Deuteronomy15chapter 15

Deuteronomy 15:7-8

The command reaches the heart and the hand in one clause, and Matthew Henry takes the shut hand as the visible sign of the hardened heart. The open hand is measured by the man's case, “whatever he needs”, which Adam Clarke reads as the only rule a giver is given. First John 3:17 joins the same two things, a brother's need seen and the heart shut against it.

John Gill says the heart must open before the hand, and he measures the loan by the need, enough to meet it and no more. Jesus gives the same command at Matthew 5:42. At Luke 6:35 he adds lending with nothing expected in return.

Deuteronomy 15:9-10

The statute anticipates a man counting the months to the year of release and lending nothing because the debt will soon be cancelled. Adam Clarke renders the Hebrew behind the wicked thought as a heart of Belial, and reads the begrudging look as covetousness, the evil eye of Matthew 6:23 and 20:15. Verse 10 asks for the gift without a grieved heart, the cheerful giver of 2 Corinthians 9:7.

The lender who fears the seventh year in verse 9 is promised that the LORD will bless all his work and everything he puts his hand to. Proverbs 19:17 calls kindness to the poor a loan to the LORD. Adam Clarke says covetousness darkens the soul and liberality enlightens it.

Verse 4 promised that there would be no poor under a condition, verse 11 says the poor will never cease, and the chapter settles nothing between them. Jesus quotes this verse at Mark 14:7 over the ointment poured at Bethany. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown read lasting poverty as partly the penalty of disobedience and partly an occasion for mercy, where Adam Clarke reads it as mercy alone.

Deuteronomy 15:12-14

Exodus 21:2-6 gave this law first, and here the Hebrew woman comes under the same six years and seventh-year freedom, which readers have long set beside Exodus 21:7. The master must also furnish the freed man from flock, threshing floor and winepress, which Albert Barnes reads as capital to begin again. Jeremiah 34:8-17 records Judah keeping this law for a moment and then taking the servants back.

Exodus 3:21 promised that Israel would leave Egypt with more than empty hands, and the servant set free leaves the same way. John Gill gives the ground of the gift: the servant worked six years wholly for his master and could save nothing. Exodus 12:35-36 tells how Egypt paid on the way out.

Adam Clarke reads the flock, the threshing floor and the winepress as a start in life for the freed servant: animals to breed, grain for seed and bread, and wine for his need. The gift is given as the LORD has blessed the master, the measure 16:10 and 16:17 set for gifts at the feasts. A larger blessing asks a larger gift.

Remember falls fourteen times in this book and what is to be remembered is always an event rather than a doctrine. The ground of the law is the master's own history, that he was a bondman and the Lord redeemed him, so the man who was let go is the man who lets his servant go. The same clause carries the sabbath at 5:15, the feast of weeks at 16:12, and the gleaning laws at 24:18 and 24:22.

Deuteronomy 15:16-17

Exodus 21:5-6 gave this ceremony with a step before the judges, and here the master takes the awl and the door alone. The servant's reason is love of the master and the house, so a bond for life rests on his own words, and verse 17 extends it to the maidservant. John Gill and other older commentators set the pierced ear beside Psalm 40:6 and read it of Christ's obedience.

John Wesley reads for life as the whole of the servant's life, or at least until the year of jubilee. Leviticus 25:41 sends him home at the jubilee. Wesley applies the last clause both ways for the maidservant, a generous release or the same rite at the door.

The master is told the six years were “worth twice the wages of a hired hand”. John Gill gives the arithmetic, since a hired man draws wages on top of his keep and a bondservant draws none, and readers differ over whether twice weighs the labour or the term. The clause names the master's resentment before he feels it and answers it with a blessing.

Deuteronomy 15:19-20

Numbers 18:15-18 gave the firstlings' flesh to the priests, while this chapter has the owner's household eating it before the LORD each year. Keil and Delitzsch read Deuteronomy as the sacrificial meal the offerer shares, not the priest's portion. Forbidding work with the ox and shearing of the flock stops an owner drawing profit from an animal already given away.

The firstling goes up with the household once a year, and 14:23 sets the firstborn of herd and flock at the same table as the tithe. Elkanah's house kept an annual sacrifice at 1 Samuel 1:21. Albert Barnes reads the chapter as assuming the older firstborn law of Numbers 18:15.

Deuteronomy 15:21-23

Lame and blind is the pair Malachi 1:8 throws back at priests who brought such animals to the altar. What cannot be sacrificed is eaten at home as common food by clean and unclean alike, the allowance of 12:15 and 12:22. The blood is poured “on the ground like water”, the rule of Genesis 9:4 and Leviticus 17:11-14 that the council at Acts 15:20 lays on Gentile believers.

Leviticus 7:20 cuts off an unclean person who eats the meat of a peace offering. The blemished firstling has left the altar's law, and John Gill lets a man unclean from touching a dead body eat it with the clean. Gazelle and deer were food and never sacrifices.

John Gill counts the firstborn animal with a defect as common food to eat within your gates, and the blood rule follows it there. The same words govern ordinary slaughter at 12:16 and 12:24. Saul's army ate meat with the blood at 1 Samuel 14:32.