Every firstling that is born among thy kine and among thy sheep that is a male, thou shalt hallow to Jehovah thy God thou shalt do no work with the firstling of thy kine, nor shear the firstling of thy sheep.
Deuteronomy 15 ends with a rule about farm animals: the first male born to a man's herd and flock. These animals were not his to use, and the reason goes back to the night God spared Israel's firstborn in Egypt.
The verse tells the owner to dedicate the firstling. Older translations use the word "sanctify". Some take that word to mean being made holier inside:
If you look at the passages of Scripture which speak of the subject, you will see that this idea is false. For example, in Deuteronomy 15:19 we find that young bulls and sheep were sanctified. This cannot mean that they were improved and made holier. It simply means they were set apart for a purpose.
The command is not new here. God had claimed the firstlings long before. What happened to them changed over the years; His claim did not:
In Exodus 13 we meet with the first command about the firstlings. The Lord claimed them as His for evermore. He had the right to dispose of them as He would... In Numbers 18:17-18 He gave them to the priests to eat. In Deuteronomy 12:6, 17-18; 14:23; Deuteronomy 15:19-20, He told the people who brought them to share in them with their families and with the Levites who lived in their towns. This was to be at the place where He would choose to put His name. Now it is clear that there is a change made in the law. The principle, however, that God claimed the firstlings as His, to dispose of as He would, remains the same throughout.
Behind the claim lies a rescue:
The firstborn belonged to God, because it had been spared in Egypt. And to eat it before God speaks to us of realizing that relationship to God which rests on birth and redemption.
The verse bans two things: ploughing with the firstborn ox and shearing the firstborn sheep. Both are ways an owner would profit from his animals:
They were not to be worked, nor used by man for his own profit. They were to be the Lord's entirely, and eaten when the people went up to the sanctuary. The exception was an animal with some blemish. It was not fit to be taken up, but it was still to be eaten, as a portion from God in the family.
Yet nothing was confiscated. What God claimed, He gave back as a shared meal:
Israel also had to respect God's rights as Creator over the flocks and herds each person might own. The firstborn males were to be set apart for the Lord. They were not to use the animal to work for them, nor were they even to shear the firstborn sheep (v.19). The Lord did not take these from them. He required them to bring them to the place of His choice (Jerusalem) and eat them there before the Lord. These were peace offerings, offered to the Lord. The Lord had a share, and the priest had his share, but the rest was eaten by the offerer and his household (v.20).
The animal had to be a firstborn male with no defect. Commentators see a picture of Christ in that:
Only that which was perfect was to be offered to God. The firstborn male without blemish is a fitting figure of the spotless Lamb of God, offered on the cross for us. He is the lasting foundation of our peace, and the precious food of our souls in the presence of God. This was the divine thing: the assembly gathered around the divine centre. They fed in the presence of God on the appointed picture of Christ, who is at once our sacrifice, our centre, and our feast.
One writer presses the same claim on Christians today:
You are not to ransom nine-tenths from God by giving one. You are bought with a price — you and yours. In a double way, by creation and by redemption too, you belong, with all you have, to God. Many people act on a completely wrong idea. They think that with time, money, or anything else, God is to have His share and the rest is their own.
The animal set apart is a small picture of a larger consecration:
We see, therefore, that the consecration that flowed from redemption was entire and personal. The sacrifice was wholly consumed on the altar. In the same way, the redeemed person is counted as belonging wholly to the Lord — soul and body, set apart in every respect for His service.
- Spared — the firstborn belonged to God because God had spared it in Egypt; the claim rests on rescue, not on law alone.
- Set apart — to "sanctify" here means to mark out for God's purpose, not to make an animal holier.
- Surrendered — no ploughing, no shearing: what is God's must not be turned to our own profit.
- Spotless — only a firstborn male with no defect could be brought: a figure of the spotless Lamb of God.
- Shared — God did not take the firstling away. He gave it back as a feast in His presence, and the consecration it pictures covers all we are and have.
Thou shalt eat it before Jehovah thy God, year by year, in the place which Jehovah will choose, thou and thy household.
Deuteronomy 15 ends with a rule about the firstborn males of the herd and flock: they belonged to God, yet the family ate them. Two questions follow — why could the owner not use his best animal, and why must he eat it at the place God chose?
The previous verse forbids working the firstborn ox or shearing the firstborn sheep. Commentators read that ban as a fence around God's claim: the animal could yield its owner nothing.
The firstborn of the herd and flock were not to be worked, nor used by man for his own profit. They were to be the Lord's entirely, and eaten when the people went up to the sanctuary — unless the animal had a blemish. In that case it was not fit to be taken up, but they were still to eat it as a portion from God in the family.
What God claimed He did not keep from them. The meal follows a sacrifice, and each party had a share.
Israel also had to respect God's rights as Creator over the flocks and herds each person owned. The firstborn males were to be set apart for the Lord. The Lord did not take these from them. He required that they bring them to the place of His choice (Jerusalem) and eat them there as before the Lord. These were peace offerings, offered to the Lord. The Lord had a share, the priest also had his share, but the offerer and his household ate the rest (v.20).
The worshipper hands back to God what God first gave him.
Here everything was sanctified, because it had been presented to Jehovah. This recognised two things: the people were His, and all they had came from Him. But in giving Him back what He had given them, they enjoyed these things in fellowship with Him and with their families. They were the things common to God and the people. He gave them; they offered them back; they enjoyed them in His presence in communion with one another. God Himself shared in them, for the whole was offered to Him.
The meal could not happen just anywhere. Behind that rule lies a purpose, and an objection worth answering.
God would gather His beloved people around Himself to feast together in His presence. He would rejoice in them, and they in Him and in one another. All this could only happen in the one place God had appointed. Self-will might say, "Can we not keep the feast in the bosom of our families? What need is there of a long journey? If the heart is right, surely it cannot matter very much where." To all this we reply: the clearest and best proof of a right heart is the simple, earnest desire to do the will of God. God had appointed a place where He would meet His people. That was quite enough for everyone who loved and feared Him. There they would be found, and nowhere else.
One writer carries the principle over to Christians today.
The Name of the Lord Jesus is the only gathering centre today. The believer who does not gather in that Name alone will lack the deep enjoyment of Christ that our God wants our souls to taste.
The next verse rules out any animal with a blemish. Commentators read that perfection as pointing to Christ.
Only what was perfect was to be offered to God. The firstborn, unblemished male is the fitting figure of the spotless Lamb of God, offered on the cross for us. He is the foundation of our peace that can never perish, and the precious food of our souls in the presence of God. This was the divine thing: the assembly gathered around the divine centre. They feasted in the presence of God on the appointed picture of Christ, who is at once our sacrifice, our centre, and our feast.
The repetition built into the command is not incidental. The firstborn had a history behind it, and eating it renewed the memory of that history.
There was no separate journey to Jerusalem just to present the firstlings, yet keeping the law required the people to go up. So this note leads well into the three feasts that follow. The firstborn belonged to God, because it had been spared in Egypt. To eat it before God speaks to us of realising the relationship with God that rests on birth and redemption.
- Claimed. The firstborn male was God's outright — never worked, never shorn, never turned to the owner's profit.
- Offered. The claimed animal went up as a peace offering: a share for God, a share for the priest, the rest for the worshipper.
- Returned. God gave the animal first. The worshipper's joy came from handing it back, then receiving it again at God's table.
- Located. One address, chosen by God, not by the family. There He gathered His people to rejoice in Him and in one another. Commentators apply the same principle today to the Name of Jesus.
- Repeated. Year by year the household ate it when they went up — an unblemished male, the figure of the spotless Lamb, and a rehearsal of a relationship founded on birth and redemption.