This chapter, the last of another section of Deuteronomy, suitably comes at the close of fourteen chapters, mostly warning against sin of various kinds. If the believer has examined himself in the light of the Word of God, and judged and put away everything that the Bible condemns, he is ready to take his offering to the place where God sets His name, to be a worshiper in His presence, and to that place he is directed to come. (Verses 1-11).
We learn from, these verses, and of course others that tell of the mind of God, that He wishes those who are His people to make themselves acquainted with all that He has done for them; to live in heart and ways near to Him. All that they have they owe to Him, not only in earthly things, but particularly in heavenly hopes and joys.
If their hearts are right toward God, their minds will be engaged in all their spare moments with “the land that the Lord thy God giveth thee” —that it, with. the things of God, rather than the objects of this world. Then if the believer’s thoughts are on the things of God, there will be “fruit” to God.
There are many New Testament passages in which this word “fruit” is found, and the reader will be well repaid in searching them out; I mention only Luke 6:43,4443For a good tree bringeth not forth corrupt fruit; neither doth a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. 44For every tree is known by his own fruit. For of thorns men do not gather figs, nor of a bramble bush gather they grapes. (Luke 6:43‑44); Galatians. 5:22; Hebrews 13:1515By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name. (Hebrews 13:15). Yet, after all, Christ is the first fruits, and it is of Him that the Christian thinks first and best, and of His worthiness he should always be ready to speak, both to God the Father and to his fellow men.
It is sad when Christians are found very ready to talk about their pleasures and their business, yet are almost silent when there is occasion to speak about the Lord. It is the fruit of the condemned world, and not of the “land which the Lord thy God giveth thee” that they have been gathering, is it not?
The chosen place (verse 2) for many years of Israel’s history was Jerusalem, but today there is no earthly city where the Lord has set His name. The place which He honors with His presence now is named in Matthew 18:20: “Where two or three are gathered together unto My Name, there am I in the midst of them.” It may be in some humble home, or on a back street in a great city, for this is the day of small things.
The priest (verse 3) now is the blessed Lord Himself, for since the cross of Christ, a human priesthood has no more place. (See Hebrews chapters 9 and 10. and in particular chapter 10:11-25).
Verse 5. Jacob, the beginning of the nation, was the “Syrian ready to perish” —from famine, who went down to Egypt with his family to be cared for by his great son Joseph, —type of the Lord Jesus. There is little to be said of man at best, but his needs, his sad case upon which God looked with pity, and then brought salvation by power greater than anything this world knew. But this God-fearing Israelite has much to say of the One Who has done everything for him (verses 7-9). Before (verse 7) there was prayer; now (verse 10) there is praise.
Verse 11. There is room for all—even the “stranger”, who longs to be one with the worshipers.
THE subject the twelfth verse takes up seems quite detached from what we have been considering, but it is not. If verse 11 shows the obedient people of God, happy in His presence, rejoicing in every good thing He has given their; verse 12 bids them show that unselfishness! which we can see in its fulness only in the Lord Jesus, who, “though He was rich, yet for our sakes became poor, that we through His poverty might be rich.” 2 Cor. 8:99For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich. (2 Corinthians 8:9).
Deuteronomy 14:28,2928At 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: 29And 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. (Deuteronomy 14:28‑29) has already told us of the tithe of the third year, when the people of Israel stayed at home, and gave to those who had not, out of their bounty. The Levite who was in the service of God; the “stranger” who was not an Israelite but had come among them; the fatherless and the widow were not forgotten by God, and He graciously reminds His people in this chapter that their happiness is not complete without care for the friendless, the neglected and the needy. What do you do with what God has given you, Christian reader?
Verse 13: notice the latter part of this verse, and of the next one. The whole Word of God should be observed; there are true Christians who are not willing to obey where it cuts into their pleasures, and in other ways takes from them what is clung to, but is contrary to the mind of God. Personal holiness should characterize the believer, as is brought out in verse 14. “Mourning” in this verse is elsewhere many times translated “iniquity” or “vanity”, and this seems to be the true meaning.
Then follows the prayer of verse 15, for, “No matter how God may bless us, to whatever extent He is pleased to make us a means of blessing to others, there is this further consideration that we are not taken out of the place of dependence.” Heart and soul (verse 16) are to be engaged for God.
What nearness to God the closing verses tell of! Reader, are you saved? If saved, are you seeking to please Him who has bought you with His blood?