5 And thou shalt speak and say before Jehovah thy God, A perishing Aramean was my father, and he went down to Egypt with a few, and sojourned there, and became there a nation, great, mighty, and populous.
With seventy souls thy fathers went down into Egypt; and now Jehovah thy God hath made thee as the stars of heaven for multitude.
And the sons of Joseph who were born to him in Egypt, were two souls. All the souls of the house of Jacob that came to Egypt were seventy.
And Jacob went down into Egypt and died, he and our fathers,
And Jacob fled into the country of Syria, and Israel served for a wife, and for a wife he kept [sheep].
So God sent me before you to preserve you a remnant in the earth, and to save you alive by a great deliverance.
And take other money in your hand, and the money that was returned to you in the mouth of your sacks, carry back in your hand: perhaps it is an oversight.
Hearken unto me, ye that follow after righteousness, ye that seek Jehovah: look unto the rock [whence] ye were hewn, and to the hole of the pit [whence] ye were digged. Look unto Abraham your father, and unto Sarah that bore you; for I called him when he was alone, and blessed him, and multiplied him.
And Israel came into Egypt, and Jacob sojourned in the land of Ham. And he made his people exceeding fruitful, and made them mightier than their oppressors.
but thou shalt go to my land and to my kindred, and take a wife for my son Isaac.
And the children of Israel were fruitful, and swarmed and multiplied, and became exceeding strong; and the land was full of them.
And Israel dwelt in the land of Egypt, in the land of Goshen; and they had possessions in it, and were fruitful and multiplied exceedingly.
And Israel took his journey with all that he had, and came to Beer-sheba; and he offered sacrifices to the God of his father Isaac. And God spoke to Israel in the visions of the night and said, Jacob, Jacob! And he said, Here am I. And he said, I am ùGod, the God of thy father: fear not to go down to Egypt; for I will there make of thee a great nation. I will go down with thee to Egypt, and I will also certainly bring thee up; and Joseph shall put his hand on thine eyes. And Jacob rose up from Beer-sheba; and the sons of Israel carried Jacob their father, and their little ones, and their wives, on the waggons that Pharaoh had sent to carry him. And they took their cattle, and their goods which they had acquired in the land of Canaan, and came to Egypt, Jacob and all his seed with him; his sons and his sons' sons with him, his daughters and his sons' daughters and all his seed he brought with him to Egypt.
And God came to Laban the Syrian in a dream by night, and said to him, Take care thou speak not to Jacob either good or bad.
And Jacob deceived Laban the Syrian, in that he did not tell him that he fled.
And Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing with which his father had blessed him. And Esau said in his heart, The days of mourning for my father are at hand, and I will slay my brother Jacob.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible » Commentary on Deuteronomy 26
Commentary on Deuteronomy 26 Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
CHAPTER 26
De 26:1-15. The Confession of Him That Offers the Basket of First Fruits.
2. Thou shalt take of the first of all the fruit of the earth—The Israelites in Canaan, being God's tenants-at-will, were required to give Him tribute in the form of first-fruits and tithes. No Israelite was at liberty to use any productions of his field until he had presented the required offerings. The tribute began to be exigible after the settlement in the promised land, and it was yearly repeated at one of the great feasts (Le 2:14; 23:10; 23:15; Nu 28:26; De 16:9). Every master of a family carried it on his shoulders in a little basket of osier, peeled willow, or palm leaves, and brought it to the sanctuary.
5. thou shalt say … A Syrian ready to perish was my father—rather, "a wandering Syrian." The ancestors of the Hebrews were nomad shepherds, either Syrians by birth as Abraham, or by long residence as Jacob. When they were established as a nation in the possession of the promised land, they were indebted to God's unmerited goodness for their distinguished privileges, and in token of gratitude they brought this basket of first-fruits.
11. thou shalt rejoice—feasting with friends and the Levites, who were invited on such occasions to share in the cheerful festivities that followed oblations (De 12:7; 16:10-15).
12-15. When thou hast made an end of tithing all the tithes of thine increase the third year—Among the Hebrews there were two tithings. The first was appropriated to the Levites (Nu 18:21). The second, being the tenth of what remained, was brought to Jerusalem in kind; or it was converted into money, and the owner, on arriving in the capital, purchased sheep, bread, and oil (De 14:22, 23). This was done for two consecutive years. But this second tithing was eaten at home, and the third year distributed among the poor of the place (De 14:28, 29).
13. thou shalt say before the Lord thy God, I have brought away the hallowed things out of mine house—This was a solemn declaration that nothing which should be devoted to the divine service had been secretly reserved for personal use.
14. I have not eaten thereof in my mourning—in a season of sorrow, which brought defilement on sacred things; under a pretense of poverty, and grudging to give any away to the poor.
neither … for any unclean use—that is, 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, to an idol, which is a dead thing.