Matthew Poole and continuators on Deuteronomy 14

1 YE are the children of the LORD your God : ye shall not cut your selves, nor make any baldness between your eyes for the dead .

Whom therefore you must not disparage by unworthy or unbecoming practises, such as here follow, and whom you must not disobey.

Which were the practises of Idolaters both in the worship of their Idols, as 1 King. 18. 28. or in their funerals, as here and Ier. 16. 6. or upon occasion of publick calamities, as Ier. 41. 5. and 47. 5. See more on Levit. 19. 27, 28. and 21. 5.

Through excessive sorrow for your dead friends, as if you had no hope of their happiness after death, 1 Thess. 4. 13.

Marginal references: Lev. 19. 28.

3 Thou shalt not eat any abominable thing.

(i. e.) Unclean and forbidden by me, which therefore should be abhominable to you.

4 These are the beasts , which ye shall eat, the ox, the sheep, and the goat,

Of which see on Levit. 11. The small differences between some of their names here and there are not proper for this work. The learned reader may find them cleared in my Latin Synopsis. For others they may well enough want the knowledge of them, both because these are the smaller matters of the Law, and because this distinction of clean and unclean beasts is now out of date.

Marginal references: Lev. 11. 2. &c.

21 Ye shall not eat of any thing that dieth of it self: thou shalt give it unto the stranger that is in thy gates, that he may eat it: or thou mayest sell it unto an alien: for thou art an holy people unto the LORD thy God. Thou shalt not see the a kid in his mothers milk.

Not to the proselyte, for such were obliged by this Law, Levit. 17. 15. but to such as were strangers in Religion as well as in nation,

Marginal references: Exod. 23. 19. and 34. 26.

22 Thou shalt truly tithe all the encrease of thy seed , that the field bringeth forth year by year.

This is to be understood of the second tithes, which seem to be the same with the tithes of the third year, mentioned here below ver. 28. and Deut. 26. 12. of which see above on ver. 17. And to confirm this opinion, though I would not lay too great a stress upon criticismes. Yet I cannot but observe that this tithing is spoken of onely as the peoples act here, and Deut. 26. 12. and the Levites are not at all mentioned in either place as receivers or takers of them, but onely as partakers of them together with the owners, and therefore they are so severely charged here upon their consciences, thou shalt truly tithe all thine increase, because the execution of this was left wholly to themselves, whereas the first tithes were received by the Levites, who therefore are said to take or receive those tithes, Numb. 18. 26. Neh. 10. 38. Heb. 7. 5.

Marginal references: chap. 12. 6, [illegible: 1+ letters]7.

23 And thou shalt eat before the LORD thy God, in the place which he shall chuse to place his Name there, the tithe of thy corn, of thy wine, and of thine oil, and the firstlings of thy herds, and of thy flocks, that thou mayest learn to fear the LORD thy God alwayes.

See on Deut. 12. 6, 17.

Marginal references: chap. 15. 19, 20.

25 Then shalt thou turn it into money, and bind up the mony in thine hand , and shalt go unto the place which the LORD thy God shall chuse.

(i. e.) In a bag to be taken into thy hand and carried with thee.

27 And the Levite that is within thy gates, thou shalt not forsake him : for he hath no part nor inheritance with thee.

Thou shalt give him a share in such tithes or in the product of them.

Marginal references: chap. 12. 19.; Num. 18. 20.

28 At the end of three years thou shalt bring forth all the tithe of thine increase the same year , and shalt lay it up within thy gates,

(i. e.) In the third year, as it is expressed, Deut. 26. 12. So, in the end of three years or of seven years is the same with in the third or seventh year, as appears by comparing Deut. 31. 10. Ios. 9. 16, 17. 2 King. 18. 9, 10. and 17. 6.

I joyn with those Expositors who make this same tithe with the former ver. 22. as being called by the same tithe without any distinction between them save onely as to the place of eating them. See above on ver. 22. and Deut. 12. 17.

This is added to shew that he speaks of the third year, and not of the fourth year, as some might conjecture from the phrase, at the end of three years.