Deuteronomy - Lesson 20

All right. We are moving now, jumping a few paragraphs or a few chapters, up to chapter 18. We will end there, but we’ll lay the groundwork to a special problem in, a special issue in, the book of Deuteronomy concerning the Levites. This is rather surprising because the book of Deuteronomy isn’t actually very interested in Levitical issues, like you have in Leviticus, like you have in the book of Ezekiel, priestly issues are not a big concern in here. It’s ethical religion, not cultic religion, that drives this whole book. But the Levites represent a barometer of where the nation is on ethical religion, which is very interesting. So, my title is The Levite in Your Gates: A Barometer of Israel’s Spiritual State. 

First of all, we have to talk about the economic status of Levites in Israelite society. As a tribe among the tribes of Israel, they did not get their own land. But though Moses is a Levite, we shouldn’t, since Moses is a Levite, we shouldn’t be surprised that when he deals with this tribe, he acknowledges Levi as one of the 12 tribes. They are in addition to the actual 12 tribes, but as some of you already mentioned in private conversation between the sessions, in chapter 27 when they’re at that ceremony at Gerizim and Ebal, the Levites are, they are as a tribe, which means that Joseph represents Ephraim and Manasseh to keep the number 12. But these are always the outliers. There are 12 political tribal entities, but one religious tribal entity, and that’s the Levites. Sometimes they function as that 12th tribe. At the ritual of covenant, blessing and curse, there you have them identified in the farewell blessings of the tribes. In chapter 33, Moses blesses Levi, but that means he has to cut out either Ephraim or Manasseh. And so, what does he do? Joseph. It works. 

The Levites. We need to talk about the Levites as a vulnerable socio-economic group. Often, they are grouped together with the widow, the orphan, and the alien, and the Levites. “Don’t neglect these people. Take them along when you go to the central sanctuary, wherever.” 

The data. Although Moses never mentioned the issue in the first or second addresses, the frequency with which Moses appeals to Israelites to take care of Levites in the third address catches us by surprise. He talked over and over again about the Levites “in your gates.” And here ‘gates’ means towns. 

In the First Testament when you hear the word ‘city,’ that means a community with walls around it. The difference between a city and a village is the wall. It has nothing to do with size. A city is, by definition: a community or a place with walls to protect the people on the inside and keep out unwanted people. So. the Levites “in your gates” means the Levites within the walls of your town. So that the expectation here is there will be Levites all over the place. But we’ll come back to talk about the Levitical towns. 

Well, “You may celebrate before Yahweh your God, you and your sons and your daughters, your male servants, female servants, the Levite that is within your towns,” literally it’s ‘within your gates.’ “…since he has no portion or grant of land with you.” 

That’s the problem. The Levites have no independent economic base. They have no way of making a living because they don’t own tribal territory, the farms. We’ll talk about the Levitical towns a little bit later; that’s a different issue. Because they have no land, they can’t produce their own food and their own wool and their own whatever else people need to live. So, the injunctions are repeated, Don’t forget to take care of those. The laborer is worthy of his hire. And this is a case where the Levites are serving, doing their spiritual ministry, you take care of them. 

And there are other places too, like chapter 12:8, “Bring the Levite.” In other texts, Moses associates Levites with the sojourners, fatherless children, and widows suggesting that he, Moses, anticipated them presenting a significant social problem. And what happens to the Levites becomes a barometer on how the nation is doing spiritually. Fascinating study. 

“The Levite, because he has no portion or grant of land with you, the sojourner, and the widow,” this is over and over again, “who are within your towns, they may come and eat and be filled with you, that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work that you do.” The blessing of God on the farmers is tied to how they take care of Levites. Take care of the Levites that the Lord your God may bless you. 

Here is chapter 16, “You may celebrate before Yahweh your God, you and your son, your daughter, your male servant, your female servant, the Levite who is within your towns, the sojourner, the fatherless, the widow who are among you, at the place that Yahweh your God may choose to make His name dwell,” Stamped with His name. Bring the Levites with you. 

Well, this is the general charge and this is the problem. There are specific provisions for taking care of Levites. “Watch yourselves lest you neglect the Levite as long as you live in the land.” Did you hear how he says that? “Watch yourselves lest you forget the Levite.” It doesn’t say, “Watch out for the Levite.” Because it’s out of the heart that precedes the issues of life, that the issues of life come, and if your heart is right, you will take care of the Levites.

Or 14:27, “The Levite who is in your gates, you shall not neglect, he has no portion.” 

“When you have finished paying the tithe of the produce in the third year,” (which is the year of tithing) “give it to the Levite, to the sojourner, the fatherless, the widow, so they may eat within your gates and be filled.” They don’t have to come to the central sanctuary to have a meal. They want to eat in your town where they are living as well. 

And here, “Then you shall say before Yahweh,” (this is from chapter 26) “I have removed the sacred portion out of my house, and moreover, I have given it to the Levite, the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow, according to the whole command that you have commanded.” This is chapter 26, “When you come to the central sanctuary as an individual and you present your offering, this is what you say, ‘I have taken care of the poor back home and now I’ve come to the central sanctuary.’ If you’re not going to take care of the poor back home, I don’t want to see you at the central sanctuary. Take care of that; this is ethical living.” 

What else shall we say? “At that time, Yahweh set apart the tribe of Levi to carry the Ark of the Covenant of Yahweh to stand before Yahweh to minister to Him and bless in His name and to this day. Therefore,” (this is from chapter 10) “Therefore, Levi has no portion or grant.” When God set them apart, He said, “You are my portion, you, your male and your servant and female, the Levite that is within your town, since he has no portion or grant of land with you.” So, you have it again, 14:27. We looked at some of these texts already. 

But let’s look at how Moses deals with Levites elsewhere. And then, of course, it’s interesting to watch how he deals with Aaron, who’s a Levite, the supreme Levite. He’s the high priest, after all. Not in the book of Deuteronomy, because by the time we get to Deuteronomy, Aaron’s gone. But Moses does talk about Aaron a couple of times, four times in three contexts. 

In 9:20, he recalls his prayer for Aaron in the aftermath of the golden calf. In 10:6, 32, he recalls Aaron’s death but he never speaks of Aaron, as the high priest. The closest he comes is 10:6, where he notes that his son, Eleazar, ministered as priest in his place. 

Moses doesn’t have much time for Aaron. He seems to have democratized Aaron’s status as the one who is holy to Yahweh. The whole nation is now that. That medallion that the high priest wore on his head, we showed pictures earlier, the inscription on there now applies to the whole nation. This is the early version of the priesthood of all believers. The whole community has a priestly function. You are a holy people to Yahweh your God. Out on a mission as a nation. 

Moses recognizes the work of a single priest at a central sanctuary in a couple of places, but he never calls them the hereditary high priests. And we don’t know. It’s very vague. It’s hard to figure out about whom he is talking. Is it somebody whom the priests at the central sanctuary chose for a particular moment? We don’t know. He talks about the priest who is in office at that time a couple of times.

In his addresses, Moses doesn’t attempt to produce a handbook on worship practices that build on Exodus 25 to 31, or 35 to 40, and then Leviticus 6. Rather, he presents a theology of worship, highlighting national observances at the central sanctuary as unifying events and highlighting taking care of the priests as an aspect of their ethical worship from day to day. 

From an ethical perspective, he highlights that the events at the central sanctuary are to be used as occasions to take care of the marginalized. So, we’re not separating the sacred from the profane, the secular from the sacred. Everything secular is for everybody, and everything sacred is for everybody as well. It’s a holy world we’re creating. And so, this accounts for his blurring of distinctions between Levites and priests. 

Now, we evangelicals, we trust when Exodus and Leviticus draw the distinctions between the Aaronic priesthood and the Levites, who are the descendants of Levi from the other branches of that. But in critical scholarship, they tend to treat these as two groups competing for power. And in the book of Deuteronomy, it looks like the Levites have won out over the Aaronites. But of course, I don’t think that works. Exodus and Numbers distinguish dramatically. 

Let’s look at Moses’ vision of the status and duties of priests. What do priests do? Deuteronomy 10:8-9, “At that time, Yahweh set apart the tribe of Levi to carry the Ark of the Covenant.” Well, I thought… I thought their job was to present sacrifices at the altars. Not in Deuteronomy. That’s not the first thing he says about them. In Deuteronomy, it’s all about covenant. He doesn’t mention Levites until he talks about the Ark of the Covenant. They “carry the Ark of the Covenant, they stand before Yahweh, they administer rituals and pronounce blessings in His name, as they do to this day. For this reason, the Levites have no allotment of or grant of land with their brothers. The Lord is their grant as Yahweh your God told them.” 

The privilege of serving God is to be more than compensation for not having land. But of course, that places the onus then of taking care of them on the people who have the land. And this becomes a part of the issue. 

It’s remarkable that in his recollection of past events, Moses never spoke of the context in which Levites were separated for sacred duty. There’s no hint about when God did this. We know it happened already at Sinai, and Exodus chapters 25-31, where he describes building the tabernacle, it assumes Aaron is going to be the high priest, he’s been set apart. None of that is in the book of Deuteronomy. 

In the parenthetical comment of 10:8-9, the narrator of the books notes the status of the priests as separated. The Lord has separated them here, set them apart, hivdîl, as opposed to bāḥar, to choose. Elsewhere we read about the Lord chose Levi and the Levites to be His agents. 

So, “the priests, the sons of Levi, shall come forward for Yahweh your God has chosen them.” Here is the word ‘chosen.’ Sometimes it’s ‘separated’ and sometimes it’s ‘chosen.’ “He has chosen them to minister to Him and to bless in the name of Yahweh. And by their word every dispute and every assault shall be settled.” Well, we got three different functions of the Levites right here. 

So, let’s talk about this. The Levitical priests are Yahweh’s chosen officials. The Levitical priests are guardians of the covenant. They carry the ark of the Lord, set apart to carry the ark, be custodians of it. 

Some of you are aware that the oldest professional sports trophy in North America is the Stanley Cup. And of course, the climax to the Stanley Cup playoffs is unlike any other. And what a great moment it is when there is only one Stanley Cup. It’s not like they create a new trophy every year. They create little replicas of the thing for each player on the winning team, and they brand their names, or etch their names in a new plate. That’s why it keeps growing, gets bigger and bigger. But it’s this massive thing. 

But when that thing is on the road, every year after the Stanley Cup playoffs are done, the members of the winning team get to keep it for a week. Do with it whatever they want. And so, they take it all over the world. When Marián Hossa won the cup for the Chicago Blackhawks, he took it to Czechoslovakia, or the Czech Republic, took it home with him, and for a week he showed it off to everybody. But trust me, that thing is kept in a safe van all the time with several guardians. They are guardians of the cup. He doesn’t get to keep it in his house overnight without the guardians. And wherever it goes, the guardians are there. There’s only one of these. Lots of mysteries been told about that. It’s been stolen, disappeared a couple of times in its history. But the holy grail keeps surfacing and growing. 

Well, these Levites have that job. We get to carry the ark, which means more than we simply have the burden. It means we have the privilege. We serve the throne of the living God, for this is the Lord’s throne. 

They’re officials in Yahweh’s court; they stand before Yahweh. Remember God told Abraham, Walk before Me and be blameless. This is a different metaphor than walk with me. Enoch walked with God. That’s an expression for fellowship, intimacy, walking with God. Micah said, “What does the Lord your God require of you but to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God.” This is different. 

They stand before Yahweh. This is royal language. This is court language. The Levites stand before the enthroned One, receive His commissions, and then go and fulfill them on His behalf. This is royal imagery here. Stand before Me. Official court language authorizing them entrance into the presence of the King, either to minister to Him or to receive His orders to go and dispense to the people. This is a very privileged status. 

They are ministers to Yahweh, šhāraṯ means to serve, to minister. In what sense? Especially cultic service. When they’re performing the sacrifices, even taking care of the tabernacle building itself, or eventually the temple, keeping the gold polished and keeping the candelabra, the menorah, burning. All of that is maintaining the residence, the royal residence of God, so that it keeps sparkling forth the glory of the one who lives there. 

Then resolving disputes on God’s behalf, Chapter 21:5. This is an interesting text. “If you are dealing with a difficult case and you encounter something that you can’t solve, then the priests, the sons of Levi, will hear, shall come near for the Lord.  Your God has chosen them to serve Him and to bless in the name of the Lord. And every dispute and every assault shall be settled by them.” If you can’t figure out a case, give it to the Levite. 

Now I don’t think this involves then the Levites setting up a Supreme Court and going through all of the business of examining the evidence, hearing the attorneys again one more time, the Court of Appeal in that sense, I think it would involve primarily the manipulation of the Urim and the Thummim. “You can’t solve the case? All right, here, let’s see. We discover the mind of God with these two stones.” 

Now in other books, Exodus and Leviticus and Numbers, the Urim and the Thummim are in the hands of the high priest. But Deuteronomy never talks about the high priest; he generalizes it to the Levites. They minister to Yahweh. 

They are blessers of the people. Their job is to pronounce the blessing in the name of Yahweh. Deuteronomy never says what that blessing looks like, but presumably it involves the Aaronic blessing. If you look at—let’s go back there, there is something very curious about Numbers 6:22. Remember what Jesus tells the disciples, was it Peter in particular? “Whomever you forgive or you pronounce, whatever sins you forgive will be forgiven in heaven, as if he is the authorized person to declare forgiveness.” Well, look at what we’ve got here. Deuteronomy 6, (I’m trying to multitask here) “The Lord spoke to Moses,” verse 22, “speak to Aaron and to his sons, ‘Thus, you shall bless the sons of Israel.’” This is prescribed blessing. “You shall say to them, ‘The Lord bless you, the Lord protect you, the Lord smile upon you, make His face shine upon you.’” That’s the point to the pagans. That’s the point of sacrifices, is to remove the scowl from the God’s face and replace it with a smile. “May He smile, may His face shine upon, you, may He be gracious. May He lift up His countenance on you.” That is actually look at you and not turn His face away. “And give you peace.” 

But then look at that last verse. “So they shall put,” my translation says ‘invoke,’ the verb is ‘put,’ “…my name on the sons of Israel and I will bless them.” 

What? By blessing the people in the name of Yahweh, they put the Lord’s name on them. And of course, I’ve mentioned before, “You shall not bear the name of the Lord your God in vain.” The assumption is, metaphorically, we’re all branded. Whether it’s on the forehead or on the hands or wherever, we’re all branded. But every time the priests bless the people this is an affirmation of the brand. That’s a high honor, to brand the people on behalf of God. They stamp them with His name. With a blessing, they bless. 

They are custodians of the Torah. When Moses finally copies or writes out his entire Torah, he hands it to the sons of Levi, who carried the ark, and they put it beside the ark, and there it is stored, and the Levites are the guardians. 

Not only that, but in chapter 17:18, “The King, when he sits on his throne of the kingdom, he shall write for himself in a scroll, a copy of this Torah.” This is where we get the name ‘Deuteronomy’ now, the Hebrew for copy of the Torah. Looks like second law to the Greeks. And that’s why they call this book. I think that’s why. 

“He shall write for himself in the presence of the Levitical priests.” Well, why can’t he do it in his own home? Or why can’t he do it privately? “You shall not add to it or you shall not subtract.” The problem is when we read the Bible privately, we pick and choose what we like; it’s old country buffet. Then you eat, you pick what you like, and it’s probably unhealthy and it’s sweet and makes you feel good, but on the other hand, it doesn’t sustain you. But the Levites are there. They’re the ones who bring in the original manuscript and they let you copy for the day and then they take it back home with them, because you’re not to mess with it. They are custodians of the Torah. But how does the king then keep it? By living by it. And it’s the priests who supervise this whole business. 

And then they function as judicial mediators. “If a case is too difficult in your gates, whether murder, lawsuits or assaults, arise, go to the place that the Lord your God will choose. Go to the priest, who are Levites, particularly to the judge who is in the office at that time. Inquire of them and they will declare the verdict for you.” 

Again, I don’t think this involves actually another court proceeding. Remember in Exodus chapter 19, where Moses redivides, or divides, the people into hundreds and fifties and he puts a leader over each of these groups. And then Jethro says, “Let them divide the everyday mundane affairs and they bring the difficult ones to you. And so, they bring them to Moses, and he adjudicates with the judgment of God.” I think in cases like that, Moses looks to God for the answer to the problem. 

And in this case, I think these guys, not everybody agrees with me, but I think in this case, they bring it to the central sanctuary where the Urim and the Thummim are and the priest who is in charge at the time, he manipulates these, however they did it, and we don’t know, and through the Urim, the sanctioned means, God speaks. 

And then there is a serious warning that follows after: you’d better listen. If you’re going to go to God directly for the answer to a problem, you better not think about not fulfilling what He tells you because it is an absolute directive. Well, “do not deviate from what they tell you either to the right or to the left.” So, these are the judicial proceedings. 

I’ve tried to reduce to a kind of chart. Terry, you were asking about this the other day and here it is. When you’re trying to solve legal cases, I wish this were bigger, but when you’re trying to solve legal cases, it starts over that end and works its way this way. (I should actually work the other way, thinking in Hebrew I would do it that way.) But notice the options. 

It starts with an accuser reports an offense. We got two options. The accused confesses the guilt or the accused protests and says “I’m innocent.” 

Well, if he confesses guilt, that’s all solved. You don’t have to take it any further and so. 

The accuser pardons, reconciliation, or the accuser refuses to pardon. Oh, then you have to carry on and see where we’re going to go. And it could result in violence or a local tribunal. And if it’s a local tribunal, then there’s another phase. 

But if the guy protests innocence, the accuser persists in the accusation or the accuser drops the accusation, that’s reconciliation. 

Here you’ve got a local tribunal or a violent solution to the problem, execute the guy or whatever else. 

And then in both scenarios, it ends up at the local tribunal and they can’t solve it, what do we do? 

If the accuser is the only witness, the case is dismissed. 

If there are two more witnesses confirming innocence, it’s dismissed. 

Two or more witnesses confirm guilt, sentence passed. 

Witnesses fail to confirm guilt or innocence. That’s what we’re talking about. We can’t solve this. We can’t figure this one out. So, what have we got? It goes to the central tribunal at the sanctuary. 

And then you have the divine pronouncement of guilt or the divine pronouncement of innocence. And the case is closed. 

It’s a complicated, but it’s a very sophisticated system. Actually, when you put all of this together, this is the Deuteronomic picture of adjudicated scenarios, this is how things could go. 

Then the Levites as teachers of Torah. This turns out, I think, in long range terms to be perhaps the most important. Chapter 17:1 [recte 17:11], “Execute according to the Torah that they teach you and the verdict they give you.” 

Or 33, In the blessings of Levi, Moses says, “they will teach Jacob your stipulations and Israel, your Torah.” 

So, Moses recognizes that the Levites are teachers of Torah. So, what he is preaching and he commits to writing becomes the textbook for their religious education. This is canonical from the beginning. It is canonical. It is authoritative. But how would they do this? Well, here we have it.

All these Levitical towns set apart for the Levites to live in. And so, they’re grouped here. The red means Kohath from the descendants of Kohath, Merari, the descendants of Gershom, and then these last ones with a frame, those are the asylum towns. They do double duty; these are Levitical towns, but also cities of refuge. So, if there’s a criminal or somebody causes accidental death to anybody and the close relatives are after them and they want to kill the guy, how do we protect them? Cities of refuge. One there, one there, one there, one there, one there. So, six of them, three on each side of the Jordan River. It’s taking care of business so that even before they get going, we’ve got it covered. 

But look at the Levites. There are a whole bunch of Levitical towns here. This is Judah. And then you’ve got Ephraim and Manasseh and the blue are Merarite, and they take care of the people out here. Gad and Reuben. But Manasseh, up in the east, Manasseh, and then the northern tribes, these are the Gershon, sons of Gershon. 

Forty-eight cities, think: towns. These are not big metropolitan areas. These are towns set apart as Levitical towns. I prefer the word town to cities because when we think city, we think size. It has nothing to do with size. It has to do with the nature of the place. But these are the Levitical towns. 

What is the point of these Levitical towns? This is my theory. And so, this is how I imagine the system working. A schematic portrayal of the location of the Levitical towns. We should have, it’s too small, but we should have 48 Levitical towns here. But they are not stuck in their towns. I think these are bases of operation so that the pastoral work extends to the whole country. Wherever people live, they have access to the Lord via His agents and what they’re supposed to be doing in these towns, and they go out to the villages, it covers the whole nation, they teach Torah, which does not mean preaching from the Torah. It means reciting the Torah, helping people memorize it. Did you hear that? In the ancient world, “Thy word have I hid it in my heart that I might not sin.” This is all about memorizing the Torah. In a pre-literate world, people actually learned to memorize very quickly. And it’s no trouble at all for people in that world to memorize all of Deuteronomy. That’s a simple thing, memorizing all of Deuteronomy. 

And so, when they are teaching Torah, the words of Moses live on. So, they’re not only reading the Torah every seven years at the Festival of Booths, they’re in the villages teaching Torah to the people so that, you know, Psalm 1, “Blessed is the man…but in it, he meditates day and night.” That doesn’t mean that he’s reading the Bible. It means he’s cogitating, ruminating. I mean, the word is the same in Psalm 1 as that which is used of a cow chewing her cud. Ruminating on the Scripture that is in his heart. And this way they see to the religious education, spiritual nurture of the people from one end of the nation to the other, so that the promotion of the faith of Israel doesn’t happen only at the central sanctuary. You can’t maintain a people’s faith three times a year, by getting everybody together three times a year. Stuff happens. And we need help today where I live. 

I mean, we talk about the regulations in Leviticus about when you have mold on your house. Well, who is supposed to take care of that? Where do you go? It’s the Levitical priest. So, every community needs access to people like this who will do the business of purification and cleansing. Or when a woman gives birth to a child, who is going to supervise her own purification rites and declare at the end of it, you’re ready to go? You know, those kinds of things, and there are lots of other things. If one of your relatives dies and you have to take care and you bury your relative, then you have to have purification rites after that, because you’ve touched a dead body. I mean, there are lots of things. 

They needed pastoral help, and I think each town must have had its local town festivals. Samuel comes to Bethlehem for a festival, and that festival occasion becomes the occasion for anointing David, who is the next king. What? In the local town you’ve got this festival and Samuel, the priest is there? There’s no scolding of it. There’s nothing wrong with this. No, it’s the right thing to do because people need to be nurtured. 

And think about the Sabbath. The Sabbath is a secular event. I shouldn’t say it is sacred, but it’s not a cultic event. On the Sabbath, they don’t go to Jerusalem. On the Sabbath, they come in from the fields and I imagine it’s up to the local Levitical priest at sundown to blow the shofar. Time to come in. You’ve worked hard enough this week. Enjoy the next 24 hours. 

And so, you’ve got all these things that happen. Life happens. The good, the bad and the ugly. And so, this is, in my view, a glorious provision on God’s part. The Levites in your gates, they are a gift to the town because they keep you on track with God. In the absence of Moses, “I can’t be, sorry, I’m going to be out of here. I can’t keep you on track anymore.” But we got the Levites; they’ll cover. It’s up to them to nurture the people in their faith. 

But it’s interesting. They are given free access to the central sanctuary. They can come any time they want, and presumably they will need to do that regularly to be reminded and reassured and fellowship with other Levites around about the privilege of serving the Lord Yahweh to all the people. 

I want to finish this discussion of the Levites by going, we’ve already talked about the blessing of the Levite in chapter 33, “Give to the Levite, your Thummim, your Urim, your godly one,” and then teaching Torah in Israel. That’s what we’ve been talking about. 

But let’s go quickly to chapter 18, where you have the particular charge to take care of the Levites. “The Levitical priests, the whole tribe of Levites will have no portion or grant of land inheritance with Israel.” They will eat Yahweh’s food offerings; that’s their privileged grant. Although Levi has no grant of land among his brothers, Yahweh is his grant, as He promised him. 

“This is the priests’ share from the people who offer a sacrifice, whether it is an ox, a sheep or a goat’; the priests are to be given the shoulder, jaws, and stomach. You are to give him the firstfruits of your grain, new wine, and oil, and the first sheared wool of your flock. For Yahweh, your God has chosen him and his sons from all your tribes to stand and minister in Yahweh’s name for all time. When a Levite leaves one of your towns where he lives in Israel and is determined to come to the place Yahweh chooses, he may serve in the name of Yahweh his God like all his fellow Levites who minister there in the presence of Yahweh. They may eat equal portions besides what he received from the income of the family estate.” 

Very interesting instructions here on the particulars of how to take care of Levites. Notice again, chiasm. Instructions concerning communal judges we’ve had in this broader section. When we talk about the king will look at this. 

But right in chapter 18:1-8, this is a discussion of all the officers through which righteousness is maintained in the nation: 

• Judges as guardians of righteousness,
• Levitical priests as the Supreme Court (that’s not a good expression)
• The king of Israel as the embodiment of righteousness, and then
• Instructions concerning Levitical priests as cultic officials, and then,
• Prophets as guardians of righteousness. 

We’ll look at a couple of these yet tomorrow. 

But the primary concern is in verse 4a. “The first fruits of your grain, your wine, your oil, the first fleece of your sheep you shall give to him.” (Emphasis added.) To whom is this addressed? 

Student: The people. 

Dr. Block: The people, The people. This is brief instruction for all the citizens of Israel about the priests. It is not addressed to the Levites as if this is your rights; this is the Levites’ right. 

When I was in university, we had an evangelical National Prayer Day. And through this evangelical meeting, they invited the mayor of our town who happened to be Jewish, I’ll never forget. His Worship, that’s the way in Canada we did it, His Worship. Sid Buchwald was the speaker of the day. I’ll never forget he began his address by saying, “You evangelicals and we Jews have one thing in common: we have no rights; we have only duties to protect the rights of others.” 

And that’s the way biblical righteousness works. It’s always the next person. Remember the Decalogue? It’s addressed to the head of the household to protect the rights of everybody in the household. It’s not about the head’s rights. He’s the problem. It’s to get him to take care of everybody. 

Here it’s addressed to the people to maintain the rights that God has granted the Levites by virtue of their status as His agents, His servants, and as compensation for not having their own land. So, you take care of them and there he says, “Your grain. You people take care of the Levite in your midst. They’re involved in sacred duty. They don’t have time to go out there and farm and whatever else. They’re doing God’s business, take care of them.” 

So, this is a great text because it reminds the Israelites that their duty is to take care of these people. The structure of this passage as a whole, the basis of the Levites’ entitlements, the nature of their entitlements, and then the grounds of their entitlements because they have no land. And then there’s a full range of entitlements here. 

The point of this whole thing is - well, again, elsewhere in Deuteronomy, Moses will say, “When you thresh your grain, don’t muzzle the ox. Take care of the ox that’s taking care of you.” The ox has its rights. And this is not a slam. It’s not a pejorative kind of statement. It is just an analogy. “Take care of the Levites.” God has given them to you as His gift to you to keep you on track with Him. And that’s your charge. Receive them as your gift and take care of them that they may represent and reflect God well in your community. 

They are in the midst of their brothers. They’re in your gates, they’re with Israel. They’re everywhere you are. But they don’t have land, the Lord is their grant. And your gifts are their grants that they may eat. This is their (we call it ‘prebend’), their authorized gift that God encourages them to give. These shall be the entitlements, the judgment that God has made about taking care of them. 

Well, it’s interesting what he isolates then to give to the Levites and it is not: “Give to them the leftovers.” I mean, later on we’ll talk about gleaning in the fields, the corners of the fields for the poor, and the alien, and the widows out there. This is not about the leftovers. It’s the shoulder, the jowl, the stomach, the grain, (dāḡān), fine wine, fine olive oil. These are not the ordinary words. (We had these words yesterday.) These are not the ordinary words for grain and for wine and for olive oil. It’s, “Give to them that which is the best, and the first shearing fleece of the flock.” The first time you shear a sheep, give it to the Levites. They need clothing, too. And this is how the people will take care of them. 

The grounds of the Levites entitlement, verse 5, “The Lord has chosen them to stand before Him to minister in His name.” That is to represent Him wherever they go. And when the Levite shows up in town, everybody knows the Lord is here. His representatives come. They minister in His name. 

Well, there are some other technical issues here, but the priests are not stuck in the towns where they live. They can move around. They’ve got these central Levitical towns where their homebase is. But in the meantime, they go and spend their time in the villages. And if they want to take time off and go to the central sanctuary, they can go, and have full access to everything all the priests have there. They are not second-class citizens in the hierarchy of the priesthood. 

This is a very democratic world here, unlike any other religious system. And it’s actually unlike what we seem to find in Leviticus and Exodus, where the Aaronic high priest, he only has access to the central altar and, for instance, on the Day of Atonement to sprinkle the blood on the altar. But the Levites are given, apparently, free access to anything that the religious officials in the central sanctuary town have access to. 

In fact, they’re given freedom. The Levite is driven by a personal desire to come to the place the Lord has chosen. If you would like to go into the central sanctuary for a while, go ahead. Moses is not interested in putting straitjackets on people. 

In chapter 17, we’ll see in the days to come, if you say, “I’d like to have a king over myself,” Moses says, “Go ahead, get yourself a king. Just be sure that he’s from one of your own and he’s one the Lord chooses.” But there’s nothing wrong in principle with having a king. Why wouldn’t you have a king? 

And here to the Levite, he says, “Look, you want to go to the central sanctuary for a while? Go ahead.” Moses’ role in the Torah is to open doors of opportunity, not to slam them shut. 

This tone is, I find, but then my glasses are so colored by now that I see grace everywhere when nobody else recognizes. And I say, “What’s wrong with my head? What’s wrong with my eyes?” But here’s another one of those, this personal desire. Or if we had read the end of chapter 12, “If you want to eat meat in your place… ‘I like meat, I’d like some meat.’ ‘Go ahead, eat meat,’ he says. Never mind, though. It’s okay to eat meat, just be sure it is the meat from a clean animal, as opposed to unclean (we’ll talk about that tomorrow) and that it is kosher in the way it’s butchered. Drain the blood. Once you’ve done that, I mean, that’s a small thing. Go ahead. Have your steak. It’s all right.” This is Moses. 

The Levite wants to join his brothers down in the big city for a while. Go ahead. Presumably participate in all the festivals that go on there, and they get all the perks that everybody else gets. There are no second-class citizens here. Equal perks for equal service. This is the joy of ministry in the Lord’s work. 

We need to pay more attention in the church about what this is about and the privilege that comes to those whom the Lord calls to service on the one hand, that’s the highest honor. They stand before the Lord. They bless the people in His name, not because they’re great preachers. No, because the Lord has tapped them on the shoulder, “I’ve called you. I have chosen you. I’ve put you there. Go ahead. Represent Me there.” 

But the other side of it is how the people are to respond to the presence of the priests in their midst. This is important. Paul will talk about this in his books of Corinthians and the pastoral epistles about taking care of those whom God calls into His service. 

Well, this is a great text. Very few people even know it’s in the Bible, but when you start looking at it, you find another bundle of wonderful truths about the Christian life and the theology of Christian ministry and the theology of community. We’re all in this together. We take care of each other. 

We have a different illustration. Remember in 1 Kings chapter, 7:1-6? You’ve got this poor widow; the guy is coming to take her boys because she can’t pay her debts. Remember that? “And she comes to the prophet, to Elijah, and says, ‘The guy’s coming tomorrow and he’s going to take my boys. What am I supposed to do?’ And he says, ‘Hmm, that’s a problem, isn’t it? What do you have in the house?’ And she says, ‘Nothing except an oil jug.’” Your translation has ‘a jug of oil.’ The assumption with that expression is that the jug with oil in it. No, I think it’s empty. It’s an oil jug that the word for jug is the little dipper thing that you used to put into the vat to take out your oil. And, you know, it’s not a pot. All I’ve got is an oil jug. Everything else I’ve sold because we’re hungry. I’ve traded it for food. And so, he tells her to go and collect all the pots from the village, get them all. Not just a few. Many. 

And then when they’re all done, he says, “Close the door and pour.” What does she do? She closes the door and she starts pouring and oops, oil comes out of that little dipper. And it’s enough to fill all the spare pots in the village. But why did he say close the door? I mean, when all the pots are full. 

Now, oil is the most precious commodity. Why oil? Because everybody needs oil for everything. For lamps, for cooking, for ointments, for lubrication. Oil is the most precious commodity, economic commodity you can have. It’s not grain. It’s oil. Sell it; on the commercial market, it’s of high value. “Go and live on it the rest of your days.” And that’s an amazing miracle. 

But why does he say close the door? The text doesn’t tell us. But the interesting thing is, there’s something wrong in this town. What’s wrong? We’ve got a widow and two fatherless boys. The word for orphan is not ‘orphan,’ it’s the ‘fatherless child.’ A child in the home of a widow is vulnerable because in that patricentric world, if you don’t have an adult male taking care of business in the household, you’re stuck. You’re stuck. And so here, that’s exactly the picture we’ve got. 

The issue here is not simply fertility religion, God takes care of those who trust in Him. This is a social commentary. Something is wrong when people are worshiping Baal, which is the big deal in Elijah and Elisha’s lives, they’re worshiping Baal rather than Yahweh. And when you worship Baal rather than Yahweh, your ethics go out the window. They’re not taking care of the poor. This is a barometer of spiritual condition. This poor widow goes to the prophet, and her husband was one of the seminary students, one of the sons of the prophets and he died. And Elijah solves the problem. But this is there to point out what happens when people go apostate. The whole Elijah/Elisha cycle is about what happens in a syncretistic world. And now we discover in a synchronistic spiritual world, there is a callused, hardened disposition towards the marginalized. 

And the irony here is that the Levites are often going to be in that class. Moses anticipates that; take care of them. This is a covenant community. We’re in this together. So, that’s another dimension of this call for charity, compassion; you are brothers and sisters in the Lord. 

Student: Why did the prophet, why did he close the door? 

Dr. Block: The text doesn’t tell us. But my response to that is to keep the curious eyes of the neighbors out of this. They should have been taking care of it. They have no right to come and witness this miracle. We are not going to toss pearls before swine. I mean, isn’t that Jesus’ kind of comment? Show us a miracle. No, these people don’t deserve the sight of a miracle. They haven’t taken care of this widow. You do it in private. This is not for show. This is, we’re taking care of our problem, we’re solving a problem and we’re exposing the problem of the community. You haven’t taken care of your widow, or your fatherless children. So that’s another illustration of this.