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

The Israelites were commanded to put aside a tenth of what their fields produced each year and take it, along with the first born of their herds and flocks, to the central location where God had designated that all of Israel should gather to worship Him.  We tend to focus on the tithe portion of this command and not what they were supposed to do with that tithe.  God commanded that when they got to the place He had designated, they should eat that tithe in company with all of their fellow Israelites.  They were to share this feast with the Levites, who did not have any land on which to grow crops from which to tithe.  So, the purpose of setting aside this tithe was in order to have a big feast with the rest of Israel.  It was designed to bring all of the Israelites together in unity.  Further, in the next section, they were told to give generously to their fellow Israelites who were in need, but not as a gift, as a loan.  However, they were to forgive any such loans every seven years.  The Israelites were to gather on a regular basis to eat and drink together.  They were to make sure that all of their countrymen could join in this celebration.  They were not to worship any other gods, nor incorporate any of their worship practices with those commanded by God (in particular, God called out to forbid the worship practices of the fertility gods of the region).  In addition, they were not to tolerate the presence of those who worshiped other gods.  All in all the commands given in this passage seem designed to bring unity among the Israelites by making sure that they shared values and that economic stratification never lasted more than a generation.

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