8 And the Lord took us out of Egypt with a strong hand and a stretched-out arm, with works of power and signs and wonders:
Has God ever before taken a nation for himself from out of another nation, by punishments and signs and wonders, by war and by a strong hand and a stretched-out arm and great acts of wonder and fear, as the Lord your God did for you in Egypt, before your very eyes?
And the children of Israel made the journey from Rameses to Succoth; there were about six hundred thousand men on foot, as well as children.
And at the end of four hundred and thirty years, to the very day, all the armies of the Lord went out of the land of Egypt.
And Moses said to the people, Let this day, on which you came out of Egypt, out of your prison-house, be kept for ever in memory; for by the strength of his hand the Lord has taken you out from this place; let no leavened bread be used.
And let your rod be lifted up and your hand stretched out over the sea, and it will be parted in two; and the children of Israel will go through on dry land. And I will make the heart of the Egyptians hard, and they will go in after them: and I will be honoured over Pharaoh and over his army, his war-carriages, and his horsemen. And the Egyptians will see that I am the Lord, when I get honour over Pharaoh and his war-carriages and his horsemen. Then the angel of God, who had been before the tents of Israel, took his place at their back; and the pillar of cloud, moving from before them, came to rest at their back: And it came between the army of Egypt and the army of Israel; and there was a dark cloud between them, and they went on through the night; but the one army came no nearer to the other all the night. And when Moses' hand was stretched out over the sea, the Lord with a strong east wind made the sea go back all night, and the waters were parted in two and the sea became dry land. And the children of Israel went through the sea on dry land: and the waters were a wall on their right side and on their left. Then the Egyptians went after them into the middle of the sea, all Pharaoh's horses and his war-carriages and his horsemen. And in the morning watch, the Lord, looking out on the armies of the Egyptians from the pillar of fire and cloud, sent trouble on the army of the Egyptians; And made the wheels of their war-carriages stiff, so that they had hard work driving them: so the Egyptians said, Let us go in flight from before the face of Israel, for the Lord is fighting for them against the Egyptians. And the Lord said to Moses, Let your hand be stretched out over the sea, and the waters will come back again on the Egyptians, and on their war-carriages and on their horsemen. And when Moses' hand was stretched out over the sea, at dawn the sea came flowing back, meeting the Egyptians in their flight, and the Lord sent destruction on the Egyptians in the middle of the sea. And the waters came back, covering the war-carriages and the horsemen and all the army of Pharaoh which went after them into the middle of the sea; not one of them was to be seen. But the children of Israel went through the sea walking on dry land, and the waters were a wall on their right side and on their left. So that day the Lord gave Israel salvation from the hands of the Egyptians; and Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the sea's edge. And Israel saw the great work which the Lord had done against the Egyptians, and the fear of the Lord came on the people and they had faith in the Lord and in his servant Moses.
And keep in mind that you were a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord your God took you out of that land by his strong hand and his stretched-out arm: for this reason the Lord has given you orders to keep the Sabbath day.
He did great works before the eyes of their fathers, in the land of Egypt, in the fields of Zoan. The sea was cut in two so that they might go through; the waters were massed together on this side and on that.
He let his signs be seen among the people, and his wonders in the land of Ham. He sent black night and made it dark; and they did not go against his word. At his word their waters were turned to blood, and he sent death on all their fish. Their land was full of frogs, even in the rooms of the king. He gave the word, and there came the dog-fly, and insects over all the land. He gave them ice for rain, and flaming fire in their land. He gave their vines and their fig-trees to destruction, and the trees of their land were broken down. At his word the locusts came, and young locusts more than might be numbered, And put an end to all the plants of their land, taking all the fruit of the earth for food. He put to death the first child of every family in the land, the first-fruits of their strength. He took his people out with silver and gold: there was not one feeble person among them. Egypt was glad when they went; for the fear of them had come down on them.
Our fathers did not give thought to your wonders in Egypt; they did not keep in memory the great number of your mercies, but gave you cause for wrath at the sea, even at the Red Sea. But he was their saviour because of his name, so that men might see his great power. By his word the Red Sea was made dry: and he took them through the deep waters as through the waste land. And he took them safely out of the hands of their haters, and kept them from the attacks of those who were against them.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Keil & Delitzsch Commentary » Commentary on Deuteronomy 26
Commentary on Deuteronomy 26 Keil & Delitzsch Commentary
To the exposition of the commandments and rights of Israel Moses adds, in closing, another ordinance respecting those gifts, which were most intimately connected with social and domestic life, viz., the first-fruits and second tithes, for the purpose of giving the proper consecration to the attitude of the nation towards its Lord and God.
Deuteronomy 26:1-4
Of the first of the fruit of the ground, which was presented from the land received from the Lord, the Israelites was to take a portion ( מראשׁית with מן partitive), and bring it in a basket to the place of the sanctuary, and give it to the priest who should be there, with the words, “I have made known to-day to the Lord thy God, that I have come into the land which the Lord swore to our fathers to give us ,” upon which the priest should take the basket and put it down before the altar of Jehovah (Deuteronomy 26:1-4). From the partitive מראשׁית we cannot infer, as Schultz supposes, that the first-fruits were not to be all delivered at the sanctuary, any more than this can be inferred from Exodus 23:19 (see the explanation of this passage). All that is implied is, that, for the purpose described afterwards, it was not necessary to put all the offerings of first-fruits into a basket and set them down before the altar. טנא (Deuteronomy 26:2, Deuteronomy 26:4, and Deuteronomy 28:5, Deuteronomy 28:17) is a basket of wicker-work, and not, as Knobel maintains, the Deuteronomist's word for צנצנת rof (Exodus 16:33. “ The priest ” is not the high priest, but the priest who had to attend to the altar-service and receive the sacrificial gifts. - The words, “I have to-day made known to the Lord thy God,” refer to the practical confession which was made by the presentation of the first-fruits. The fruit was the tangible proof that they were in possession of the land, and the presentation of the first of this fruit the practical confession that they were indebted to the Lord for the land. This confession the offerer was also to embody in a prayer of thanksgiving, after the basket had been received by the priest, in which he confessed that he and his people owed their existence and welfare to the grace of God, manifested in the miraculous redemption of Israel out of the oppression of Egypt and their guidance into Canaan.
Deuteronomy 26:5-9
אבי אבד ארמּי , “ a lost (perishing) Aramaean was my father ” (not the Aramaean, Laban , wanted to destroy my father, Jacob , as the Chald ., Arab ., Luther , and others render it). אבד signifies not only going astray, wandering, but perishing, in danger of perishing, as in Job 29:13; Proverbs 31:6, etc. Jacob is referred to, for it was he who went down to Egypt in few men. He is mentioned as the tribe-father of the nation, because the nation was directly descended from his sons, and also derived its name of Israel from him. Jacob is called in Aramaean, not only because of his long sojourn in Aramaea (Gen 29-31), but also because he got his wives and children there (cf. Hosea 12:13); and the relatives of the patriarchs had accompanied Abraham from Chaldaea to Mesopotamia (Aram; see Genesis 11:30). מעט בּמתי , consisting of few men ( בּ , the so-called beth essent ., as in Deuteronomy 10:22; Exodus 6:3, etc.; vid., Ewald , §299, q .). Compare Genesis 34:30, where Jacob himself describes his family as “few in number.” On the number in the family that migrated into Egypt, reckoned at seventy souls, see the explanation at Genesis 46:27. On the multiplication in Egypt into a great and strong people, see Exodus 1:7, Exodus 1:9; and on the oppression endured there, Exodus 1:11-22, and Exodus 2:23. - The guidance out of Egypt amidst great signs (Deuteronomy 26:8), as in Deuteronomy 4:34.
Deuteronomy 26:10
“ So shalt thou set it down (the basket with the first-fruits) before Jehovah .” These words are not to be understood, as Clericus , Knobel , and others suppose, in direct opposition to Deuteronomy 26:4 and Deuteronomy 26:5, as implying that the offerer had held the basket in his hand during the prayer, but simply as a remark which closes the instructions.
Deuteronomy 26:11
Rejoicing in all the good, etc., points to the joy connected with the sacrificial meal, which followed the act of worship (as in Deuteronomy 12:12). The presentation of the first-fruits took place, no doubt, on their pilgrimages to the sanctuary at the three yearly festivals (ch. 16); but it is quite without ground that Riehm restricts these words to the sacrificial meals to be prepared from the tithes, as if they had been the only sacrificial meals (see at Deuteronomy 18:3).
The delivery of the tithes, like the presentation of the first-fruits, was also to be sanctified by prayer before the Lord. It is true that only a prayer after taking the second tithe in the third year is commanded here; but that is simply because this tithe was appropriated everywhere throughout the land to festal meals for the poor and destitute (Deuteronomy 14:28), when prayer before the Lord would not follow per analogiam from the previous injunction concerning the presentation of first-fruits, as it would in the case of the tithes with which sacrificial meals were prepared at the sanctuary (Deuteronomy 14:22.). לעשׂר is the infinitive Hiphil for להעשׂר , as in Nehemiah 10:39 (on this form, vid., Ges. §53, 3 Anm. 2 and 7, and Ew. §131, b . and 244, b .). “Saying before the Lord” does not denote prayer in the sanctuary (at the tabernacle), but, as in Genesis 27:7, simply prayer before God the omnipresent One, who is enthroned in heaven (Deuteronomy 26:15), and blesses His people from above from His holy habitation. The declaration of having fulfilled the commandments of God refers primarily to the directions concerning the tithes, and was such a rendering of an account as springs from the consciousness that a man very easily transgresses the commandments of God, and has nothing in common with the blindness of pharisaic self-righteousness “ I have cleaned out the holy out of my house: ” the holy is that which is sanctified to God, that which belongs to the Lord and His servants, as in Leviticus 21:22. בּער signifies not only to remove, but to clean out, wipe out. That which was sanctified to God appeared as a debt, which was to be wiped out of a man's house ( Schultz ).
“ I have not eaten thereof in my sorrow .” אני , from און , tribulation, distress, signifies here in all probability mourning, and judging from what follows, mourning for the dead, equivalent to “in a mourning condition,” i.e., in a state of legal (Levitical) uncleanness; so that בּאני really corresponded to the בּטמא which follows, except that טמא includes every kind of legal uncleanness. “ I have removed nothing thereof as unclean ,” i.e., while in the state of an unclean person. Not only not eaten of any, but not removed any of it from the house, carried it away in an unclean state, in which they were forbidden to touch the holy gifts (Leviticus 22:3). “ And not given (any) of it on account of the dead .” This most probably refers to the custom of sending provisions into a house of mourning, to prepare meals for the mourners (2 Samuel 3:25; Jeremiah 16:7; Hosea 9:4; Tobit 4:17). A house of mourning, with its inhabitants, was regarded as unclean; consequently nothing could be carried into it of that which was sanctified. There is no good ground for thinking of idolatrous customs, or of any special superstition attached to the bread of mourning; nor is there any ground for understanding the words as referring to the later Jewish custom of putting provisions into the grave along with the corpse, to which the Septuagint rendering, οὐκ ἔδωκα ἀπ αὐτῶν τῷ τεθνηκότι , points. (On Deuteronomy 26:15, see Isaiah 63:15.)
At the close of his discourse, Moses sums up the whole in the earnest admonition that Israel would give the Lord its God occasion to fulfil the promised glorification of His people, by keeping His commandments with all their heart and soul.
Deuteronomy 26:16-17
On this day the Lord commanded Israel to keep these laws and rights with all the heart and all the soul (cf. Deuteronomy 6:5; Deuteronomy 10:12.). There are two important points contained in this (Deuteronomy 26:17.). The acceptance of the laws laid before them on the part of the Israelites involved a practical declaration that the nation would accept Jehovah as its God, and walk in His way (Deuteronomy 26:17); and the giving of the law on the part of the Lord was a practical confirmation of His promise that Israel should be His people of possession, which He would glorify above all nations (Deuteronomy 26:18, Deuteronomy 26:19). “ Thou hast let the Lord say to-day to be thy God ,” i.e., hast given Him occasion to say to thee that He will be thy God, manifest Himself to thee as thy God. “ And to walk in His ways, and to keep His laws ,” etc., for “and that thou wouldst walk in His ways, and keep His laws.” The acceptance of Jehovah as its God involved eo ipso a willingness to walk in His ways.
Deuteronomy 26:18-19
At the same time, Jehovah had caused the people to be told that they were His treasured people of possession, as He had said in Exodus 19:5-6; and that if they kept all His commandments, He would set them highest above all nations whom He had created, “for praise, and for a name, and for glory,” i.e., make them an object of praise, and renown, and glorification of God, the Lord and Creator of Israel, among all nations (vid., Jeremiah 33:9 and Jeremiah 13:11; Jeremiah 3:19-20). “ And that it should become a holy people unto the Lord ,” as He had already said in Exodus 19:6. The sanctification of Israel was the design and end of its divine election, and would be accomplished in the glory to which the people of God were to be exalted (see the commentary on Exodus 19:5-6). The Hiphil האמיר , which is only found here, has no other meaning than this, “to cause a person to say,” or “ give him occasion to say;” and this is perfectly appropriate here, whereas the other meaning suggested, “to exalt,” has no tenable support either in the paraphrastic rendering of these verses in the ancient versions, or in the Hithpael in Psalms 94:4, and moreover is altogether unsuitable in Deuteronomy 26:17.