Deuteronomy 14 insists on what became the children of Jehovah their God in abstaining from unseemly maimings or disfigurements for the dead, as well as from any food which He, who knew better than they, pronounced abominable. They are then shown what may or may not be eaten, whether beasts, fishes, or fowls. For people holy to Jehovah must not eat anything that dies of itself, nor accustom itself to an uncomely act, were it with a dumb and dead kid and the milk of its dam.
But there is another point peculiar to this book. Beside the tithe of their increase truly rendered from corn, wine, oil, with the firstlings, which, if distant from the place Jehovah would choose for His center of worship, might be turned into money, and there spent before Him with a joyful household and the Levite not forsaken, there was to be a tithe at the end of three years, mentioned in verses 28-29: “At the end of three years thou shalt bring forth all the tithe of thine increase the same year, and shalt lay it up within thy gates.” They were not compelled to take this to the one place that God had consecrated. It had more of the family character; but a beautiful feature is connected with it: “And the Levite (because he hath no part nor inheritance with thee), and the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow, which are within thy gates, shall come, and shall eat and be satisfied; that Jehovah thy God may bless thee in all the work of thine hand which thou doest.” Even in the very witness of domestic blessing there must be the largeness of heart that goes out to those who have no friends to care for them. How good is our God, and what a witness of His grace! We know well how the family is apt to trench on generous feeling, and how it is apt to shut itself up to no more or better than a refined selfishness. It is not so where God governs. There, even were it the family gathered in such a sort as this within their gates, the Levite, the stranger, the fatherless, all have their part. Why should they not rejoice? It was God who made the family rejoice, and they were to go out to those that were strangers to it. Is it not a beautiful indication of what the true God is, even in His least institutions?