Deuteronomy 15:20

Deu_15:20

Eat it before the Lord thy God year by year.

Memorial days

Year by year. It might seem at first sight, antecedent to experience, a surprising thing that the mere mechanical movement of the earth through the heavens should have any special relationship to mans mind and spirit. Yet we know that it has. Our memory associates special experiences with certain seasons and days. As the season or day returns the event is recalled, and sometimes the impressions awakened by it have, apparently, all their original sharpness. So, in this regard, the course of the heavens comes to be, as it were, a colossal memorandum book.

1. There is a sure evidence of the event seen in the fact of its commemoration.

2. We are taught how comparatively rare are these conspicuous and startling events which punctuate our public and private life. It is well for the sanity of the human mind that life is not filled with startling events. It would be like substituting pyrotechnics for the moonlight, or the stars for the silent skies. It is in the ordinary quiet on going of life that we find healthfulness of heart.

3. Life is always, serious. For we are ever treading on the edge of something unexpected, it may be something terrible. Let us walk circumspectly, and realise that we may always dwell under the shield of Gods providence and under the light of His promises.

4. We see the innate superiority of mind to all temporary events. You recall perhaps your wedding day, the hour, the place, the guests, the joy, through a score of years, a half century ago. Intervals of time fade from view in presence of this supreme experience, just as you look from one lofty peak to another and think not of field, valley, and river between. You see those shining points of life when you were at twenty, forty, or sixty years of age, and lesser experiences are hidden. The mind itself is superior to mere measurements of time, and so is constituted for immortality; is akin to Him to whom a thousand years are but as yesterday.

5. How deep in us is the element of affection which has its expression in the anniversary or festival. As we review the past our memory clings to those experiences in which the heart has a part, those which have touched its springs of joy and grief. We properly cultivate intellectual strength, power of will and endurance, but, after all, it is love that is supreme. Love brings us nearer Him who is perfect love.

6. A sweet illustration of the grace of God in the Gospel is furnished in the fact, with which every believer is familiar, that in these remembered events sorrow loses its sting and joy comes to be even more full in reminiscence than it was at first. Our sorrow only makes more glorious the preciousness and amplitude of Divine grace and sympathy, just as the glory of the sun, shot through a dark cloud, illumines and transfigures it by its splendour and its peace.

7. What a rest it is to the aged to recall the past when they are released from lifes active and strenuous struggles! They are like ships home from long voyages, moated in a quiet harbour, where the memory of storms that are past only enhances the serenity and peace enjoyed.

8. Whatever measurements may hereafter be had as to time and eternity in our immortal life, one thing is certain: we will keep one point in vivid remembrance--that of our entrance into life, when we first knew the joys eternal. (R. S. Storrs, D. D.)

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The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Verse 20. Thou shalt eat it - in the place which the Lord shall choose] Thus God in his mercy made their duty and interest go hand in hand. And in every case God acts thus with his creatures; well, therefore, might Satan ask, Doth Job serve God for naught? No! nor does God design that any man should.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

(20) Thou shalt eat it before the Lord thy God year by year.—This connects the eating of the firstlings with the “second” tithe (Deu_14:23), There is some difficulty in understanding the exact relation between this precept and that which assigns the firstlings to the priests (Num_18:15) with the first tithe. The practical solution is to be sought in the practice of the Jews. One suggestion is (that of Rashi), that “thou shalt eat” in this place refers to the priest; another is, that the firstlings without blemish were for the priest; those that were not fit for sacrifice were for the household of the owner. But it is perfectly conceivable that there was a collection of firstlings at one time of the year for the first tithe, and these were given to the priests. At the time of the collection of the second tithe, there might, and generally would, be other firstlings born since, and these, with the second tithe, would be disposed of in the manner indicated in these verses. And this, upon the whole, seems the most probable explanation. If two tithes were a regular institution, they must have been regularly collected at fixed times. And there might easily be firstlings in both of them; in fact, there almost certainly would be. At any rate, no contradiction can be maintained as between laws which were both observed in practice by the Jews. It appears from the Talmud, that tithes and offerings might be presented, more or less, at any of the three great feasts. They would not all be presented at one time. The tithes and first-fruits in some cases were liable to be delayed. The rule was, that everything due for three years last past must be cleared out of the establishment, and paid over to the proper authorities at the Feast of the Passover in the fourth and eighth years reckoned by the Sabbatical system. (See Deu_26:12-13, for more on this head.)

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

20. thou shalt eat it before the Lord thy God] See on Deu_12:7; Deu_12:12; Deu_12:18.

year by year] At one of the feasts, probably the Passover, hence the place of this law of firstlings; in D immediately before that on the Passover, in Exo_34:19 immediately after that on unleavened bread.

in the place, etc.] See on Deu_12:5; Deu_12:18.

thy household] including the local Levite, as explicitly stated in Deu_12:12; Deu_12:18.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Thou shalt eat it before the Lord thy God, year by year,.... Which, if understood of male firstlings, as in connection with the preceding verse, only priests might eat of them, being devoted to the Lord; so Jarchi says, to the priest he speaks; but if this respects the Israelites in common, then they must be understood either of female firstlings or second firstlings, which the people voluntarily separated, and which they were not to eat in their own houses:

but in the place which the Lord shall choose, which was the city of Jerusalem; see Deu 12:5,

thou and thy household; the household of the priest, as Aben Ezra interprets it; but if it designs the same as in Deu 12:17, then the Israelites and their families are meant.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Thou shalt eat; either,

1. Thou, O priest. Or rather,

2. Thou, O Israelite. For it is evident that the same person who was forbidden to work with these, Deu 15:19, is here commanded to eat them, &c. Thou shalt eat it, together with the Levites, as it is to be understood from Deu 12:18; 14:27,29, where that is expressed in like cases.

Year by year, to wit, in the solemn feasts which returned upon them every year. See Deu 16:11,14.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Year by year - Namely, in the solemn feasts which returned upon them every year.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

לפני ה׳ אלהיך תאכלנה THOU SHALT EAT IT BEFORE THE LORD THY GOD — Scripture is speaking to the priest (not to the owner to whom תקדיש in the previous verse refers), for we find already stated that it (the בכור) is one of the dues of the priests whether it is unblemished (and its blood and fat portions are to be sacrificed on the altar and the flesh eaten by the priests), or whether it is blemished (when it must not be offered on the altar), for it states, (Numbers 18:18) “and the flesh of them (the firstborn animals, both the blemished and the unblemished) shall be thine” (the priest’s) (cf. Bekhorot 28a).

שנה בשנה [THOU SHALT EAT IT BEFORE THE LORD …] YEAR BY YEAR — From here we derive the law that one should not defer it (i.e. sacrificing and eating it) beyond its first year (Bekhorot 28a). If so, one might think that it becomes invalid as a sacrifice as soon as its first year has passed! This is not the case, for it has been put in comparison with the second tithe, as it is said, (Deuteronomy 14:23; cf. Rashi on that verse): “and thou shalt eat before the Lord thy God the tithe of thy corn, of thy wine, and of thine oil, and the firstlings of thy herds, and thy flocks”. How is it in the case of the second tithe? It does not become invalid if left over from one year to the other (cf. Rashi on Deuteronomy 14:28 and 29), so, too, does the firstborn animal not become invalid under the same circumstances, only that it is a meritorious act to offer and consume it within its first year.

שנה בשנה (may also be translated A YEAR WITH ANOTHER YEAR) — If one slaughtered it at the end of its first year (an the last day) he may eat it that day and the first day of the next year. This teaches us that it (a firstborn animal) may in all cases be eaten on two successive days and the intervening night (cf. Sifrei Devarim 125; Bekhorot 27b).

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.