5 You shall answer and say before Yahweh your God, A Syrian ready to perish was my father; and he went down into Egypt, and sojourned there, few in number; and he became there a nation, great, mighty, and populous.
Your fathers went down into Egypt with seventy persons; and now Yahweh your God has made you as the stars of the sky for multitude.
The sons of Joseph, who were born to him in Egypt, were two souls. All the souls of the house of Jacob, who came into Egypt, were seventy.
Jacob went down into Egypt, and he died, himself and our fathers,
Jacob fled into the country of Aram, And Israel served to get a wife, And for a wife he tended flocks and herds.
God sent me before you to preserve you a remnant in the earth, and to save you alive by a great deliverance.
and take double money in your hand, with the money that was returned in the mouth of your sacks carry again in your hand. Perhaps it was an oversight.
Listen to me, you who follow after righteousness, you who seek Yahweh: look to the rock whence you were hewn, and to the hold of the pit whence you were dug. Look to Abraham your father, and to Sarah who bore you; for when he was but one I called him, and I blessed him, and made him many.
Israel also came into Egypt. Jacob sojourned in the land of Ham. He increased his people greatly, And made them stronger than their adversaries.
But you shall go to my country, and to my relatives, and take a wife for my son Isaac."
The children of Israel were fruitful, and increased abundantly, and multiplied, and grew exceedingly mighty; and the land was filled with them.
Israel lived in the land of Egypt, in the land of Goshen; and they got themselves possessions therein, and were fruitful, and multiplied exceedingly.
Israel traveled with all that he had, and came to Beersheba, and offered sacrifices to the God of his father, Isaac. God spoke to Israel in the visions of the night, and said, "Jacob, Jacob!" He said, "Here I am." He said, "I am God, the God of your father. Don't be afraid to go down into Egypt; for there I will make of you a great nation. I will go down with you into Egypt. I will also surely bring you up again. Joseph will close your eyes." Jacob rose up from Beersheba, and the sons of Israel carried Jacob, their father, their little ones, and their wives, in the wagons which Pharaoh had sent to carry him. They took their cattle, and their goods, which they had gotten in the land of Canaan, and came into Egypt-- Jacob, and all his seed with him, his sons, and his sons' sons with him, his daughters, and his sons' daughters, and he brought all his seed with him into Egypt.
God came to Laban, the Syrian, in a dream of the night, and said to him, "Take heed to yourself that you don't speak to Jacob either good or bad."
Jacob deceived Laban the Syrian, in that he didn't tell him that he was running away.
Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing with which his father blessed him. Esau said in his heart, "The days of mourning for my father are at hand. Then I will kill my brother Jacob."
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.