Deuteronomy 16
The Message
16 1-4 Observe the month of Abib by celebrating the Passover to God, your God. It was in the month of Abib that God, your God, delivered you by night from Egypt. Offer the Passover-Sacrifice to God, your God, at the place God chooses to be worshiped by establishing his name there. Don’t eat yeast bread with it; for seven days eat it with unraised bread, hard-times bread, because you left Egypt in a hurry—that bread will keep the memory fresh of how you left Egypt for as long as you live. There is to be no sign of yeast anywhere for seven days. And don’t let any of the meat that you sacrifice in the evening be left over until morning.
5-7 Don’t sacrifice the Passover in any of the towns that God, your God, gives you other than the one God, your God, designates for worship; there and there only you will offer the Passover-Sacrifice at evening as the sun goes down, marking the time that you left Egypt. Boil and eat it at the place designated by God, your God. Then, at daybreak, turn around and go home. 8 Eat unraised bread for six days. Set aside the seventh day as a holiday; don’t do any work.
9-11 Starting from the day you put the sickle to the ripe grain, count out seven weeks. Celebrate the Feast-of-Weeks to God, your God, by bringing your Freewill-Offering—give as generously as God, your God, has blessed you. Rejoice in the Presence of God, your God: you, your son, your daughter, your servant, your maid, the Levite who lives in your neighborhood, the foreigner, the orphan, and widow among you; rejoice at the place God, your God, will set aside to be worshiped.
12 Don’t forget that you were once a slave in Egypt. So be diligent in observing these regulations.
13-15 Observe the Feast-of-Booths for seven days when you gather the harvest from your threshing-floor and your wine-vat. Rejoice at your festival: you, your son, your daughter, your servant, your maid, the Levite, the foreigner, and the orphans and widows who live in your neighborhood. Celebrate the Feast to God, your God, for seven days at the place God designates. God, your God, has been blessing you in your harvest and in all your work, so make a day of it—really celebrate!
16-17 All your men must appear before God, your God, three times each year at the place he designates: at the Feast-of-Unraised-Bread (Passover), at the Feast-of-Weeks, and at the Feast-of-Booths. No one is to show up in the Presence of God empty-handed; each man must bring as much as he can manage, giving generously in response to the blessings of God, your God.
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18-19 Appoint judges and officers, organized by tribes, in all the towns that God, your God, is giving you. They are to judge the people fairly and honestly. Don’t twist the law. Don’t play favorites. Don’t take a bribe—a bribe blinds even a wise person; it undermines the intentions of the best of people. 20 The right! The right! Pursue only what’s right! It’s the only way you can really live and possess the land that God, your God, is giving you.
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21-22 Don’t plant fertility Asherah trees alongside the Altar of God, your God, that you build. Don’t set up phallic sex pillars—God, your God, hates them.
God wants His people to celebrate, but to do it His way! So God ordains three major feasts, times at which all men should appear at the town God will give them for major worship. These feasts are Passover, Pentecost, and Succoth, the Feast of Booths. These feasts are tied to events occurring throughout the agricultural year to allow people to have something to offer to the Lord. At the same time, God is also warning His people NOT to have anything to do with the fertility cults represented by Asherah trees, particularly to avoid planting any Asherah trees next to the Altar of the One True Living God. Such an act would be a total abomination.
First, God wants His people to perpetually celebrate their deliverance from slavery in Egypt. To that end, families are to preserve rituals designed to help all generations to commemorate that great event. At the same time, anything having to do with leaven is to be eliminated from homes and from the diet for seven days-why? Because leaven was used to brew beer in Egypt and leaven has become a symbol of evil influences. God is demanding His people purge their homes and their hearts of any evil.
The Feast of weeks or Pentecost is an early harvest festival at which the Israelites are to present first fruits. Presenting the first of anything is an act of supreme faith because you don’t know if the little you have in your hand is all you will gain for the year. Offering first fruits is akin to offering first-born lambs; who knows if the sheep will deliver any more lambs?
Finally, the feast of booths is a late harvest festival, celebrating successful harvests for the year. God follows the instructions for these festivals with instructions about judges and eschewing idol worship. Sometimes people can become so caught up in a celebration that they might do something wrong; just judges are a necessity. And as the Israelites have come from Egypt with its thousands of idols and are now surrounded by idolatrous tribes, they must persistently fight against the temptation to copy their neighbors.
What meaning do these descriptions have for us? God wants us to live joyously and to celebrate, including all those around us-strangers, widows, orphans, the poor, the sick, the lonely. One of the terrible things about cell phones and tablets is that people can become so fixated on them that they refuse to really see the needs of others.
I have become somewhat addicted to a series of stories posted on Facebook in which small people-store clerks, retirees, disabled veterans, and others, spark movements of kindness simply by extending small gestures of help to those around them. God has never intended His people to become self-centered, for the entire Bible carries messages of compassion and help. When a lawyer quizzed Jesus about the greatest commandments, Jesus replied, “You will love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.”
Nothing has changed. God wants His people to share whatever they have whenever they are celebrating. May God help us to reach out to all those around us so that they too will be able to share in the joy of celebration!
PRAYER: Father God, thank You for loving us and caring for us. Lord, help us to lovingly and joyously share our celebrations with all those around us. In the mighty and precious Name of King Jesus. Amen.
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