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Deuteronomy 26: What the Passage Says

82 claims across 19 verses, in the order the chapter makes them.

Not a sermon outline. What Deuteronomy 26 says, and what its hard words meant. The reading of it is yours.

The Chapter in a Sentence

Moses gives Israel two speeches to say out loud when they bring their gifts in the land. The first goes with the basket of firstfruits: the worshiper recites how his ancestor went down to Egypt, how the people were enslaved, and how the LORD brought them out to this land. The second goes with the third-year tenth, given to the Levite, the foreigner, the orphan, and the widow, and ends with a request that God bless Israel and its land. The chapter closes with two declarations: Israel says the LORD is its God, and the LORD says Israel is his treasured people, who are to keep all his commands and be set high above all the nations in praise, fame, and honor.

Claim by Claim

  1. 26:1
    • When you come into the land, this instruction applies.
    • The LORD your God is giving you the land as an inheritance.
    • You will take possession of that land.
    • You will dwell in that land.
  2. 26:2
    • You are to take some of the first of all the fruit of the ground.
    • That produce is brought from your land, which the LORD your God is giving you.
    • You are to put it in a basket.
    • You are to go to the place the LORD your God will choose to make his name dwell there.
  3. 26:3
    • You are to go to the priest who is in office in those days.
    • You are to say to him, I declare today to the LORD your God.
    • The declaration is that you have come into the land.
    • The LORD swore to our fathers that he would give us that land.
  4. 26:4
    • The priest shall take the basket from your hand.
    • The priest shall set the basket down before the altar of the LORD your God.
  5. 26:5
    • You are to speak and say before the LORD your God.
    • You say that your father was an Aramean.
    • The word describing the father is ambiguous: it can mean perishing or lost, or wandering.
    • He went down to Egypt.
    • He sojourned there.
    • He was few in number when he went down.
    • There he became a nation.
    • That nation was great.
    • That nation was mighty and numerous.
  6. 26:6
    • The Egyptians treated us badly.
    • The Egyptians afflicted us.
    • The Egyptians imposed hard labor on us.
  7. 26:7
    • We cried out to the LORD, the God of our fathers.
    • The LORD heard our voice.
    • The LORD saw our affliction.
    • The LORD saw our toil.
    • The LORD saw our oppression.
  8. 26:8
    • The LORD brought us out of Egypt.
    • He did it with a mighty hand.
    • He did it with an outstretched arm.
    • He did it with great terror.
    • He did it with signs.
    • He did it with wonders.
  9. 26:9
    • He brought us to this place.
    • He gave us this land.
    • This land flows with milk and honey.
  10. 26:10
    • The worshipper says he has now brought the first of the fruit of the ground.
    • The worshipper says the LORD gave that ground to him.
    • You are to set the offering down before the LORD your God.
    • You are to bow down before the LORD your God.
  11. 26:11
    • You are to rejoice in all the good the LORD your God has given to you and to your household.
    • You, the Levite, and the sojourner among you are to rejoice.
  12. 26:12
    • This applies when you have finished tithing all the tithe of your produce in the third year.
    • The third year is the year of the tithe.
    • You are to give the tithe to the Levite, the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow.
    • They are to eat within your gates.
    • They are to be satisfied.
  13. 26:13
    • You are to say before the LORD your God the following declaration.
    • I have removed the holy portion from my house.
    • I have given it to the Levite, the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow.
    • I did this according to all your commandment that you commanded me.
    • I have not transgressed your commandments.
    • I have not forgotten your commandments.
  14. 26:14
    • I have not eaten any of it while in mourning.
    • I have not removed any of it while unclean.
    • I have not given any of it for the dead.
    • I have obeyed the voice of the LORD my God.
    • I have done according to all that you commanded me.
  15. 26:15
    • Look down from your holy dwelling, from heaven.
    • Bless your people Israel.
    • Bless the ground you have given us.
    • You swore this to our fathers.
    • The land flows with milk and honey.
  16. 26:16
    • This day the LORD your God commands you to do these statutes and judgments.
    • You are to keep them and do them.
    • You are to do them with all your heart.
    • You are to do them with all your soul.
  17. 26:17
    • Today you have declared the LORD to be your God.
    • You have declared that you will walk in his ways.
    • You have declared that you will keep his statutes, his commandments, and his judgments.
    • You have declared that you will listen to his voice.
  18. 26:18
    • Today the LORD has declared you to be his treasured people.
    • He said this as he had promised you.
    • It is declared that you are to keep all his commandments.
  19. 26:19
    • He will set you high above all the nations he has made.
    • He will set you high in praise, in name, and in honor.
    • You are to be a holy people to the LORD your God.
    • This is as he has spoken.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

26:1
"Inheritance" is not a gift of money. Land in Israel was inherited property, passed down inside a family and not meant to be sold off permanently, so describing the whole country as an inheritance means each household's plot was to stay in that household's hands for good.
26:2
"Firstfruits" were the earliest part of a harvest to ripen, brought to the sanctuary before the rest of the crop was used at home. "The place the LORD your God will choose as the home for his name" is Deuteronomy's standing phrase for the one central sanctuary where offerings were to be brought, as opposed to local shrines; a god's "name" placed on a site marked it as belonging to him.
26:3
"The priest that shall be in those days" is legal phrasing for whoever holds the office at the time you arrive. The instruction is written for generations not yet born, so it names the job and not a man.
26:4
An altar was a raised platform, usually of stone, standing in front of the sanctuary. Offerings were burned on it or, as here, simply set down before it to mark them as handed over.
26:5
An Aramean is someone from Aram, the region covering Syria and upper Mesopotamia, where Israel's ancestors came from and where Jacob lived and married. The Hebrew word behind "wandering" can also mean "perishing" or "lost" (the KJV takes it that way: "ready to perish"), so the line may picture a homeless migrant, a man on the edge of ruin, or both at once.
26:6
"Evil entreated us" has nothing to do with begging. In 1611 to entreat someone meant to handle or treat them, so the phrase means they treated us cruelly.
26:8
"A strong hand and an outstretched arm" is a fixed Hebrew phrase for overwhelming power in action; the image is an arm drawn back to strike. "Signs and wonders" is likewise a standard pair, meaning events startling enough to mark out who is behind them.
26:9
"Flowing with milk and honey" was a stock description of rich country: enough grazing to keep herds and flocks in milk, and enough flowering growth for wild honey. The word for honey can also cover the thick syrup boiled from dates or grapes.
26:10
Bowing low, face toward the ground, was the normal way of showing respect to someone far greater than you.
26:11
A Levite belonged to the tribe of Levi, which was allotted no territory of its own and served at the sanctuary, living on offerings and tithes rather than on farmland. The "foreigner" (Hebrew ger) is not a passing visitor but a non-Israelite settled permanently in the land; with no inherited land, he is grouped with the orphan and the widow as someone dependent on others' harvests.
26:12
A tithe was a tenth of the year's produce set aside for God. In ordinary years it was carried to the central sanctuary and eaten there by the household; every third year it stayed in the local town instead and was handed over to those with no land of their own. "Within your gates" means inside the towns, a town's gateway was where its public business was transacted, so "gates" stands for the town itself.
26:13
The "holy portion" (KJV "hallowed things") is produce already designated for God. Once set apart it was no longer the owner's to use, and what follows is a formal oath that none of it was kept back or diverted.
26:14
Three ways the set-apart food could be disqualified. A death in the household left its members ritually impure, a state that barred them from contact with anything holy, and food handled or eaten during mourning shared that condition; "unclean" here means that ritual state, not dirt. An "offering for the dead" refers to food supplied to the dead in the grave, a widespread practice among Israel's neighbors.
26:16
"Statutes and judgments" is a pair covering the whole body of law. Statutes are fixed standing rules; judgments are rulings, the kind of decision a judge hands down in an actual case.
26:17
The verb translated "declared" in verses 17 and 18 is a rare one, and the same word is applied to both sides in turn. The effect is of two parties making a formal, binding declaration to each other, in the manner of treaty language; the KJV renders it "avouched."
26:18
The KJV's "peculiar people" does not mean odd. "Peculiar" in 1611 meant "belonging to one owner in particular," and it translates a Hebrew term used of a king's personal treasure, kept separate from the general property of the realm.
26:19
"In praise, and in name, and in honour": name here means reputation, what other nations say about you. "An holy people" means a people set apart for a particular use and marked as belonging to God; the word is about being designated, not about being morally flawless.

Read Deuteronomy 26