PROLOGUE — Two Forms of Holiness: What We Eat, and What We Share
Deuteronomy 14 summarizes the clean and unclean food regulations already addressed in Leviticus 11, and then expands into tithing regulations that structure how sharing operates within Israelite society. The way this chapter moves from “what do we eat” to “how do we share” is striking.
ACT ONE — Do Not Cut Yourselves for the Dead (verses 1–2)
“Ye are the children of the LORD your God: ye shall not cut yourselves, nor make any baldness between your eyes for the dead. For thou art an holy people unto the LORD thy God, and the LORD hath chosen thee to be a peculiar people unto himself, above all the nations that are upon the earth.”
Ye shall not cut yourselves for the dead. This prohibited a common mourning practice in the cultures surrounding Canaan — cutting the body or shaving the head. Israel’s very bodies, as God’s children, were set apart, and even the expression of grief itself had to be distinct from pagan religious custom.
ACT TWO — Clean Animals and Unclean Animals (verses 3–21)
The regulations of Leviticus 11 are summarized once more.
“Thou shalt not eat any abominable thing. These are the beasts which ye shall eat: the ox, the sheep, and the goat… And every beast that parteth the hoof, and cleaveth the cleft into two claws, and cheweth the cud among the beasts, that ye shall eat.”
Regulations concerning creatures of the water, birds, and insects are briefly repeated as well. And in this chapter too, just as in Leviticus 11, the distinctive regulation against boiling a young goat in its mother’s milk appears.
“Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother’s milk.”
ACT THREE — The Tithe, a Shared Meal of Joy (verses 22–29)
The latter half of this chapter expands into new material — specific regulations regarding how the tithe should be used.
“Thou shalt truly tithe all the increase of thy seed, that the field bringeth forth year by year. And thou shalt eat before the LORD thy God, in the place which he shall choose to place his name there, the tithe of thy corn, of thy wine, and of thine oil… that thou mayest learn to fear the LORD thy God always.”
Thou shalt eat… that thou mayest learn to fear always. Interestingly, this tithe was never simply offered to the sanctuary and gone — the giver themselves joyfully ate it before God. Worship and festival, devotion and joy, were combined into a single practice.
A practical alternative was also given for when the distance was too far.
“And if the way be too long for thee… then shalt thou turn it into money… and thou shalt bestow that money for whatsoever thy soul lusteth after, for oxen, or for sheep, or for wine, or for strong drink… and thou shalt eat there before the LORD thy God, and thou shalt rejoice, thou, and thine household.”
And once every three years, this tithe was redirected toward an entirely different purpose.
“At the end of three years thou shalt bring forth all the tithe of thine increase the same year, and shalt lay it up within thy gates: And the Levite, (because he hath no part nor inheritance with thee,) and the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow, which are within thy gates, shall come, and shall eat and be satisfied; that the LORD thy God may bless thee in all the work of thine hand which thou doest.”
That the Levite, the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow may come and eat and be satisfied. This third-year tithe was a structural safety net for society’s vulnerable. Sharing was never institutionalized as random charity, but as a regular, predictable system.
REFLECTION — Holiness Extending Into the Table and Into Sharing
What Deuteronomy 14 shows us is that holiness is never an abstract concept. It seeps concretely into what we eat, and into who we share what we have with. Fearing God was expressed through joy and through sharing.
Do you both joyfully enjoy what God has given you, and regularly share it with those who need it most?
NEXT EPISODE PREVIEW
Deuteronomy Chapter 15 — the sabbatical year’s debt release, the freeing of servants, and the regulation of dedicating the firstborn, follow.
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