29 "You shall not delay to offer from your harvest and from the outflow of your presses. "You shall give the firstborn of your sons to me.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
Thou shalt not delay. We may gather from this passage that the first-fruits were offered, to the end that the Israelites should devote themselves and their possessions to God; for Moses enjoins these two things in conjunction, that they should not delay to consecrate to God of the abundance of their fresh fruits, and their first-born. But we know that, in offering the first-born, the recollection of their deliverance was revived, by the acknowledgment of the preservation of their race, and of their cattle. And there was, moreover, added to the grace of their redemption, the continual supply of food to them from day to day. I do not assent to their opinion who restrict the word fullness [1] to wine, because it flows more abundantly from the press, and take the word tear [2] to mean oil, because it runs less freely; nor do I approve of their notion who apply fullness only to dry fruits. It seems to me more proper to take fullness as the generic term, whilst tear is taken to denote liquids, as if Moses commanded them not only to offer grapes, and olive-berries, but the very drops which were expressed from the fruit. The other passages confirm this command, that they should not defraud God of the first-fruits, and so bury the remembrance of their redemption, and profane themselves in their very eating and drinking, but rather by this portion of the fruits sanctify the food of the whole year. Nor is it causelessly that Moses so often inculcates a point by no means obscure, since all these admonitions were despised and neglected by the Jews, as soon as they had returned from the Babylonish captivity, as Malachi complains in his third chapter.
1 - Vide margin, -- A. V.
2 - Vide margin, -- A. V.
The offering of firstfruits appears to have been a custom of primitive antiquity and was connected with the earliest acts of sacrifice. See Genesis 4:3-4. The references to it here and in Exodus 23:19 had probably been handed down from patriarchal times. The specific law relating to the firstborn of living creatures was brought out in a strong light in connection with the deliverance from Egypt Exodus 13:2, Exodus 13:12-13; compare Exodus 23:19; Leviticus 22:27; Deuteronomy 26:2-11; Nehemiah 10:35.
The first of thy ripe fruits, and of thy liquors - See the margin. The rendering of our King James Bible is a paraphrase.
The first of thy ripe fruits - This offering was a public acknowledgment of the bounty and goodness of God, who had given them their proper seed time, the first and the latter rain, and the appointed weeks of harvest.
From the practice of the people of God the heathens borrowed a similar one, founded on the same reason. The following passage from Censorinus, De Die Natali, is beautiful, and worthy of the deepest attention: -
Illi enim (majores nostri) qui alimenta, patriam, lucem, se denique ipsos deorum dono habebant, ex omnibus aliquid diis sacrabant, magis adeo, ut se gratos approbarent, quam quod deos arbitrarentur hoc indigere. Itaque cum perceperant fruges, antequam vescerentur, Diis libare instituerunt: et cum agros atque urbes, deorum munera, possiderent, partem quandam templis sacellisque, ubi eos colerent, dicavere.
"Our ancestors, who held their food, their country, the light, and all that they possessed, from the bounty of the gods, consecrated to them a part of all their property, rather as a token of their gratitude, than from a conviction that the gods needed any thing. Therefore as soon as the harvest was got in, before they had tasted of the fruits, they appointed libations to be made to the gods. And as they held their fields and cities as gifts from their gods, they consecrated a certain part for temples and shrines, where they might worship them."
Pliny is express on the same point, who attests that the Romans never tasted either their new corn or wine, till the priests had offered the First-Fruits to the gods. Acts ne degustabant quidem, novas fruges aut vina, antequam sacerdotes Primitias Libassent. Hist. Nat., lib. xviii., c. 2.
Horace bears the same testimony, and shows that his countrymen offered, not only their first-fruits, but the choicest of all their fruits, to the Lares or household gods; and he shows also the wickedness of those who sent these as presents to the rich, before the gods had been thus honored: -
Dulcia poma,
Et quoscumque feret cultus tibi fundus honores,
Ante Larem gustet venerabilior Lare dives.
Sat., lib. ii., s. v., ver. 12.
"What your garden yields,
The choicest honors of your cultured fields,
To him be sacrificed, and let him taste,
Before your gods, the vegetable feast."
Dunkin.
And to the same purpose Tibullus, in one of the most beautiful of his elegies: -
Et quodcumque mihi pomum novus educat annus,
Libatum agricolae ponitur ante deo.
Flava Ceres, tibi sit nostro de rure corona
Spicea, quae templi pendeat ante fores.
Eleg., lib. i., eleg. i. ver. 13.
"My grateful fruits, the earliest of the year,
Before the rural god shall daily wait.
From Ceres' gifts I'll cull each browner ear,
And hang a wheaten wreath before her gate."
Grainger.
The same subject he touches again in the fifth elegy of the same book, where he specifies the different offerings made for the produce of the fields, of the flocks, and of the vine, ver. 27: -
Illa deo sciet agricolae pro vitibus uvam,
Proverbs segete spicas, pro grege ferre dapem.
"With pious care will load each rural shrine,
For ripen'd crops a golden sheaf assign,
Cates for my fold, rich clusters for my wine.
Id. - See Calmet.
These quotations will naturally recall to our memory the offerings of Cain and Abel, mentioned Genesis 4:3, Genesis 4:4.
The rejoicings at our harvest-home are distorted remains of that gratitude which our ancestors, with all the primitive inhabitants of the earth, expressed to God with appropriate signs and ceremonies. Is it not possible to restore, in some goodly form, a custom so pure, so edifying, and so becoming? There is a laudable custom, observed by some pious people, of dedicating a new house to God by prayer, etc., which cannot be too highly commended.
Thou shalt not delay [to offer] the (k) first of thy ripe fruits, and of thy liquors: the firstborn of thy sons shalt thou give unto me.
(k) Your abundance of your corn.
Thou shall not delay to offer the first of thy ripe fruits,.... Which, according to Maimonides (k), were of seven kinds only; for he says,"they do not bring the firstfruits, but of the seven kinds, said in the praise of the land, (the land of Canaan), Deuteronomy 8:8 and they are wheat, barley, grapes, figs, pomegranates, olives, and dates;''and how much of these were to be offered is not fixed by the law, but were left to the generosity of the people: the above mentioned writer asks (l),"what measure do the wise men set? a good eye (or a bountiful man) brings one of forty (or the fortieth part of his fruits); a middling one (one that is neither liberal nor niggardly) brings one of fifty (or the fiftieth part); and an evil one (a covetous man) one of sixty (or the sixtieth part), but never less than that.''Now this was not to be delayed, but to be brought as soon and as early as could be: the Jewish writers seem to understand this of postponing things, or inverting the order of them, bringing that first which should be last, and that last which should be first; so Jarchi interprets it,"thou shall not change the order of their separation, to postpone that which should be first, and to put before that which should be last; for the first oblation should not be brought before the firstfruits, and the tithes before the first oblation.''And thus runs one of their canons or traditions (m),"if anyone brings the first oblation before the firstfruits, the first tithe before the first oblation, the second tithe before the first, it is as if he transgressed a negative precept: "thou shalt not delay or postpone", &c. Exodus 22:29'
And of thy liquors: and these, according to Maimonides (n), were only the firstfruits of liquors of olives and grapes:
the firstborn of thy sons thou shall give unto me; which is a repetition of the law. See Gill on Exodus 13:2.
(k) Hilchot Biccurim, c. 2. sect. 2. (l) Hilchot Trumot, c. 3. sect. 2. (m) Misn. Trumot, c. 3. sect. 6. (n) Biccurim, ut supra. (k))
"Thy fulness and thy flowing thou shalt not delay (to Me)." מלאה fulness, signifies the produce of corn (Deuteronomy 22:9); and דּמע (lit., tear, flowing, liquor stillans), which only occurs here, is a poetical epithet for the produce of the press, both wine and oil (cf. δάκρυον τῶν δένδρων, lxx; arborum lacrimae, Plin. 11:6). The meaning is correctly given by the lxx: ἀπαρχὰς ἅλωνος καὶ ληνοῦ σοῦ. That the command not to delay and not to withhold the fulness, etc., relates to the offering of the first-fruits of the field and vineyard, as is more fully defined in Exodus 23:19 and Deuteronomy 26:2-11, is evident from what follows, in which the law given at the exodus from Egypt, with reference to the sanctification of the first-born of man and beast (Exodus 13:2, Exodus 13:12), is repeated and incorporated in the rights of Israel, inasmuch as the adoption of the first-born on the part of Jehovah was a perpetual guarantee to the whole nation of the right of covenant fellowship. (On the rule laid down in Exodus 22:30, see Leviticus 22:27.)
The first - born of thy sons shalt thou give unto me - And much more reason have we to give ourselves and all we have to God, who spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all. The first ripe of their corn they must not delay to offer; there is danger if we delay our duty, lest we wholly omit it; and by slipping the first opportunity in expectation of another, we suffer Satan to cheat us of all our time.
*More commentary available at chapter level.