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The Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 25:13-16
Morality in trade. The Hebrew lawgiver lays just stress on honesty in weights and measures. The general principle is that of honesty in trade. Weights and measures connect themselves intimately with the ideas of justice…
The Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 25:13-16
Righteousness in trade imperative. This paragraph requires no preparatory elucidation. The topic for a Homily which it gives is one of the most important in the range of human ethics. It furnishes six lines of thought.…
The Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 25:13-16
Religion inspires commercial life. It is certain that God displays the liveliest interest in every department of human life. He is not only the God of the hills; he is God of the valleys also. He takes cognizance, not o…
The Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 25:16
(Cf. Deuteronomy 22:5; Deuteronomy 23:12.) All that do unrighteously; equivalent to all that transgress any law.
Matthew Henry on Deuteronomy 25:17-19
Let every persecutor and injurer of God's people take warning from the case of the Amalekites. The longer it is before judgement comes, the more dreadful will it be at last. Amalek may remind us of the foes of our souls…
The Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 25:17-19
The extermination of the merciless. The crime of the Amalekites was falling upon the hindmost, who were faint and weary. It was an act of judgment untempered by any mercy; and the decree of God is their extermination be…
The Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 25:17-19
Whilst in their intercourse with each other the law of love and brotherly kindness was to predominate, it was to be otherwise in regard to the enemies of God and his people. Them they were to overcome by force; wickedne…
The Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 25:17-19
Kindness to enemies is not to degenerate into sympathy with or indifference to ungodliness. God is kind. God is terrible. When he riseth up against sin to punish it openly, who—who can stand? The repeated injunctions in…
The Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 25:17-19
Amalek. Moses, in calling the sin of Amalek to remembrance, and enjoining destruction of that people, was not speaking "of himself." He but declared the will of God, long before announced, and solemnly recorded in a boo…
The Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 25:17-19
Cowardice and cruelty avenged. The feeling of resentment must be classed "low" among the moral sentiments. But this command to remember and to avenge the conduct of Amalek is not resentment. Abundant time was allowed th…
The Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 25:18
And smote the hindmost of thee; literally, and tailed thee; i.e. cut off thy tail, or rear. The verb ( זִנֵּב) occurs only here and in Joshua 10:19. It is a denominative from זָנָב, a tail, and, like many denominatives,…
Matthew Henry on Deuteronomy 26:1-11
When God has made good his promises to us, he expects we should own it to the honour of his faithfulness. And our creature comforts are doubly sweet, when we see them flowing from the fountain of the promise. The person…
The Offering of First-Fruits. (b. c. 1451.)
THE OFFERING OF FIRST-FRUITS. (B. C. 1451.) Here is, I. A good work ordered to be done, and that is the presenting of a basket of their first-fruits to God every year, Deuteronomy 26:1-2. Besides the sheaf of first-frui…
The Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 26:1-11
Of the firstfruits the Israelite was to take a portion, and placing it in a basket, to bring it to the place of the sanctuary, where it was to be received by the attendant priest. The offerer was to accompany his presen…
The Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 26:1-11
Commemorations of national deliverance. An instinct in man impels him to dwell with pleasure on his national beginnings and growth; and, in cases where that beginning sprang out from a specific event, that event has bee…
The Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 26:1-11
The dedication of the firstfruits. A beautiful religious service is here associated with the dedication of the firstfruits. It was to be an act of worship. There was to be the appearance before the priest, the acknowled…
The Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 26:1-19
EXPOSITION THANKSGIVING AND PRAYER AT THE PRESENTATION OF FIRSTFRUITS AND TITHES. As Moses began his exposition of the laws and rights instituted for Israel by a reference to the sanctuary as the place which the Lord sh…
The Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 26:1-11
Joy in the use of temporal mercies; or, sanctification of our possessions to God warrants a holy joy in the use of them. The order of thought is this: 1. In due time Israel would be in possession of the land which the L…
The Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 26:1-11
The presentation of the first fruits. This interesting ceremony: 1. Reminded the individual that the land and its fruits were God's. 2. Required from him a devout acknowledgment of the fact, with a gift in which the ack…
The Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 26:2
The first of all the fruit of the earth. (On the law of the firstfruits, see Numbers 18:12; Deuteronomy 18:4.) A basket; טֶנֶא, a basket of wickerwork.
The Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 26:3
The priest that shall be in those clays; not the high priest, but the priests collectively, or the individual priest whose function it was to officiate on the occasion. The fruit presented was the sensible proof that th…
The Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 26:5
A Syrian ready to perish was my father. The reference is to Jacob, the stem-father of the twelve tribes, tie is here called a Syrian, or Aramaean, because of his long residence in Mesopotamia (Genesis 29-31.), whence Ab…
The Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 26:6
The Egyptians evil entreated us (cf. Exodus 1:11-22; Exodus 2:23, etc.).
The Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 26:8
(Cf. Deuteronomy 4:34.)