A People for His Treasured Possession
Deuteronomy 14:1–29 – Deuteronomy: Then You Shall Live
Third Sunday after Epiphany – January 26, 2020 (am)
What is it that sets us apart, makes us stand out, identifies us as the unique people of God? Teams have uniforms. Academics have decorated robes and odd hats. Politicians have grandiose promises that no one really believes but everyone loves to hear. Teenagers have slang, along with some sort of strategically defaced or poor-fitting clothing. What identifies God’s people as belonging to Him? And how does it do that? Two important questions….
Moses is addressing the Israel here in Deu.14. He’s telling them what sets them apart as the unique people of God now that they’re ready to enter the land. And He’s telling them how it will do that, how it works. And what we find here is not only that Israel is set apart as God’s unique people, and that He has designed some ways for that to become visible—He’s given them a team uniform, so to speak, that identifies them, makes them stand out—but also, Israel as a nation learns who they are by entering into/engaging with the ways that God has designed for them to be identified with Him. And I believe that sets us up to understand how He’s designed some similar ways for us to be set apart in our day, to be identified as His unique, new covenant people.
Let’s divide this chapter into three parts.
Declaring a Unique Identity – 1-2
I believe Moses is still giving Israel instruction on how to honor the third commandment as we enter c.14 (Walton 221, Merrill 234 fn34). He’s helping them know how they can make sure they’re not lifting up the name of the Lord to emptiness. And He does so by straight-up telling them who they are!
1 You are the sons of the Lord your God. You shall not cut yourselves or make any baldness on your foreheads for the dead. Don’t participate in pagan rituals rooted in death and the destruction of your bodies. Your God is not honored by all that! You’re not identified as his people in that way! Do these rituals strike you as ones that honor life and reflect the dignity of people who are not only created in the image of God, but have been delivered from bondage in demonstration of His power to save and of His faithfulness to keep His promises? 2 … [Y]ou are a people holy to the Lord your God, and the Lord has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.
You’re a unique people! And that fact should be obvious. God Himself has set you apart! And your set-apart-ness needs to be evident, even to the nations. But it also needs to be evident to you because, believe it or not, you’ll be inclined to forget who you are! It won’t take long in the land for you actually to begin stating your desire to be like all the nations (17:14; cf. 1Sa.8:5). But God has made provision for you to stand out as his treasured possession [among] all the peoples on the earth (2), and to help you remember who you are. It is rooted in how you eat and how you give. Let’s look at it.
Learning a Unique Identity – 3-29
A. Through the Prescribed Dietary Laws – 3-21
Israel first heard this instruction back in Lev.11. The animal kingdom is divided up into two categories, clean and unclean, fit to eat and unfit to eat. Israel is what they eat! To remind them that they are clean before God, and to remain clean before God, they eat foods that are declared clean. To be clearer, they eat meat which is declared to be clean; every plant yielding seed on the face of all the earth was created for food and has been clean from the beginning (Gen. 1:29). Unclean is the realm of death. Clean is the realm of life.
These are things we know. What is harder to discern is why this is identified as a distinctive in Israel. But the beginning of that answer is right here, bracketing this classification of clean and unclean: 2 … you are a people holy to the Lord your God. 21 … you are a people holy to the Lord your God. This first statement follows a forbiddance of pagan ceremonies tethered to death, then is followed by the dietary laws (3-20). This second statement follows those dietary laws then is followed by one summary statement that appears three times in the law (Exo23:19; 34:26; Deu.14:21), likely identifying another pagan practice that we may not fully understand, but we still recoil from as we hear it. 21 … You shall not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk. It’s hard to miss the overall impression that how Israel treats animals, matters—especially animals they eat. In fact, this will set them apart as a people holy to the Lord [their] God. Holiness is the goal (Milgrom 103).
Humans will have meat for their food and will kill to get it. The Bible has therefore worked out a system of restrictions whereby humans may satiate their [desire] for animal flesh and yet not be dehumanized in the process. The basic rules are these: 1. The choice of animal food is severely limited. … 2. Even the few permitted animals may not be killed by just anyone but only by those who can qualify by their skill and piety…. Back in 12:21 we saw that Israel was given the freedom to kill any of [their] herd or… flock… within their towns, away from the central sanctuary that would be established, but they still needed to kill them in the way [God had] commanded [them], which included [pouring] out the blood on the earth like water (12:24). Thus: 3. Even the few permitted animals, though ritually slaughtered, are still not fit for consumption until their blood is drained (Milgrom 103). Jacob Milgrom suggests that the dietary laws are God’s method for taming the killer instinct in humans (103). He wrote: the dietary laws serve as an ethical guide—a system whereby people will not be brutalized by killing animals for their flesh (104). The Israelites are asked to go beyond the abstention from blood, which is [required of] all people. They are to discipline their appetites further by narrowing down the permitted animals to a few. In this way they may aspire to a higher level of life, which the Bible calls… holy (106).
This discipline, then, pursued in their adherence to the dietary requirements laid out in the law, reminded Israel every day, every meal, of just who they were and just what that meant. They were a people holy to the Lord.
B. Through the Usage of Tithes and Offerings – 22-29
But that’s not the only way it showed, by how they eat. It was also shown by how they give. Instruction is given on the subject of [tithing] at several points in the law, most notably in the closing verses of Leviticus (27:30-33), the middle of Numbers (18:21-32), and then here (Deu.14:22-29).
Lev.27 established the principle of [tithing] in Israel: the seed of the land, the fruit of the trees, every tenth animal, and all of this was designated as holy to the Lord (30, 32). Still, if someone wanted to buy back his tithe, say, from his fruit tree, he could do so. And the cost would be its present value plus twenty percent (31).
Num.18 describes how Israel’s tithe supported the Levites, who were caretakers of the Tabernacle, and then the Levites’ tithe cared for the priests. [Tithing] was almost like a tax system designed to finance Israel’s theocratic governmental structure (Averbeck notes).
Now, here in Deu.14 we come to the mind-boggling use of the remainder of Israel’s tithe—the part that perhaps sheds most light on the nature of their God Who required it of them, but therefore also on their own identity as a people for his treasured possession (2). 22 You shall tithe all the yield of your seed that comes from the field year by year. 23 And before the Lord your God, in the place that he will choose, to make his name dwell there, you shall eat the tithe of your grain, of your wine, and of your oil, and the firstborn of your herd and flock, that you may learn to fear the Lord your God always. Yes, you heard correctly! The people were actually supposed to set aside their tithe and then once a year they were to go to the central sanctuary that God would establish and celebrate His goodness to them by eating and drinking that tithe [in the presence of] the Lord! And the primary desired outcome of this practice is that they would learn to fear the Lord (their) God always! (23) How good is God?
But there’s more! If the central sanctuary is too far away such that your tithe is inconvenient to transport, you can convert it to cash and buy what you need once you get to the sanctuary! (24-25) 26 … [S]pend the money for whatever you desire—oxen or sheep or wine or strong drink, whatever your appetite craves. And you shall eat there before the Lord your God and—now another outcome—rejoice, you and your household. Wow!
But that’s still not all! Every third year’s tithe was stored more locally to be used as a Benevolence Fund to care for the Levite (27, 29), yes, but also the sojourner (immigrant), the fatherless, and the widow (29).
Some have wondered, but it does seem like one tithe was enough to finance all that Lev.27, Num.18, and Deu.14 describe (Kalland 102). Amazing! And with a system like this alongside the refined dietary laws just described, Israel would surely stand out among the nations as a people holy to the Lord [their] God, as his treasured possession (2).
Pondering a Unique Identity
It is the way God’s covenant people live that identifies them as unique. And it’s what they love that determines how they live. Israel was called to Deu.6:5 … love the Lord [their] God with all [their] heart and with all [their] soul and with all [their] might. And if they would do that, they would show it by their obedience. Here, they would show it by joyful observance of the dietary laws in order to avoid using His name in vain, lifting it up to emptiness. With the instruction on [tithing], it seems like Moses is moving on to begin addressing the fourth commandment: Deu.5:12 Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy…. So, give to the Lord what is His due. And as Israel did that with the abundance of His blessing, they would thrive in the land! Their experience would be unique, exemplary. But more, they would enter into and begin to understand their identity as a holy nation more and more deeply day after day. They would increasingly learn what it meant to be his treasure possession.
But what does this mean for us today? Is there a similar experience awaiting us as we grow in our love for the Lord and begin to show that by our obedience to His Word? Absolutely! Not only do we have the same calling as Israel with regard to loving the Lord (Mar.12:30-31), but we show it by a similar response. Jesus said: Joh.14:15 If you love me, you will keep my commandments. But now we don’t do that by observing dietary laws. And even though there’s a rich experience for us new covenant believers in trusting God to enable us to be generous with the money he gives, there’s no NT requirement to tithe, to give Him one-tenth. Rather, there’s a liberal, bounteous depiction of financial giving on this side of the cross of Christ. Paul wrote to the Corinthians: 2Co.8:7 [Just] as you excel in everything—in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in all earnestness, and in our love for you—see that you excel in this act of grace [giving] also.
Also the [eating], though, I do believe there’s a NT expression. Now that Christ has come, all foods are declared clean (Mar.7:19; Luk.11:41; Act.10:9-16; 11:5-10; Col.2:16-23; 1Ti.4:3-5). We no longer display our uniqueness in that way. We have died with Christ to the regulations of this world because what we’ve seen is that those observances don’t have the power to change us on a heart level, at the level of our longings and desires. We can eat only clean meat and still not love God with all our heart! What we need is a change of heart if we’re going to have any hope of loving what we should love, and therefore doing what we should do. We need something that lifts our minds and hearts above the fallen brokenness of this world and enables us to set them on the things that are above (Col.2:16-3:4). And Christ has done that for us!
Now, the food that we eat that really does affirm that we are set apart as holy is the bread and cup of communion, the food that we eat by faith in the Son of God who loved [us] and gave himself for [us] (Gal.2:20). Our saving and faithful God calls us to this Table to remember the sacrifice that was made to secure our standing as a people holy to the Lord, as a people for his treasured possession, and to strengthen us by His grace to live out a convincing demonstration of our unique standing before this watching world.
Conclusion
Let us come now to the Table of the Lord.