Today started with a repeat of some rules previously mentioned, and specifically about clean and unclean food. This topic was already covered in detail in Leviticus https://liveandlearnjourney.com/day-35-leviticus-10-12/
The next section was on tithes. To summarize, this section suggests:
“1. Annually, a tenth of all Israelite produce was taken to the city of the central sanctuary for distribution to the Levites.
2. At that time, at an initial festival, all Israelites ate part of the tithe.
3. The rest, which would be by far the major part of it, belonged to the Levites.
4. Every third year the tithe was gathered in the towns and stored for distribution to the Levites and the less fortunate: aliens, fatherless, widows.
5. The Levites were to present to the Lord a tenth of their tithe.”
Then it went on to discuss the Sabbatical year, or the year for canceling debts. This happened every seven years. I believe I covered this previously when it talked about the Sabbath year in Leviticus. https://liveandlearnjourney.com/day-40-leviticus-24-25/
Tediously, it went on to discuss some of the festivals, like the Passover, The Feast of Weeks, and the Feast of Booths. Ugh, I just can’t!
https://liveandlearnjourney.com/day-39-leviticus-22-23/
It talked about justice and how judges and officers were to be appointed in all the towns, according to the tribes. They were to judge the people with righteous judgement. They could not pervert justice; show partiality; or accept a bribe, “for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and subverts the cause of the righteous.”
In the middle of this, it talked of forbidden forms of worship, which was basically all about other gods and how it was forbidden to serve or worship them. This topic is repeated a lot throughout all of this!
Then it went back to justice and legalities. If there were a case that was too difficult for the courts to judge, then they were taken to the priests to decide. The Lord would decide and the priests would declare his decision.
The last section today was about laws concerning Israel’s kings. Here Moses anticipated a time when Israel would would ask for a king, contrary the Lord’s ideal for them. So Moses gave guidance concerning the eventual selection of the king. The king would have to be from among the people of Israel and not a foreigner, and had to write a book of the copy of the law he was to spend his days reading. The king would not be above God’s law.
Ok, this is cool. I didn’t remember Moses ever addressing the possibility of the people wanting a king! Later on you will read how the people begged God for a king and He finally relented and let them choose, they chose Saul. God chose David. But I’ll let you find all this out for yourself 🙂