Deuteronomy 26 Bible study: The first of the fruit

This part of Deuteronomy began, "These are the statutes and the ordinances which you shall observe to do in the land" (12:1). Its last chapter begins with Israel in the land: "It shall be, when you have come in to the land which the LORD your God gives you for an inheritance, possess it, and dwell in it" (26:1). Then "you shall take some of the first of all the fruit of the ground" (26:2) (tap first), "put it in a basket" (26:2) (tap basket), "and shall go to the place which the LORD your God shall choose to cause his name to dwell there" (26:2). Exodus had already commanded it: "You shall bring the first of the first fruits of your ground into the house of the LORD your God" (Exodus 23:19). What this chapter adds is what to say. To the priest: "I profess today to the LORD your God, that I have come to the land which the LORD swore to our fathers to give us" (26:3) (tap profess). The priest sets the basket "down before the LORD your God’s altar" (26:4), and the one who brought it speaks again, "before the LORD your God" (26:5).

Deuteronomy 26:14→leads toLuke 17:10

In the year of tithing, Israel is told what to say before the LORD: "I have listened to the LORD my God’s voice. I have done according to all that you have commanded me" (26:14), and then, "Look down from your holy habitation, from heaven, and bless your people Israel" (26:15). When the apostles said to the Lord, "Increase our faith" (Luke 17:5), Jesus told of a servant and his master, and said, "Even so you also, when you have done all the things that are commanded you, say, ‘We are unworthy servants. We have done our duty’" (Luke 17:10). Jesus doesn't quote Deuteronomy 26, so setting the two side by side is a reading. Some hear one posture in both: words given to say after doing all that was commanded, which claim nothing beyond it; in 26:15 the speaker asks the blessing for "your people Israel" and for the ground given "as you swore to our fathers". Others note that 26:13-14 is said over the tithe of the third year and ends in a prayer, while Jesus is teaching the apostles about a servant's duty to his master (Luke 17:7-9), and read the two as sharing words about doing what was commanded without one pointing to the other.

רֵאשִׁיתreshitsay re-SHEET

Brown-Driver-Briggs: "beginning, chief"; Strong's: "the first, in place, time, order or rank (specifically, a firstfruit)". "You shall take some of the first of all the fruit of the ground" (26:2), and at the end of the story, "Now, behold, I have brought the first of the fruit of the ground" (26:10). It is the word in the Bible's first sentence, "In the beginning" (Genesis 1:1), where the Hebrew is bereshit, "in" plus this word. Exodus commanded "the first of the first fruits of your ground" (Exodus 23:19), and Deuteronomy gives the priest "the first fruits of your grain, of your new wine, and of your oil" (18:4), with this word there too.