Deuteronomy 12:2-7

First Statement of the Law of the One Altar

In the Pl. address, with one later insertion, Deuteronomy 12:3, and possibly another Deuteronomy 12:5 b; the rest is a unity. It appropriately opens with the command to destroy all the places at which the nations worship, whom Israel is about to dispossess; for it was the use of these sanctuaries for the worship of Jehovah and the consequent confusion of Him with the Canaanite deities that produced the evils from which the only practical escape was by concentrating His worship. The preface to this first form of the law differs from that to the second which is also Pl.

Deuteronomy 12:2. surely destroy A form of the vb. used only with Pl. address, Deuteronomy 11:4; Deuteronomy 12:2-3. Another form of the same vb. is used both with Sg. and Pl., Deuteronomy 7:24; Deuteronomy 8:20, etc.

all the places The Heb. maḳôm, lit. place of standing upbut used in the widest sense of spotor locality, is to be understood throughout this ch. as holyor sacred place(cp. Genesis 12:6, the maḳômof Shechem); like its Ar. form, maḳâm, -sacred place," whether as the place where one stands up to pray (one of the special senses of the vb. kâm) or, with the name of a saint attached to it, as the place of his burial which he still haunts, or at which he once stood, e.g. -maḳâm "Ibrahim" (Pocock, Specimen Hist. Arabum, 124). But in this restricted sense the Heb. maḳôm is rather the place of the Deity, His habitation: cp. Deuteronomy 12:5; Isaiah 60:13, place of my sanctuary= place of my feet; Ezekiel 43:7, place of my throne, of the soles of my feet, where I dwell, etc.; Acts 6:13, this holy place, 14, this place.

wherein the nations which ye are to dispossess worshipped their gods On dispossesssee Deuteronomy 9:1. Worshippedor have worshippedmay be a sign of the writer's own time when the Canaanites were no more; yet it is not incompatible with the standpoint of the speaker.

upon the high mountains, and upon the hills, and under every green tree A frequent combination in O.T. The part of a hill selected for a shrine was not the top but either one of the lower promontories(so, and not tops, in Hosea 4:13; Ezekiel 6:13), or a hollow below the summit or between two summits (e.g. the high-place at Gezer discovered by Mr Macalister) within reach of water. Greencan hardly be the meaning of the Heb. ra-ănân, which is either luxuriant, branching and overshadowing, or mobile and wavy, or full of sound; as variously appears from the forms of the same root in Ar. (loose, with much motion, quickly changing, but also redundant and bulging), from the LXX translations of the Heb. (leafy, overshadowing, and the like), and from such passages as Hosea 4:13 (they sacrifice under oaks, poplars, and terebinths, for their shade is good), Ezekiel 6:13 (under every spreading treeand thick oak), Ezekiel 20:28 (every thick tree). -The luxury of the trees" (Bacon), -her leafy arms with such extent were spread" (Dryden). The presence of a god was suggested not merely by the power of life manifest in the greenness of the tree (W. K. Smith, Rel. Sem.173) nor only by its conspicuousness in the landscape and the shade it gave from a glowing atmosphere, but also by the mobility (cp. the N.H. ra-al, to wave, and the Syr. r-ula, shaking) and the rustling of the tree which suggested the movement or speech of the deity; the sound of a marching in the tops of the mulberry trees … Jehovah gone forth before thee(2 Samuel 5:24), the sound of Jehovah God walking in the garden in the wind(Genesis 3:8), and terebinths of Moreh, i.e. Revealer, oracle-giver(Deuteronomy 11:30; Genesis 12:6). It is among these ideas of luxuriance, shade, mobility and sound that the meaning of ra-ănânis to be found. That it cannot mean greenis also proved by its application to oil, Psalms 92:10 (11), where LXX renders it by rich.

These sites, naturally sympathetic to worship, were used by the Semites as by other races. On mountains, as especially places of burnt offering, see W. R. Smith, Rel. Sem.99, III, 470 f.; on trees as objects of worship, id.125 f., 169; and believed by modern Arabs to be inhabited by spirits, Musil, Ethn. Bericht, 325 f. So frequently in the O.T. of the Canaanite cults. But the same sites were indicated by God to the Hebrew Patriarchs: Abraham was bidden to offer Isaac on a mountain (J, Genesis 22:2), Jehovah appeared to him at the placeof Shechem, the oak or terebinth of Moreh, and there he built an altar to Jehovah (J, Genesis 12:6 f.), similarly at the oak of Mamre (J, Genesis 13:18); while at Be'ersheba he planted a tamarisk and called on God's name (J, Genesis 21:33). At Sinai Moses went up into the Mount to meet God (JE, Exodus 19 ff.). So too after Israel's entrance into Canaan: an oak stood in the sanctuary of Jehovah at Shechem (E, Joshua 24:26). As in Abraham's time, Gideon was bidden build an altar on the top of the stronghold, and Jehovah's angel appeared to him under the oak in -Ophrah and there Gideon presented offerings and built an altar to Jehovah (Judges 6:11; Judges 6:19; Judges 6:24; Judges 6:26); under Samuel the ark of Jehovah was taken to the house of Abinadab on the hill (1 Samuel 7:1), and Israel sacrificed at Miṣpah, Gilgal, and Ramah at the high place there (1Sa 7:5 ff., 1 Samuel 7:16 f., 1 Samuel 9:12 f., 1 Samuel 9:19), on the hill of God with a high place (1 Samuel 10:5; 1 Samuel 10:10; 1 Samuel 10:13), and Nob (1 Samuel 21:1 ff.); cp. the altars built by Saul on the field of a victory over the Philistines (1 Samuel 14:35) and by David on the threshing floor of Araunah, where the angel had appeared (2 Samuel 24:21; 2 Samuel 24:25) and the yearly sacrifice by David's family at Beth-lehem (1 Samuel 20:6; 1 Samuel 20:29), and Solomon's sacrifices at Gibeon, the great high place (1 Kings 3:4). Elijah was bidden to go to Carmel, and build there an altar to Jehovah (1 Kings 18:19 f., 1 Kings 18:32), and again went to Ḥoreb the Mount of God (1 Kings 19:8 ff.). Deut. itself repeats the account of Moses" intercourse with Jehovah on the Mount (9, 10) and contains (Deuteronomy 27:4 ff., partly from E?) the command to put up stones inscribed with the Law and an altar upon Mt Ebal. Therefore down at least to the building of the Temple in Jerusalem, it was the custom in Judah and Benjamin to worship Jehovah on such high places as those at which the Canaanites worshipped their gods, and this custom was continued in N. Israel by Elijah. By the 8th century Israel appears to have promiscuously adopted the Canaanite shrines, and the prophets complain of their apostasy and licentious rites on the headlands of the mountains and on the hills and under every spreading treewith special mention of oaks, poplars, and terebinthsand predict the futility and disappointment of their trust in such places (Hosea 4:12 f.; Isaiah 1:29; Jeremiah 2:20; Jeremiah 3:6; Jeremiah 3:8; Jeremiah 3:13; Jeremiah 3:23; Jeremiah 17:1 f.; Ezekiel 6:13; Ezekiel 18:5 f., Ezekiel 20:28; Isaiah 57:5; Isaiah 65:7). The prophets regard all this as a backslidingfrom the pure worship of earlier times. Israel ought to have known better than sink to such traitorous and degrading practices. But the prophets appeal to no law on the subject and it is clear that their objections to sites so natural for worship, and used by the Patriarchs and leaders of Israel with the sanction of Israel's God, is due both to the emergence with prophecy of a purer religion and to the experience throughout the intervening centuries of the evil effect on Israel of the associations of these sites with the immoral practices of the Canaanites and of the trust in purely material objects which they engendered in the worshippers. Nothing could overcome these evils except the destruction of the high places and the concentration of the worship of Jehovah upon one altar. Hence the rise of D's law, clearly unknown to the Judges, Prophets, and Kings of Israel at least down to Solomon and also to Elijah. The law is therefore the result of the teaching of the prophets of the 8th century; but this conclusion does not preclude the possibility of earlier sporadic attempts, especially in Judah, to do away with the heathen sanctuaries (see Introd. § 11).

Deuteronomy 12:3. Destruction of altars, and other sacred objects in the Canaanite places. Similarly Deuteronomy 8:5; cp. Exodus 34:13. But here the verse is evidently a later intrusion; it breaks the connection between Deuteronomy 12:2; Deuteronomy 12:4.

break down Rather, tear down; in O.T. of altars, high places, walls.

altars Lit. positions for slaughterand sacrifice. See Driver on Exodus 20:24.

pillars… Asherim For these see on Deuteronomy 16:21-22. The verbs burnand hew downought probably to be transposed (Grätz), cp. LXX and Deuteronomy 7:5; Deuteronomy 7:25.

graven images of their gods Apparently distinct from the pillars and "Ashçrîm. Heb. pasîIas in Deuteronomy 7:5; Deuteronomy 7:25 (also in Hos. and Mic.) another form of pesel, Deuteronomy 4:16; Deuteronomy 4:23; Deuteronomy 4:25; Deuteronomy 5:8.

and destroy their name out of that place Deuteronomy 7:24 with another form of the same vb.: see on Deuteronomy 12:2. To destroy the worship of a god is to prevent his manifestation to men, so that it is as if he ceased to be. Cp. the analogy in Israel, when Moses pleads that Jehovah will not destroy for His name's sake; if they perish, who will perpetuate His name, i.e. His worship, His revelation, Himself? See on Deuteronomy 12:4.

Deuteronomy 12:4. Ye shall not do so unto the Lord your God Clearly this follows not the preceding verse but Deuteronomy 12:2.

Deuteronomy 12:5. the place which the Lord your God shall choose Place, Sg., in contrast to all the places of Deuteronomy 12:2. -Jehovah chooses it (in contrast to the sanctuaries chosen by Israel themselves) for a sanctuary for Himself, as He has chosen the people that it may be holy to Him (cp. Deuteronomy 7:6). He is therefore no limited, local deity, tied to the soil, like the Ba-alim. He might have chosen another place out of all your tribes than Jerusalem" (Bertholet). The phrase is D's regular description of the One Sanctuary: either alone, Deuteronomy 12:18; Deuteronomy 12:26; Deuteronomy 14:25; Deuteronomy 15:20; Deuteronomy 16:7; Deuteronomy 16:15-16; Deuteronomy 17:8; Deuteronomy 17:10; Deuteronomy 18:6; Deuteronomy 31:11; or with additions: in one of thy tribes(Deuteronomy 12:14) = out of all your tribes(here LXX, in one of your cities); to put His name there, here Deuteronomy 12:21; Deuteronomy 14:24; to cause His name to dwell there, Deuteronomy 12:11, Deuteronomy 14:23; Deuteronomy 16:2; Deuteronomy 16:6; Deuteronomy 16:11; Deuteronomy 26:2. All these except Deuteronomy 12:4; Deuteronomy 12:11 are in the Sg. address. The only other passage in the Hex. in which the phrase occurs is the deuteronomic Joshua 9:27. In E. Exodus 20:24, the parallel but contradictory phrase is in every place where I record my name(see Driver's note). For shall chooseSam. has curiously hath chosen, abandoning the standpoint of the speaker, assumed by the Heb. text, for that of the writer. The placeis of course Jerusalem (cp. 1 Kings 8:44; 1 Kings 8:48 and other deuteronomic passages in Kings). The naming of the place would not be compatible with the standpoint of the speaker, and was superfluous to the generation for whom D wrote.

to put his name there For other instances of the phrase in D and its alternative, cause his name to dwell there, see previous note. The name of Godis just God Himself as manifested to men. So E, Exodus 23:21, of the angel sent by Him before Israel: my name is in him; and J, Exodus 33:19, of the moral nature of Israel's God: I will make all my goodness pass before thee and will proclaim the name of Jehovah before thee. His sanctuary is the place of Jehovah's name(Isaiah 18:7) because there He reveals Himself to Israel; to Jerusalem the nations shall gather to the name of Jehovah(Jeremiah 3:17); cp. the deuteronomic phrase to build an house to the name of Jehovah(2 Samuel 7:13; 1Ki 3:2; 1 Kings 5:3; 1 Kings 5:5 (17, 19). 1 Kings 8:16-20; 1 Kings 8:44; 1 Kings 8:48.

even unto his habitation So Heb.; but LXX (as in Deuteronomy 12:11), to cause it to dwell. If this reading be adopted the following vb. must refer back to the words, to the place, at the beginning of the verse.

shall ye seek A technical term for resort to the Deity or his shrine: Deuteronomy 12:30, after other gods (but with sense of enquiring); J, Genesis 25:22, to Jehovah; Amos 5:5, to Bethel. In Deuteronomy 4:29 the sense is not technical but has a moral force. For another meaning of the same vb. see Deuteronomy 11:12.

and thither thou shall come The only Sg. phrase in this statement of the law; but either delete thou shalt comewith LXX B, or read ye shall comewith Sam., LXX A and other codd. and Luc.

Deuteronomy 12:6. Thither all sacrifices and sacred dues are to be brought; for variants in the other statements of the law see Deuteronomy 12:11; Deuteronomy 12:13; Deuteronomy 12:17; Deuteronomy 12:27.

your burnt offerings and your sacrifices -Olôthand zebaḥim: the two most ordinary forms of animal sacrifice, Deuteronomy 12:11; Deuteronomy 12:27; Exodus 10:25 (J) and Deuteronomy 18:12 (E), but in Exodus 20:24 (E), -olôthand shelamîm. The -ôlah, what goes up, either upon the altar or in smoke to heaven, was the whole victim (except the hide) and was wholly consumed (hence the LXX, ὁλοκαύτωμα, Vg. holocaustum); the worshippers took no part of it. The zebaḥ, lit. the slaughteringat first all slaughter of domestic animals was sacrificial was the more ancient and common form of sacrifice, of which the blood was poured out and the fat burned as the Deity's portion, certain other parts were given to the priest as his due (see on terumahbelow) and the rest eaten by the worshippers. In early Israel the zebaḥis mentioned along with the minḥah(lit. gift), the cereal or -meat" offering (1 Samuel 3:14; 1 Samuel 26:19). The shelem: R.V. peace offering(after the LXX), according to others thank offering, is more probably, because of its name (from shillem, to fulfilor discharge) and because of its use (instead of zebaḥ) for sacrifices in general, fulfilment, discharge, i.e. of vows, etc. Yet in this case the form shillumwould be more natural. See on Deuteronomy 27:7.

These ordinary sacrifices, then, which the older law in E directs shall lie made on an altar in every place where Jehovah shall record His name(Exodus 20:24), must, according to D, be brought to the One Altar. The necessary corollary is not given in this first statement of the law but follows in the third, Deuteronomy 12:15 f., Deuteronomy 12:20 ff.

your tithes or tenths: at first used generally in Eng. -every tithe soul," -the tithe of a hair" (Shakespeare) but like the Scots -tiends" generally limited to taxes of one-tenth especially in kind; in D of corn, wine and oil, Deuteronomy 12:17; Deuteronomy 14:23, of the increase of thy seed, Deuteronomy 14:22, of the increase of each third year, Deuteronomy 14:28; Deuteronomy 26:12. See further on these passages.

the heave offering of your hand Heb. terumahfrom herîm, to raise; not as the Eng. translation suggests that which is elevated ritually before the altar; but that which is lifted offor out ofa greater mass, LXX, ἀφαίρεμα, and separated or abstracted, LXX, ἀφόρισμα, for the sanctuary. In D (before which it does not occur) only here and Deuteronomy 12:11; Deuteronomy 12:17. Probably it is here intended to cover the firstfruits of corn, wine, oil and wool, Deuteronomy 18:4, of all the fruit of thy ground, Deuteronomy 26:2 (on which see further), already prescribed in the earlier legislation of E, Exodus 23:16; Exodus 23:19. The term is much more frequent in P and Ezekiel and with a wider application: of fruits of the soil, Numbers 15:19-21 (cp. Nehemiah 10:37); of gold, silver, bronze and other precious objects for the sanctuary, Exodus 25:2 f.; of the sanctuary half-shekel, Exodus 30:13; of the lands reserved for priests and Levites, Ezekiel 45:1; Ezekiel 45:6 f.; of the portions for priests lifted off the sacrificial victims, Leviticus 7:14; Exodus 29:27 f. Contribution is therefore the Eng. word which comes nearest to it, but is not satisfactory 1 [131]. Of your hand: it is not to be abstracted by an official but must be a direct and personal gift of the worshipper.

[131] Transferor conveyanceis also possible.

your vows Things vowedto God or to the sanctuary in connection with prayers, for deliverance from some pressing danger or the success of an enterprise, see further on Deuteronomy 23:21-23 (22 24), and here note only the development from the simple directions of D to the elaborate and discriminating laws of P on the same subject, Leviticus 27:1-29; Numbers 30 (further in the Mishna tractate Nedarim); and the frauds practised with vows, Malachi 1:14, and the casuistry, Matthew 15:4 f.; Mark 7:10 f.

your freewill offerings Sacrifices you are moved to make without previous promise or legal injunction.

firstlings of your herd and of your flock See on Deuteronomy 15:19-23.

Deuteronomy 12:7. and there ye shall eat before the Lord your God i.e. sacra-mentally; for this eating is as much a part of the religious rite as the offering of certain portions of the victim on the altar. Before your God(Deuteronomy 12:12; Deuteronomy 12:18, Deuteronomy 14:23; Deuteronomy 14:26, etc.), in His presence; there is no statement that the feast was shared with Him, though of course the burning of the fat on the altar meant that He shared it; and there can be no doubt that this physical communion of the deity and his worshippers was the original meaning of such sacrifices (see W. R. Smith, Rel. Sem.207 ff.). The absence of the statement of any such idea was, however, to be expected in D.

and ye shall rejoice in all that ye put your hand unto Rejoice, so simply, Deuteronomy 14:26; before Jehovah thy God, Deuteronomy 16:11; Deuteronomy 27:7; rejoice in the feast, Deuteronomy 16:14; be altogether joyful, Deuteronomy 16:15; in all the good which Jehovah thy God hath given thee, Deuteronomy 25:11; in all the mission or enterprise of your hand, Deuteronomy 12:18; Deuteronomy 15:10; Deuteronomy 23:20 (21); cp. Deuteronomy 28:8; Deuteronomy 28:20, blessing … and rebuking in all that thou puttest thy hand to. This last expression is peculiar to D and synonymous with the work of thy hand(Deuteronomy 2:7; Deuteronomy 14:29; Deuteronomy 16:15; Deuteronomy 24:19; Deuteronomy 28:12; Deuteronomy 30:9). The sacrament was thus also an eucharist; a thanksgiving for the success of the year's toil.

It has been rightly emphasised (Steuern. and Berth.) that in so elaborate a list of offerings, apparently meant to be complete, there is no mention of the sin and guilt offerings which are enforced in P; these, therefore, were unknown, or disregarded, by the deuteronomists. The worship to which Israel is commanded in D is, in spite of D's rigorous ethical teaching and sense of Israel's sins, one only of joyous communion with Jehovah and thankfulness for the material blessings which He annually provides.

ye and your households The family character of the worship is frequently emphasised by D and is very striking in view of his centralisation of Israel's worship. Here again there is a contrast with P.