Go to Related Reading
About this book

Deuteronomy

About this book
Chapter 14

1 You are children of the Lord your God.⁠ Do not cut yourselves or shave your forehead bald for the sake of the dead.⁠ 2 For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. He has chosen you to be his people, prized above all others on the face of the earth.⁠ 3 You must not eat any forbidden thing. 4 These are the animals you may eat: the ox, the sheep, the goat, 5 the ibex, the gazelle, the deer, the wild goat, the antelope, the wild oryx, and the mountain sheep. 6 You may eat any animal that has hooves divided into two parts and that chews the cud. 7 However, you may not eat the following animals among those that chew the cud or those that have divided hooves: the camel, the hare, and the rock badger. (Although they chew the cud, they do not have divided hooves and are therefore ritually impure to you.) 8 Also, the pig is ritually impure to you; though it has divided hooves, it does not chew the cud. You may not eat their meat or even touch their remains. 9 These you may eat from among water creatures: anything with fins and scales you may eat, 10 but whatever does not have fins and scales you may not eat; it is ritually impure to you. 11 All ritually clean birds you may eat. 12 These are the ones you may not eat: the eagle, the vulture, the black vulture, 13 the kite, the black kite, the dayyah after its species, 14 every raven after its species, 15 the ostrich, the owl, the seagull, the falcon after its species, 16 the little owl, the long-eared owl, the white owl, 17 the jackdaw, the carrion vulture, the cormorant, 18 the stork, the heron after its species, the hoopoe, and the bat. 19 And any swarming winged thing is impure to you—they may not be eaten. 20 You may eat any winged creature that is clean. 21 You may not eat any corpse, though you may give it to the resident foreigner who is living in your villages and he may eat it, or you may sell it to a foreigner. You are a people holy to the Lord your God. Do not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk.⁠ 22 You must be certain to tithe all the produce of your seed that comes from the field year after year. 23 In the presence of the Lord your God, in the place he chooses to locate his name, you must eat from the tithe of your grain, your new wine, your olive oil, and the firstborn of your herds and flocks, so that you may learn to revere the Lord your God always. 24 When he blesses you, if the place where he chooses to locate his name is distant, 25 you may convert the tithe into money, secure the money, and travel to the place the Lord your God chooses for himself. 26 Then you may spend the money however you wish for cattle, sheep, wine, beer, or whatever you desire. You and your household may eat there in the presence of the Lord your God and enjoy it. 27 As for the Levites in your villages, you must not ignore them, for they have no allotment or inheritance along with you. 28 At the end of every three years you must bring all the tithe of your produce, in that very year, and you must store it up in your villages. 29 Then the Levites (because they have no allotment or inheritance with you), the resident foreigners, the orphans, and the widows of your villages may come and eat their fill so that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work you do.⁠

Texts in conversation

Compare Deuteronomy 14:29 and Letter of Jeremiah 1:28

Hebrew Bible · Deuterocanon

Share:

Summary

Deuteronomy requires offerings to be shared with Levites and the poor, connecting worship with generosity. The Letter of Jeremiah ridicules idol priests whose wives keep the meat for themselves, turning care for the poor into a satire of selfish ritual.

Passages

Deuteronomy 14:29

Hebrew Bible
27 As for the Levites in your villages, you must not ignore them, for they have no allotment or inheritance along with you. 28 At the end of every three years you must bring all the tithe of your produce, in that very year, and you must store it up in your villages. 29 Then the Levites (because they have no allotment or inheritance with you), the resident foreigners, the orphans, and the widows of your villages may come and eat their fill so that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work you do.
750–400 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Deuteronomy

Letter of Jeremiah 1:28

Deuterocanon
26 Having no feet, they are carried upon shoulders. By this, they declare to men that they are worth nothing. Those who serve them are also ashamed, 27 for if they fall to the ground at any time, they can’t rise up again by themselves. If they are bowed down, they can’t make themselves straight; but the offerings are set before them, as if they were dead men. 28 And the things that are sacrificed to them, their priests sell and spend. In like manner, their wives also lay up part of it in salt; but to the poor and to the powerless they give none of it. 29 The menstruating woman and the woman in childbirth touch their sacrifices, knowing therefore by these things that they are no gods. Don’t fear them. 30 For how can they be called gods? Because women set food before the gods of silver, gold, and wood.
300–101 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in the Letter of Jeremiah

References

"... The letter is untypical of early Jewish literature in its inclusion of two references to the involvement in worship of women, both Jewish (verse 28) and gentile (verses 42–43). The first reinforces the Levitical prescriptions around ritual impurity at the times of menstruation and childbirth (Leviticus 12:1–8; 15:19–31). The second critiques the sexual activity and fertility rites practiced as part of some ancient religions, but explicitly forbidden by Israel’s law (e.g., Deuteronomy 23:17–18). The implication that the women working as temple prostitutes are blameworthy, rather than victims of sexual slavery, reflects ancient rather than modern worldviews. In a further reference to women, the wives of the priests are specifically included within the wider critique of the deception and corruption of the gentile cults: they are thus condemned for keeping for themselves the food offered in sacrifice to the gods, and failing to share any of it with the poor (verse 27). Women in general are also assumed to love ornaments and money (verses 8–10), a stereotype found elsewhere in early Jewish (e.g., 1 Enoch 8:1) and early Christian (e.g., 1 Timothy 2:9–15) sources ..."
Susan Docherty, “The Epistle of Jeremiah,” in The Oxford Handbook of the Apocrypha, ed. Gerbern S. Oegema (New York: Oxford University Press, 2021), 397–409.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

Your feedback

Deuteronomy 14:29 and Letter of Jeremiah 1:28

Leave a comment

Your questions and comments are welcome!

Comments

Glossary

Search the Library