supply a feast which would be consumed along with all of the Israelites as they worshiped and thanked God.  This passage also discusses three feasts for which all of the Israelites were to gather in order to worship God together.  All together, the instruction to tithe and the three feasts, indicate that God’s people should gather regularly in order to live in unity and peace with one another.  In the same way today it is important for God’s people to gather to worship God and fellowship with one another so as to remain united under God.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.