Deuteronomy 14 · a question people ask
Numbers gives the tithe to the Levites. Here the family eats it. Is this the same tithe?
The books say different things about the tithe. Leviticus: "All the tithe of the land… is the LORD’s. It is holy to the LORD" (Leviticus 27:30). Numbers: "To the children of Levi, behold, I have given all the tithe in Israel for an inheritance, in return for their service which they serve" (Numbers 18:21), and the Levites give "a tithe of the tithe" (Numbers 18:26) to Aaron the priest (Numbers 18:28). Deuteronomy: the family eats it before the LORD (14:23, 14:26), the Levite is not to be forsaken (14:27), and every third year it is stored in the towns for the Levite, the foreigner, the fatherless and the widow (14:28-29). Leviticus lets a man redeem his tithe: "If a man redeems anything of his tithe, he shall add a fifth part to it" (Leviticus 27:31). Deuteronomy lets him turn it into money when the place is far, and says nothing of a fifth (14:24-25). None of these passages says how it relates to the others. Christians read them in two main ways, each resting on verses. Both agree that the tithe was the LORD's (Leviticus 27:30), and that the Levite, who had no inheritance, was to be provided for (Numbers 18:24; 14:27). Whether Christians should tithe today is Leviticus 27's honest question.
How Christians read it
Where Christians differ, Favor sets out the main views side by side and doesn't pick one.
More than one tithe
Those who hold this view note that Numbers gives the tithe to the Levites "in return for their service" (Numbers 18:21), and tells them, "You may eat it anywhere, you and your households" (Numbers 18:31), while in Deuteronomy the one who brings the tithe eats it himself at the place the LORD chooses (14:23, 14:26). In Nehemiah's day the people promised to bring "the tithes of our ground to the Levites; for they, the Levites, take the tithes in all our farming villages" (Nehemiah 10:37), and "The Levites shall bring up the tithe of the tithes to the house of our God" (Nehemiah 10:38). On this reading, the tithe Deuteronomy's families eat sits beside the Levites' tithe of Numbers 18 rather than replacing it.
Numbers 18:21 · Numbers 18:31 · Deuteronomy 14:23 · Deuteronomy 14:26 · Nehemiah 10:37-38
One tithe, its use set out for the land
Those who hold this view note that Deuteronomy ties its tithe to the Levite in words close to Numbers. The Levite "has no portion nor inheritance with you" (14:27), as Numbers says, "Among the children of Israel, they shall have no inheritance" (Numbers 18:23). He eats at the place with the family (12:18-19), and in the third year "all the tithe of your increase" is left in the towns for him and for the foreigner, the fatherless and the widow (14:28-29), in "the year of tithing" (26:12). On this reading, Moses, speaking to a people some of whom would live far from the one place (12:21; 14:24), sets out how the one tithe is to be used, with the Levite always included.
Deuteronomy 14:27 · Numbers 18:23 · Deuteronomy 12:18-19 · Deuteronomy 14:28-29 · Deuteronomy 26:12 · Deuteronomy 12:21 · Deuteronomy 14:24
The verses
““‘All the tithe of the land, whether of the seed of the land or of the fruit of the trees, is the LORD’s. It is holy to the LORD. If a man redeems anything of his tithe, he shall add a fifth part to it.”
““To the children of Levi, behold, I have given all the tithe in Israel for an inheritance, in return for their service which they serve, even the service of the Tent of Meeting.”