Lesson 3: Israel’s Theology of the Land in Deuteronomy 26
Deuteronomy 26 provides a theology of the land of Israel and of the
Israelites as a people. Two opposite
dimensions of Israel’s identity are brought together in this chapter: as a
landless people, and as a people of the land.
These two identities work together to explain the unique identity of
Israel and of the land in Old Testament theology.
First, the Israelites affirmed their original,
landless identity. They did not lay
claim to the land of Canaan on the grounds that they had always dwelt
there. Their origins were nomadic and as slaves. Their first ancestor, Abram, was a ‘wandering
Aramean’ (v. 2). The Aramean tribes’
appear in history as people from northern Mesopotamia (northern Syria and eastern Turkey today), and Abram’s family does
connect with this area. When Abram left
Ur of the Chaldeans in southern Mesopotamia, he and his family settled in
Haran, where his father, Terah, died and was buried (Genesis 11.31-32). When Isaac and Jacob sought wives, they
returned to this region to marry within their clan. The chapter also explains that the Israelites
became a nation while in slavery in Egypt.
They arrived in Egypt ‘few in number’ but there became a ‘nation, great,
mighty, and populous’ (v. 5).
The rehearsal of this nomadic and slave history of Israel has a purpose
in Leviticus 26. It is something each
Israelite ‘confesses’ when the tithe is brought to the priest every third year
(v. 12). Israelites tithed every year,
and the tithe was given to the Levites, who managed the store houses of Israel
as elsewhere in the Ancient Near East.
Tithing barns can be found beside the ruins of temples from Egypt to
Mesopotamia. Every third year, however, there
was a special tithe of the produce of the land for those without land: the
Levites, the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow (vv. 12-13). This tithe acknowledged three things about
Israel’s identity and the land.
Second, as an originally landless people, their possession of the land
was not understood to be a right of their own but a gift from God. The chapter
begins,
When you come into the land that the LORD your God is giving you for
an inheritance and have taken possession of it and live in it… (v. 1, ESV).
Third, giving
the tithe in acknowledgement that God gave them the land was an act of worship. When bringing the tithe to the priest, the
person says,
…. And behold, now I bring the first of the fruit of the ground,
which you, O LORD, have given me.’ And you shall set it down before the LORD
your God and worship before the LORD your God (v. 10).
As a religious act, giving the tithe was an act of thanksgiving to
God. The people were to ‘rejoice in all
the good that the LORD your God has given to you and to your house, you, and
the Levite, and the sojourner who is among you’ (v. 11).
The religious understanding of the tithe brought to mind not only the
good that came from a harvest but also other things the LORD had done for the
people. He had delivered them from the
harsh treatment they received in Egypt (v. 6), He had performed mighty signs
and wonders for them to accomplish their freedom from slavery (vv. 7-8). And He had brought them ‘into this place and
gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey’ (v. 9). The tithe of the first fruit of the land,
then, was an offering of thanks to
God (v. 10).
As a religious act, the giving of the tithe of the land was also a prayer to the LORD to bless ‘your
people Israel and the ground that you have given us’ (v. 15).
Fourth, this ‘sacred portion’ was not a gift of charity but a duty to God. Giving the tithe was obedience to God’s
commandment (v. 13). While the tithe
benefitted the needy, it was more than a moral duty. It was a religious
duty in which the people acknowledged that they served God and owed Him
their obedience. They were to obey all
His commandments. The tithe constituted
a ceremony of promise and commitment,
like marriage, between the people and the LORD:
You have declared today that the LORD is your God, and that you will
walk in his ways, and keep his statutes and his commandments and his rules, and
will obey his voice. 18 And the LORD has declared today that you are a people
for his treasured possession, as he has promised you, and that you are to keep
all his commandments, 19 and that he will set you in praise and in fame and in
honor high above all nations that he has made, and that you shall be a people
holy to the LORD your God, as he promised.”
Fifth, the religious aspect of Israel’s occupation of the land explains
the relationship between the purity and holiness of the people and the purity
and holiness of the land. Israel did not
receive the land until the wickedness of its occupants had reached a peak. God expelled them from the land and gave His
people the land.
Sixth, Israel’s own historical identity as a landless people over
hundreds of years provided a moral
narrative for their own treatment of the landless in their midst who were
consequently in need. Not having access
to land on which to grow food could mean poverty, hunger, servitude, and, in
non-Israelite cultures, enslavement.
Having been landless, the people of Israel had a moral duty to care for
the landless in their midst so that these calamities would not befall
them. The tithe was a type of tax on
society so that the landless could be helped, but as a religious act it was
treated as a voluntary act. Taxes fulfil
a legal requirement, and giving taxes is neither a religious nor moral
act. By conceiving of the tithe as
religious, it was also a moral act of obedience and voluntary kindness.
Thus, the land of Israel 'belonged' to Israel from the time of the Exodus from Egypt and conquest of Canaan (mid-2nd millennium BC), but theologically it belonged to Israel only because Israel belonged
to God. It was His land, and Israel’s
possession of the land was as His people.
Theologically, the land was a gift not a right, involved an act of worship, and laid on the
Israelites both religious and moral duties.
This does not lessen the claim Israel had to the land but increases
their responsibility in possessing it.
In fulfilling their responsibilities, they were set by God ‘in praise
and in fame and in honor high above all nations’ and were to be ‘a people holy
to the LORD’ (v. 19). These words in Deuteronomy ominously hung over the nation, for to reject God's commandments and to turn to the idols of other nations would mean to be 'vomited' out of the land (Leviticus 18.28; 20.22).
Previous Lessons:
Lesson 1: Land, Religious State, Coexistence of Religions, and Non-Muslim Taxation
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