Deuteronomy advances a step towards fixing the terms
and intervals more accurately, a circumstance very intimately
connected with the centralisation of the worship in Jerusalem.
Even here, however, we do not meet with one general festive
offering on the part of the community, but only with
isolated private offerings by individuals.
In correspondence with this the amount of the gifts is left with
considerable vagueness to the good-will of the offerers. Only the
firstlings are definitely demanded. The redemption allowed
in Deuteronomy by means of money which buys a substitute
in Jerusalem has no proper meaning for the earlier time;
yet even then the offerer may in individual instances have availed
himself of liberty of exchange, all the more because even then his
gift, as a sacrificial meal, was essentially a benefit to himself
(Exodus xxiii. 18; Genesis iv. 4, WMXBL
HN). For the
first-fruits of the field Exodus prescribes no measure at all,
Deuteromony demands the tithe of corn, wine, and oil, which,
however, is not to be understood with mathematical strictness,
inasmuch as it is used at sacrificial meals, is not made over to a
second party, and thus does not require to be accounted for.
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