Deuteronomy 16 Study Notes

16:1-2 The month of Abib (meaning “ears of grain”), early in the spring, must be observed as the month when the liberating event of the exodus took place. Passover, the festival commemorating the deliverance of Israel from the tenth plague, began on the fourteenth day of Abib and continued through the twenty-first as the Festival of Unleavened Bread (Ex 12:17-20).

16:3-4 The bread of hardship symbolized the duress under which Israel lived as slaves in Egypt and also the hurry in which they escaped, with the Egyptian army hard on their heels (Ex 12:11,34,39). The people of Israel must eat the unleavened bread as a means of remembering the cost of their redemption. The church also is commanded by the Lord to eat the communion bread and drink the cup “in remembrance” of him (1Co 11:24-25). This helps the believer to recall the great acts of salvation history and even to reenact and participate in them.

16:5-6 Whereas sacrifice in general was permitted at local sites (Ex 20:24-26), three times a year the community—at least males twenty years and older—had to assemble at the place where the Lord chose to have his name dwell—the central sanctuary (12:5). When the community as a whole presented the Passover sacrifice, they commemorated God’s gracious act of redemption and offered their tribute to him as a response of worship and thanksgiving.

16:7-8 To cook and eat the Passover sacrifice not only brought the nation together but it also depicted the Lord as the table host. The setting is much the same as the Christian gathering known as the Lord’s Supper. Christ is there not as a participant but as an observer and in anticipation of a literal participation in the consummation of the kingdom of God (Lk 22:15-18).

16:9-12 The Festival of Weeks—known to Judaism as (Hb) Shabuoth (“weeks”) or Qatsir (“harvest”) and to Christians as Pentecost—was the second of the great pilgrimage festivals at the central sanctuary. It celebrated the harvest of the ripened grain fifty days after gathering the firstfruits (v. 9). The selection of the day of Pentecost for the coming of the Holy Spirit on the gathered church at Jerusalem probably was to inaugurate the birth of the church and also to view the firstfruits as having become a ripened body ready for harvest as God’s redeemed community (Ac 2:1,36,41).

16:13-15 After the Israelites left Egypt, they lived in temporary shelters for forty years thereafter, underscoring the transient nature of their journey and their dependence on the Lord for sustenance. Exodus 23:16 refers to this time as the Festival of Ingathering but makes no allusion to the wilderness experience nor does Deuteronomy. Leviticus, however, draws attention to the fact that the Lord “made the Israelites live in shelters when [he] brought them out of the land of Egypt” (Lv 23:43). The Festival of Shelters thus served to remind Israel of its fragile history in the wilderness and to celebrate God’s goodness to them in the land and the joy that would result in the crops from the work of their hands.

16:14 The list of persons here characterizes the Festival of Shelters not only as a time of feasting and worship, but also as an annual opportunity to attend to the needs of some of the lowliest and most neglected of Israel’s population.

16:16-17 No one is too poor to give something, and no one is expected to give more than he can. The OT tenth adheres to this standard and is therefore a measure for NT giving. Jesus illustrated this principle when he drew attention to a poor widow who dropped only two tiny coins into the temple treasury. She had done better than the rich, he said, “for they all gave out of their surplus, but she out of her poverty” (Mk 12:44).

16:18-20 Righteous judgment is the application of the law so as to conform to a set standard determined either by fiat or precedent. In the covenant law, the standard is Torah itself, so any judgment is righteous only to the extent that it conforms to Torah, which itself reflects the just and righteous character of the Lord.

16:21-22 The Asherah and sacred pillar were cult objects representing the chief goddess and god (Baal) respectively. A hint of syncretism is evident here in that Israel was told not to erect these pagan symbols next to the altar of the Lord. Recent discoveries in the Negev have confirmed that the Lord was sometimes worshiped along with Asherah, who is even described wrongly as his wife.