Deuteronomy 15:20
Each year you and your household are to eat it before the LORD your God in the place the LORD will choose.
Sermons
Memorial DaysR. S. Storrs, D. D.Deuteronomy 15:20
The First for GodD. Davies Deuteronomy 15:19-23
The FirstlingsJ. Orr Deuteronomy 15:19-23
The Firstlings for GodR.M. Edgar Deuteronomy 15:19-23














The solution of the apparent discrepancy between this passage and Numbers 18:18 seems to lie in the custom of inviting the worshippers to share in the feasts provided by their offerings. View the sanctification of the firstlings as symbolical.

1. Of God's claim on the first and choicest of what we have for his own service.

(1) Of our property.

(2) Of our affections.

(3) Of our powers of body and mind.

2. Of God's right to redeemed life. The firstlings were redeemed by God for himself on the memorable night of the deliverance from Egypt (Exodus 13:12). God claims redeemed life as peculiarly his own (Isaiah 43:1-4; 1 Corinthians 6:20).

3. Of God's right to young life. A symbol of early consecration.

4. Of happy fellowship with God. The fellowship was a fruit of the dedication of the best. - J.O.

Eat it before the Lord thy God year by year.
"Year by year." It might seem at first sight, antecedent to experience, a surprising thing that the mere mechanical movement of the earth through the heavens should have any special relationship to man's mind and spirit. Yet we know that it has. Our memory associates special experiences with certain seasons and days. As the season or day returns the event is recalled, and sometimes the impressions awakened by it have, apparently, all their original sharpness. So, in this regard, the course of the heavens comes to be, as it were, a colossal memorandum book.

1. There is a sure evidence of the event seen in the fact of its commemoration.

2. We are taught how comparatively rare are these conspicuous and startling events which punctuate our public and private life. It is well for the sanity of the human mind that life is not filled with startling events. It would be like substituting pyrotechnics for the moonlight, or the stars for the silent skies. It is in the ordinary quiet on going of life that we find healthfulness of heart.

3. Life is always, serious. For we are ever treading on the edge of something unexpected, it may be something terrible. Let us walk circumspectly, and realise that we may always dwell under the shield of God's providence and under the light of His promises.

4. We see the innate superiority of mind to all temporary events. You recall perhaps your wedding day, the hour, the place, the guests, the joy, through a score of years, a half century ago. Intervals of time fade from view in presence of this supreme experience, just as you look from one lofty peak to another and think not of field, valley, and river between. You see those shining points of life when you were at twenty, forty, or sixty years of age, and lesser experiences are hidden. The mind itself is superior to mere measurements of time, and so is constituted for immortality; is akin to Him to whom a thousand years are but as yesterday.

5. How deep in us is the element of affection which has its expression in the anniversary or festival. As we review the past our memory clings to those experiences in which the heart has a part, those which have touched its springs of joy and grief. We properly cultivate intellectual strength, power of will and endurance, but, after all, it is love that is supreme. Love brings us nearer Him who is perfect love.

6. A sweet illustration of the grace of God in the Gospel is furnished in the fact, with which every believer is familiar, that in these remembered events sorrow loses its sting and joy comes to be even more full in reminiscence than it was at first. Our sorrow only makes more glorious the preciousness and amplitude of Divine grace and sympathy, just as the glory of the sun, shot through a dark cloud, illumines and transfigures it by its splendour and its peace.

7. What a rest it is to the aged to recall the past when they are released from life's active and strenuous struggles! They are like ships home from long voyages, moated in a quiet harbour, where the memory of storms that are past only enhances the serenity and peace enjoyed.

8. Whatever measurements may hereafter be had as to time and eternity in our immortal life, one thing is certain: we will keep one point in vivid remembrance — that of our entrance into life, when we first knew the joys eternal.

(R. S. Storrs, D. D.).

People
Moses
Places
Beth-baal-peor, Egypt
Topics
Choose, Chooses, Eat, Household, Meal, Presence, Selection
Outline
1. The seventh year a year of release for the poor
7. one must be generous in lending or giving
12. A Hebrew servant, except by choice, must be freed in the seventh year
19. All firstborn males of the cattle are to be sanctified unto the Lord.

Dictionary of Bible Themes
Deuteronomy 15:19-20

     4438   eating

Library
Homiletical.
Twenty-four homilies on miscellaneous subjects, published under St. Basil's name, are generally accepted as genuine. They are conveniently classified as (i) Dogmatic and Exegetic, (ii) Moral, and (iii) Panegyric. To Class (i) will be referred III. In Illud, Attende tibi ipsi. VI. In Illud, Destruam horrea, etc. IX. In Illud, Quod Deus non est auctor malorum. XII. In principium Proverbiorum. XV. De Fide. XVI. In Illud, In principio erat Verbum. XXIV. Contra Sabellianos et Arium et Anomoeos.
Basil—Basil: Letters and Select Works

Civ. Jesus Arrives and is Feasted at Bethany.
(from Friday Afternoon Till Saturday Night, March 31 and April 1, a.d. 30.) ^D John XI. 55-57; XII. 1-11; ^A Matt. XXVI. 6-13; ^B Mark XIV. 3-9. ^d 55 Now the passover of the Jews was at hand: and many went up to Jerusalem out of the country before the passover, to purify themselves. [These Jews went up before the Passover that they might have time to purify themselves from ceremonial uncleanness before the feast. They were expected to purify before any important event (Ex. xix. 10, 11), and did
J. W. McGarvey—The Four-Fold Gospel

Secondly, for Thy Words.
1. Remember, that thou must answer for every idle word, that in multiloquy, the wisest man shall overshoot himself. Avoid, therefore, all tedious and idle talk, from which seldom arises comfort, many times repentance: especially beware of rash answers, when the tongue outruns the mind. The word was thine whilst thou didst keep it in; it is another's as soon as it is out. O the shame, when a man's own tongue shall be produced a witness, to the confusion of his own face! Let, then, thy words be few,
Lewis Bayly—The Practice of Piety

The Medes and the Second Chaldaean Empire
THE FALL OF NINEVEH AND THE RISE OF THE CHALDAEAN AND MEDIAN EMPIRES--THE XXVIth EGYPTIAN DYNASTY: CYAXARES, ALYATTES, AND NEBUCHADREZZAR. The legendary history of the kings of Media and the first contact of the Medes with the Assyrians: the alleged Iranian migrations of the Avesta--Media-proper, its fauna and flora; Phraortes and the beginning of the Median empire--Persia proper and the Persians; conquest of Persia by the Medes--The last monuments of Assur-bani-pal: the library of Kouyunjik--Phraortes
G. Maspero—History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, V 8

Deuteronomy
Owing to the comparatively loose nature of the connection between consecutive passages in the legislative section, it is difficult to present an adequate summary of the book of Deuteronomy. In the first section, i.-iv. 40, Moses, after reviewing the recent history of the people, and showing how it reveals Jehovah's love for Israel, earnestly urges upon them the duty of keeping His laws, reminding them of His spirituality and absoluteness. Then follows the appointment, iv. 41-43--here irrelevant (cf.
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament

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