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About this book

Didache

About this book

Supporting Prophets and Teachers

Chapter 13

1 Every true prophet who wishes to settle among you deserves to be provided for with food.⁠ 2 Similarly, a genuine teacher is worthy of sustenance, just like any other worker. 3 Therefore, you should offer the first fruits of your wine, grain, oxen, and sheep to the prophets, for they serve as your high priests.⁠ 4 If you have no prophets, then give to those in need. 5 When you bake bread, take the first portion and give it in accordance with the commandment. 6 Likewise, when you open a jar of wine or oil, give the first portion to the prophets. 7 With money, clothes, and all your other possessions, take the first portion, and give it as you see fit, in accordance with the commandment.

Texts in conversation

Compare Numbers 15:20 and Didache 13:5

Hebrew Bible · Early Christian

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Summary

In Numbers, God commands Israel to offer a cake from the first of its flour. In the Didache, an early church manual, the same command is applied to be given to the prophets who serve as its high priests.

Passages

Numbers 15:20

Hebrew Bible
18 “Speak to the Israelites and tell them, ‘When you enter the land to which I am bringing you 19 and you eat some of the food of the land, you must offer up a raised offering to the Lord. 20 You must offer up a cake of the first of your finely ground flour as a raised offering; as you offer the raised offering of the threshing floor, so you must offer it up. 21 You must give to the Lord some of the first of your finely ground flour as a raised offering in your future generations.
750–400 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Numbers

Didache 13:5

Early Christian
1 Every true prophet who wishes to settle among you deserves to be provided for with food. 2 Similarly, a genuine teacher is worthy of sustenance, just like any other worker. 3 Therefore, you should offer the first fruits of your wine, grain, oxen, and sheep to the prophets, for they serve as your high priests. 4 If you have no prophets, then give to those in need. 5 When you bake bread, take the first portion and give it in accordance with the commandment. 6 Likewise, when you open a jar of wine or oil, give the first portion to the prophets. 7 With money, clothes, and all your other possessions, take the first portion, and give it as you see fit, in accordance with the commandment.
90–120 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in the Didache

References

“... That is a loaf made from the first kneading of dough, [...] being the equivalent of [...] alluding to Num 15:20-21 (cf. also Neh 10:38a). In all probability the Didachist is referring to the biblical and Jewish offering known as [...], the portion which every housewife set aside for the priests when she was kneading dough in the bread-trough. This precept taken up by the Didachist [...] was still in force and generally observed during the period of the Second Temple and even after. For details, see the tractate Hallah of the Mishnah; and on its obligatory character, cf. Safrai, “Religion in Everyday life”, pp. 827-828. ...”
Marcello Del Verme, Didache and Judaism Jewish Roots of an Ancient Christian-Jewish Work (London: T&T Clark International, 2004), 171.

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

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Numbers 15:20 and Didache 13:5

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