15 So, looking down from your holy place in heaven, send your blessing on your people Israel and on the land which you have given us, as you said in your oath to our fathers, a land flowing with milk and honey.
Let your eyes be looking down from heaven, from your holy and beautiful house: where is your deep feeling, the working of your power? do not keep back the moving of your pity and your mercies:
For at the shaking of my hand over them, their goods will be taken by those who were their servants: and you will see that the Lord of armies has sent me.
So the Lord of armies, the God of Israel, has said, Again will these words be used in the land of Judah and in its towns, when I have let their fate be changed: May the blessing of the Lord be on you, O resting-place of righteousness, O holy mountain.
The Lord says, Heaven is the seat of my power, and earth is the resting-place for my feet: what sort of house will you make for me, and what place will be my resting-place? For all these things my hand has made, and they are mine, says the Lord; but to this man only will I give attention, to him who is poor and broken in spirit, fearing my word.
Give ear in heaven your living-place, and give him his desire, whatever it may be; so that all the peoples of the earth may have knowledge of your name, worshipping you as do your people Israel, and that they may see that this house which I have put up is truly named by your name.
But is it truly possible that God may be housed on earth? see, heaven and the heaven of heavens are not wide enough to be your resting-place; how much less this house which I have made!
Let this then be your prayer: Our Father in heaven, may your name be kept holy.
For when God made his oath to Abraham, because there was no greater oath, he made it by himself, Saying, Be certain that I will give you my blessing, and make your numbers very great. And so, when he had been waiting calmly for a long time, God's word to him was put into effect. For men at all times make their oaths by what is greater; and any argument is ended by the decision of the oath. So that when it was God's desire to make it specially clear to those who by his word were to have the heritage, that his purpose was fixed, he made it more certain with an oath; So that we, who have gone in flight from danger to the hope which has been put before us, may have a strong comfort in two unchanging things, in which it is not possible for God to be false;
And our cry went up to the Lord, the God of our fathers, and the Lord's ear was open to the voice of our cry, and his eyes took note of our grief and the crushing weight of our work:
The spirit of the Lord is on me, because I am marked out by him to give good news to the poor; he has sent me to make the broken-hearted well, to say that the prisoners will be made free, and that those in chains will see the light again;
For this is the word of him who is high and lifted up, whose resting-place is eternal, whose name is Holy: my resting-place is in the high and holy place, and with him who is crushed and poor in spirit, to give life to the spirit of the poor, and to make strong the heart of the crushed.
If I keep not your memory, O Jerusalem, let not my right hand keep the memory of its art. If I let you go out of my thoughts, and if I do not put Jerusalem before my greatest joy, let my tongue be fixed to the roof of my mouth.
The Lord has kept us in mind and will give us his blessing; he will send blessings on the house of Israel and on the house of Aaron. He will send blessings on the worshippers of the Lord, on the small and on the great. May the Lord give you and your children still greater increase. May you have the blessing of the Lord, who made heaven and earth.
Let the pleasure of the Lord our God be on us: O Lord, give strength to the work of our hands.
Do good to Zion in your good pleasure, building up the walls of Jerusalem.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible » Commentary on Deuteronomy 26
Commentary on Deuteronomy 26 Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
CHAPTER 26
De 26:1-15. The Confession of Him That Offers the Basket of First Fruits.
2. Thou shalt take of the first of all the fruit of the earth—The Israelites in Canaan, being God's tenants-at-will, were required to give Him tribute in the form of first-fruits and tithes. No Israelite was at liberty to use any productions of his field until he had presented the required offerings. The tribute began to be exigible after the settlement in the promised land, and it was yearly repeated at one of the great feasts (Le 2:14; 23:10; 23:15; Nu 28:26; De 16:9). Every master of a family carried it on his shoulders in a little basket of osier, peeled willow, or palm leaves, and brought it to the sanctuary.
5. thou shalt say … A Syrian ready to perish was my father—rather, "a wandering Syrian." The ancestors of the Hebrews were nomad shepherds, either Syrians by birth as Abraham, or by long residence as Jacob. When they were established as a nation in the possession of the promised land, they were indebted to God's unmerited goodness for their distinguished privileges, and in token of gratitude they brought this basket of first-fruits.
11. thou shalt rejoice—feasting with friends and the Levites, who were invited on such occasions to share in the cheerful festivities that followed oblations (De 12:7; 16:10-15).
12-15. When thou hast made an end of tithing all the tithes of thine increase the third year—Among the Hebrews there were two tithings. The first was appropriated to the Levites (Nu 18:21). The second, being the tenth of what remained, was brought to Jerusalem in kind; or it was converted into money, and the owner, on arriving in the capital, purchased sheep, bread, and oil (De 14:22, 23). This was done for two consecutive years. But this second tithing was eaten at home, and the third year distributed among the poor of the place (De 14:28, 29).
13. thou shalt say before the Lord thy God, I have brought away the hallowed things out of mine house—This was a solemn declaration that nothing which should be devoted to the divine service had been secretly reserved for personal use.
14. I have not eaten thereof in my mourning—in a season of sorrow, which brought defilement on sacred things; under a pretense of poverty, and grudging to give any away to the poor.
neither … for any unclean use—that is, any common purpose, different from what God had appointed and which would have been a desecration of it.
nor given ought thereof for the dead—on any funeral service, or, to an idol, which is a dead thing.