Exodus 22:29-31

A group of fundamental ceremonial injunctions. Jehovah's customary due from the first annual produce of the threshing-floor and the wine-press to be promptly paid: firstborn males, both of men and animals, to be given to Him; flesh torn of beasts not to be eaten. The laws are stated here tersely and generally: more detailed, and sometimes discrepant, regulations are given in the later codes.

29a. thy fulness and thy trickling thou shalt not delay A paraphrase is a necessity for English idiom: but it obliterates the characteristic curtness of the original. The two substantives are paraphrased by LXX., no doubt correctly, by -the firstfruits of thy threshing-floor and of thy wine-press." Both expressions are, however, peculiar, and no doubt archaic. -Fulness" is used similarly in Numbers 18:27 (P) -like the fulness[in the parallel, v.30, -increase," -produce"] from the wine-vat, and the corn from the threshing-floor" (offered viz. by the Israelites as tithe): it seems to mean properly full yield(RVm. abundance) here of the newly threshed corn, as in Nu. l.c.of the freshly expressed grape-juice. Naturally it does not signify here the wholeyield of the year, but only that part of it which was offered to Jehovah as -firstfruits" (cf. Exodus 23:16; Exodus 23:19). -Trickling" (the masc. of the ordinary Heb. word for -tear"), whatever the true explanation of the expression may be 1 [190], pretty clearly denotes the freshly extracted juice of the grape (tirôsh, -must"), perhaps also (but see footnote) of the olive (yiẓhâr, -fresh oil") as well.

[190] Lane, Arab. Lex.p. 913, cites the expression - tearof the vine" for wine; and A. R. S. Kennedy (EB.iv. 5314, s.v. Wine and Strong Drink) refers to the Spanish lagrima, -tear," the name for wine made from grape-juice which has exuded from the grapes without pressure. Such wine has always been considered superior to that made from juice extracted by treading the grapes; and as this method of obtaining grape-juice is mentioned in the Mishnah, and is still practised in Syria, the grapes being laid out for some days on a mishtâḥ, or -spreading-place," from which the exuding juice trickled down into the wine-vat (see ibid.), it is possible that the choice juice so obtained is what is here meant. If this explanation is correct, however, -oil" will not have been included in the term; and the inclusion of this in the firstfruits (Deuteronomy 18:4, &c.) will not have taken place till later.

The dedication to the deity of a portion of the new produce of the year is a widely prevalent custom. -Primitive peoples often partake of the new corn sacramentally, because they suppose it to be instinct with a divine spirit of life. At a later age, when the fruits of the earth are conceived as created rather than as animated by divinity, the new fruits are no longer partaken of sacramentally; but a portion of them is presented as a thank-offering to the divine beings who are supposed to have produced them.… Till the firstfruits have been presented to the deity, people are not at liberty to eat of the new crops" (Frazer, The GoldenBough, 2 ii. 459, with numerous examples, pp. 318 340, 459 471, some excerpted by Dr Gray, Numbers, p. 225 f.). Cf. Leviticus 23:14 a (H), Deuteronomy 26:1-11.

29b, 30. Like the firstfruits of the soil, the firstborn of men and animals are also to be given to Jehovah. This principle has been laid down before, Exodus 13:1-2 (P), 11 16 (J): see on Exodus 13:1-2, and p. 409.

shalt thou give unto me howit is to be given is not stated: exactly the same expression is used in v.30 of animals (which were sacrificed). The principle is formulated in general terms, which must have been interpreted in the light of the usage of the time: how it was understood in practice is stated by J (Exodus 13:13 b = Exodus 34:20 b).

30. The firstling of a cow or sheep to be given to Jehovah on the eighth day after birth. The -eighth day" agrees with the general principle (Leviticus 22:27 H), that no animal might be offered in sacrifice till it was of that age. The present law evidently presupposes a plurality of local sanctuaries (cf. on Exodus 20:24): a journey to Jerusalem, every time that a firstling of cow or sheep was born, would naturally be out of the question. In Dt. (Deuteronomy 15:19 f.) no age-limit is prescribed, but the firstlings are to be taken -year by year," i.e. no doubt mostly, as cattle in Arabia chiefly yean in spring (p. 411; Rel. Sem.2 [191] 465), at Maẓẓoth, to the central sanctuary, and eaten there at a sacred meal by the owner and his household: the older usage has thus been accommodated to the later principle of a single sanctuary. Nothing is said here about the firstlings of uncleananimals: see in J Exodus 13:13 a = Exodus 34:20 a.

[191] W. R. Smith, The Religion of the Semites, ed. 2, 1894.

31a. Flesh torn by wild beasts not to be eaten.

holy men -Holy" is a word with a history; and the ideas expressed by it in the OT. do not appear to have been always the same. -Its connotation would seem to have been at first physical and ceremonial, and to have become gradually more and more ethical and spiritual" (Sanday-Headlam on Romans 1:7). Originally, like all such words, it had naturally a physical sense, now completely lost both in Heb. and in the other Semitic languages, but conjectured to have been that of separation. In actual usage it expresses the idea of belonging to deity, whether of the character of deity itself (cf. on Exodus 15:11), or of the character of men or things as belonging to Him: as the conception of deity became elevated and purified, the idea expressed by -holy" became elevated and purified likewise, till at last it expressed the idea of most absolute purity and sanctity. Here the context shews that it must be used in one of its lower senses: it is followed by a command, not to shun and abhor every kind of evil, for instance, or to be morally pure or saintly, but by the purely ceremonialcommand not to eat flesh torn by beasts: the -holiness" is thus not moral, but ritual. In Deuteronomy 7:6; Deuteronomy 14:2; Deuteronomy 26:19, it is used in a higher sense: for it is in each case connected with some prohibition of idolatry or superstition, or an exhortation to obey Jehovah's moral commands. See farther, on the idea of Holiness, Sanday-Headlam, l.c.; A. B. Davidson, Theol. of OT., pp. 144 160; Skinner, art. Holiness in DB.; Simcox, art. Clean and Unclean in EB.

and flesh in the field, a torn animal, ye shall not eat The Heb. is not very natural; and perhaps, with LXX. (who express -flesh torn of beasts" alone), Budde, Bä., we should read simply, -and the flesh of a torn animal ye shall not eat," regarding בשדה -in the field" as a dittograph of בשר -flesh." For ṭerçphâh, -that which is torn (by wild beasts)," or -a torn animal," see v.13, Genesis 31:39. With the present law, comp. Leviticus 17:15 (P), where lustrations are prescribed for those who have eaten either nebhçlâh(-a carcase," -that which dieth of itself") or ṭerçphâh, but neither is in so many words prohibited as food 1 [192], and Deuteronomy 14:21, where the eating of nebhçlâhis prohibited, but nothing is said about ṭerçphâh. The reason of both prohibitions is doubtless to be found in the fact that such flesh had not been properly drained of blood (Deuteronomy 12:16; Deuteronomy 12:23, &c.).

[192] Both were prohibited absolutely to priests(Leviticus 22:8; Ezekiel 44:31; cf. Ezekiel 4:14).