Deuteronomy 26:14

Ver. 14. I have not eaten thereof in my mourning, &c.— The expressions in this verse evidently refer to idolatrous customs, and they are further proofs how careful their legislator was to guard them from the then prevailing idolatry of worshipping the dead. Had they not been restrained by this and other laws, it is hardly to be doubted, that they, as well as the Pagans, would have deified some of their dead heroes. The first declaration, I have not eaten thereof in my mourning, Spencer very judiciously supposes to have respect to some idolatrous custom then in use; such as that of the Egyptians, who, when they offered the first-fruits of the earth, were accustomed to invoke Isis with woeful lamentations: for which practice Spencer has collected many undoubted authorities in his Leg. Heb. lib. ii. c. 37. We have had occasion to observe before, that the Israelites were not allowed to eat of things consecrated to God when they were in a state of mourning. See Hosea 9:4. The second declaration, neither have I taken aught thereof for any unclean use, refers to the practice of some old idolaters, who separated part of the first-fruits for magical, and sometimes very lascivious uses; making Ceres and Bacchus minister to Venus, as Julius Firmicus has fully proved in his Error. Prophanae Religionis. The phrase may signify, I have not taken away aught thereof to any unclean place, such as an idol's temple, where the Gentiles were accustomed to eat their consecrated things. In general, however, that may be called an unclean use, which God had forbidden, as he had all other uses besides what he required. The third declaration, nor given aught thereof for, or rather, to the dead, is a profession that they had not offered any of the fruits of the earth to idols, as if their increase had been owing to them; for these idols were nothing but dead men deified, and to such dead idols the Gentiles were wont to consecrate their first-fruits. The Egyptians, in particular, consecrated them to Osiris, who, Spencer thinks, may be here meant by the dead, as the word is in the singular number. Osiris was the same as Adonis; concerning whose worship almost every writer of antiquity speaks: in particular Lucian, Plutarch, and Theocritus. See the note on Deuteronomy 4:1.