5 And these are the words which you will say before the Lord your God: My father was a wandering Aramaean, and he went down with a small number of people into Egypt; there he became a great and strong nation:
And when the grain which they had got in Egypt was all used up, their father said to them, Go again and get us a little food. And Judah said to him, The man said to us with an oath, You are not to come before me again without your brother.
Give ear to me, you who are searching for righteousness, who are looking for the Lord: see the rock from which you were cut out, and the hole out of which you were taken. Let your thoughts be turned to Abraham, your father, and to Sarah, who gave you birth: for when he was but one, my voice came to him, and I gave him my blessing, and made him a great people.
And Israel went on his journey with all he had, and came to Beer-sheba, where he made offerings to the God of his father Isaac. And God said to Israel in a night-vision, Jacob, Jacob. And he said, Here am I. And he said, I am God, the God of your father: go down to Egypt without fear, for I will make a great nation of you there: I will go down with you to Egypt, and I will see that you come back again, and at your death Joseph will put his hands on your eyes. Then Jacob went on from Beer-sheba; and the sons of Jacob took their father and their little ones and their wives in the carts which Pharaoh had sent for them. And they took their cattle and all the goods which they had got in the land of Canaan, and came to Egypt, even Jacob and all his seed: His sons and his sons' sons, his daughters and his daughters' sons and all his family he took with him into Egypt.
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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.