Numbers 18:26

Hebrew Bible

24 But I have given to the Levites for an inheritance the tithes of the Israelites that are offered to the Lord as a raised offering. That is why I said to them that among the Israelites they are to have no inheritance.” 25 The Lord spoke to Moses: 26 “You are to speak to the Levites, and you must tell them, ‘When you receive from the Israelites the tithe that I have given you from them as your inheritance, then you are to offer up from it as a raised offering to the Lord a tenth of the tithe. 27 And your raised offering will be credited to you as though it were grain from the threshing floor or as new wine from the winepress. 28 Thus you are to offer up a raised offering to the Lord of all your tithes that you receive from the Israelites; and you must give the Lord’s raised offering from it to Aaron the priest.

Nehemiah 10:38

Hebrew Bible

36 We also accept responsibility, as is written in the law, for bringing the firstborn of our sons and our cattle and the firstborn of our herds and of our flocks to the temple of our God, to the priests who are ministering in the temple of our God. 37 We will also bring the first of our coarse meal, of our contributions, of the fruit of every tree, of new wine, and of olive oil to the priests at the storerooms of the temple of our God, along with a tenth of the produce of our land to the Levites, for the Levites are the ones who collect the tithes in all the cities where we work. 38 A priest of Aaron’s line will be with the Levites when the Levites collect the tithes, and the Levites will bring up a tenth of the tithes to the temple of our God, to the storerooms of the treasury. 39 The Israelites and the Levites will bring the contribution of the grain, the new wine, and the olive oil to the storerooms where the utensils of the sanctuary are kept, and where the priests who minister stay, along with the gatekeepers and the singers. We will not neglect the temple of our God.”

 Notes and References

"... Underlying all the ancient Near Eastern sources dealing with the tithe is the notion of a tax that is indispensable for the maintenance of the temple and its personnel. As may be learned from the Mesopotamian documents, the tithe was stored in the temple treasuries, and some of the temple representatives were put in charge of these stores. The cattle were marked with a temple mark, and the tithe of grain and dates could be converted into money when desirable ... The tithe was collected by representatives of the temple authorities, who were also responsible for transporting the products to the temple personnel. A similar picture is obtained when the biblical sources dealing with the tithe are examined in conjunction with the outside sources. Admittedly, as will be shown, one has to take into account the fact that the various sources of the Pentateuch evince different attitudes to the tithe and also that this institution underwent some development during the Second Temple period. However, in general, the nature of the tithe and the way of processing and spending it is quite similar to that known from the outside sources, as presented above. That the tithe was stored in the storehouse of the Temple may be learned from Malachi (3:10), Nehemiah (10:38, 39; 12:4.43 13:5, 12, 13), and 2 Chronicles (31:4) ... the evidence in Nehemiah 10:38 about Levites as tithe collectors in the provincial cities, which some have regarded as a gloss, is now corroborated by Mesopotamian data, according to which tithe collectors were recruited from the temple administration. Although the Mesopotamian data is from later sources, this does not mean that the whole procedure was a late invention, especially given that the same procedure is attested in outside sources ..."

Milgrom, Jacob Numbers: The Traditional Hebrew Text with the New JPS Translation (p. 434) Jewish Publication Society, 1990

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