37 And that we would take the first of our rough meal, and our lifted offerings, and the fruit of every sort of tree, and wine and oil, to the priests, to the rooms of the house of our God; and the tenth of the produce of our land to the Levites; for they, the Levites, take a tenth in all the towns of our ploughed land.
Take from your houses two cakes of bread, made of a fifth part of an ephah of the best meal, cooked with leaven, to be waved for first-fruits to the Lord.
And to the children of Levi I have given as their heritage all the tenths offered in Israel, as payment for the work they do, the work of the Tent of meeting.
Had made ready for him a great room, where at one time they kept the meal offerings, the perfume, and the vessels and the tenths of the grain and wine and oil which were given by order to the Levites and the music-makers and the door-keepers, and the lifted offerings for the priests.
Then I gave orders, and they made the rooms clean: and I put back in them the vessels of the house of God, with the meal offerings and the perfume.
And every tenth part of the land, of the seed planted, or of the fruit of trees, is holy to the Lord. And if a man has a desire to get back any of the tenth part which he has given, let him give a fifth more. And a tenth part of the herd and of the flock, whatever goes under the rod of the valuer, will be holy to the Lord. He may not make search to see if it is good or bad, or make any changes in it; and if he makes exchange of it for another, the two will be holy; he will not get them back again.
Then, when you take for your food the produce of the land, you are to give an offering lifted up before the Lord. Of the first of your rough meal you are to give a cake for a lifted offering, lifting it up before the Lord as the offering of the grain-floor is lifted up. From generation to generation you are to give to the Lord a lifted offering from the first of your rough meal.
All the best of the oil and the wine and the grain, the first-fruits of them which they give to the Lord, to you have I given them. The earliest produce from their land which they take to the Lord is to be yours; everyone in your house who is clean may have it for his food.
For the tenths which the children of Israel give as a lifted offering to the Lord I have given to the Levites as their heritage. and so I have said to them, Among the children of Israel they will have no heritage. And the Lord said to Moses, Say to the Levites, When you take from the children of Israel the tenth which I have given to you from them as your heritage, a tenth part of that tenth is to be offered as an offering lifted up before the Lord. And this lifted offering is to be put to your credit as if it was grain from the grain-floor and wine from the vines. So you are to make an offering lifted up to the Lord from all the tenths which you get from the children of Israel, giving out of it the Lord's lifted offering to Aaron the priest. From everything given to you, let the best of it, the holy part of it, be offered as a lifted offering to the Lord. Say to them, then, When the best of it is lifted up on high, it is to be put to the account of the Levites as the increase of the grain-floor and of the place where the grapes are crushed. It is to be your food, for you and your families in every place: it is your reward for your work in the Tent of meeting. And no sin will be yours on account of it, when the best of it has been lifted up on high; you are not to make a wrong use of the holy things of the children of Israel, so that death may not overtake you.
You are to take a part of the first-fruits of the earth, which you get from the land which the Lord your God is giving you, and put it in a basket, and go to the place marked out by the Lord your God, as the resting-place of his name.
And against the walls all round, and against the walls of the Temple and of the inmost room, he put up wings, with side rooms all round: The lowest line of them being five cubits wide, the middle six cubits wide and the third seven cubits; for there was a space all round the outside walls of the house so that the boards supporting the rooms did not have to be fixed in the walls of the house. (And the stones used in the building of the house were squared at the place where they were cut out; there was no sound of hammer or axe or any iron instrument while they were building the house.) The door to the lowest side rooms was in the right side of the house; and they went up by twisting steps into the middle rooms, and from the middle into the third. So he put up the house and made it complete, roofing it with boards of cedar-wood. And he put up the line of side rooms against the walls of the house, fifteen cubits high, resting against the house on boards of cedar-wood.
Then Hezekiah said that store-rooms were to be made ready in the house of the Lord; and this was done. And in them they put all the offerings and the tenths and the holy things, keeping nothing back, and over them was Conaniah the Levite, with Shimei his brother second to him.
Will a man keep back from God what is right? But you have kept back what is mine. But you say, What have we kept back from you? Tenths and offerings.
Let your tenths come into the store-house so that there may be food in my house, and put me to the test by doing so, says the Lord of armies, and see if I do not make the windows of heaven open and send down such a blessing on you that there is no room for it.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible » Commentary on Nehemiah 10
Commentary on Nehemiah 10 Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
CHAPTER 10
Ne 10:1-27. The Names of Those Who Sealed the Covenant.
1. Nehemiah, the Tirshatha—His name was placed first in the roll on account of his high official rank, as deputy of the Persian monarch. All classes were included in the subscription; but the people were represented by their elders (Ne 10:14), as it would have been impossible for every one in the country to have been admitted to the sealing.
Ne 10:28. The Rest of the People Bound Themselves to Observe It.
Those who were not present at the sealing ratified the covenant by giving their assent, either in words or by lifting up their hands, and bound themselves, by a solemn oath, to walk in God's law, imprecating a curse upon themselves in the event of their violating it.
Ne 10:29-39. Points of the Covenant.
29-37. to observe and do all the commandments, &c.—This national covenant, besides containing a solemn pledge of obedience to the divine law generally, specified their engagement to some particular duties, which the character and exigency of the times stamped with great urgency and importance, and which may be summed up under the following heads: that they abstain from contracting matrimonial alliances with the heathen; that they would rigidly observe the sabbath; that they would let the land enjoy rest and remit debts every seventh year; that they would contribute to the maintenance of the temple service, the necessary expenses of which had formerly been defrayed out of the treasury of the temple (1Ch 26:20), and when it was drained, given out from the king's privy purse (2Ch 31:3); and that they would make an orderly payment of the priests' dues. A minute and particular enumeration of the first-fruits was made, that all might be made fully aware of their obligations, and that none might excuse themselves on pretext of ignorance from withholding taxes which the poverty of many, and the irreligion of others, had made them exceedingly prone to evade.
32. the third part of a shekel for the service of the house of our God—The law required every individual above twenty years of age to pay half a shekel to the sanctuary. But in consequence of the general poverty of the people, occasioned by war and captivity, this tribute was reduced to a third part of a shekel.
34. we cast the lots … for the wood offering—The carrying of the wood had formerly been the work of the Nethinims. But few of them having returned, the duty was assigned as stated in the text. The practice afterwards rose into great importance, and Josephus speaks [The Wars of the Jews, 2.17, sect. 6] of the Xylophoria, or certain stated and solemn times at which the people brought up wood to the temple.
38. the priest the son of Aaron shall be with the Levites, when the Levites take tithes—This was a prudential arrangement. The presence of a dignified priest would ensure the peaceful delivery of the tithes; at least his superintendence and influence would tend to prevent the commission of any wrong in the transaction, by the people deceiving the Levites, or the Levites defrauding the priests.
the tithe of the tithes—The Levites, having received a tenth of all land produce, were required to give a tenth of this to the priests. The Levites were charged with the additional obligation to carry the tithes when received, and deposit them in the temple stores, for the use of the priests.
39. and we will not forsake the house of our God—This solemn pledge was repeated at the close of the covenant as an expression of the intense zeal by which the people at this time were animated for the glory and the worship of God. Under the pungent feelings of sorrow and repentance for their national sins, of which apostasy from the service of the true God was the chief, and under the yet fresh and painful remembrance of their protracted captivity, they vowed, and (feeling the impulse of ardent devotion as well as of gratitude for their restoration) flattered themselves they would never forget their vow, to be the Lord's.