and that we should bring the first-fruits of our coarse meal and our heave-offerings, and the fruit of all manner of trees, new wine and oil, to the priests, into the chambers of the house of our God, and the tithes of our ground to the Levites, that they, the Levites, should take the tithes in all the cities of our tillage.
This verse sits inside a written pledge that the returned exiles signed after they heard the law read aloud and confessed their sins. It lists what farm and household owed to the temple, and to whom — and behind that list stands a plain question: who pays for the service of God's house?
Nehemiah's own work had been rebuilding Jerusalem's wall. Yet the covenant that closes this chapter never mentions walls and gates. It points the people to the house of God instead.
The great test of faithfulness was the upkeep of the house, the support of those who served in it, and obedience to — and agreement with — the principles of divine order which the house always stood for as reminder and symbol... The people inside the city and the people outside it — the whole people — showed by their signatures that they meant to do the will of God, and pledged their support to the house rather than to the wall... So families, cattle, fruits, harvests and vintage were all to give from the country to the house, as a recognition of God, and for the support of the priests, Levites, singers and gatekeepers.
The word "first" runs through the list: the first of the dough, before the household ate any of it. Giving the first of a crop said where the crop came from. It also explains how these gifts reached the priests.
Enjoying those fruits of the goodness of God, the people gave Him back the firstfruits, as a testimony that all came from Him, and that all was His, and that His grace had given it to them... Therefore the firstfruits were not for the people to eat: they offered them to God, and ate of all the rest. It was the recognition of God, while sharing His blessings. So the people offered the firstfruits to God, and they passed into the hands of the priests as their portion.
The wine and the oil named here were not leftovers from the season. The law asked for the best.
When God provided for the support of the priests, besides parts of the various offerings, it was written: "All the best of the oil and all the best of the wine and of the grain, the firstfruits of what they give to the LORD, I give to you" (Num. 18:12). This is another example that the first and best of all we are and have should be given to God. When we weigh up our own state, hardly any question matters more than this: do we make a habit of giving God our first and best?
The verse splits the giving in two. Firstfruits go to the priests; tithes of the ground go to the Levites. Neither group farmed for a living, and the storerooms named here are where it all went.
All the work of the house of God fell to the Levites, except the duties that belonged to the priests alone, and the tithes the people paid provided for their support... Now the people remember all this. In their zeal to restore the law they take these duties on themselves, so that the service of the house of their God may be properly kept up. The firstfruits for the priests, as well as the tithes for the Levites, were to be stored in the chambers of the house. (1 Chr. 9:26-33.)
The second half of the verse notes that the Levites went out and collected the tithes in the farming towns. Later in the book that system breaks down, and the breakdown follows a pattern.
The Levites and singers were set apart entirely for the sacred service of the house. God Himself had placed the cost of their keep on the people, and the people had accepted it. But under the influence of Eliashib they lost all sense of the holiness of the house. Then they forgot their responsibilities, and the servants of the Lord in His house had to fall back on the ordinary way of earning a living — "they fled every man to his field." The same thing is often seen in the Church... whenever decline sets in, and believers become worldly, the workers are forgotten.
The people meant what they wrote. The pledge did not hold for long.
These were good intentions. But soon afterwards, in the Book of Malachi, God asks Israel, "Will a man rob God? Yet you have robbed Me! But you say, In what way have we robbed You? In tithes and offerings" (Mal. 3:8). So Malachi shows how far Israel had turned from this covenant made in Nehemiah's time.
- First — the dough, fruit, wine and oil go to God before the household takes its share. The first portion says that everything came from Him.
- Best — the law asked for the best of the oil and wine. The test is not whether we give, but whether we give our first and best.
- Through — what we give to God does not stay at the altar. It goes into the storerooms and feeds the priests and Levites, who have no other income.
- Upkeep — the pledge covers the house, not the wall. Caring for those who serve there is the real test of faithfulness.
- Forgotten — when respect for the house fades, the giving stops and the servants go back to their fields. Malachi calls that robbing God.
And the priest the son of Aaron shall be with the Levites, when the Levites take tithes; and the Levites shall bring up the tithe of the tithes to the house of our God, into the chambers of the treasure-house.
Nehemiah 10:38 closes a written promise the returned exiles signed after hearing God's law read aloud. It raises a question far bigger than ancient Jerusalem: what does a person who lives on the gifts of others owe to God, and what happens when the storerooms run dry?
The Levites lived on the tithe the other tribes brought in. That raised a question about what they themselves owed.
However, though the Levites received tithes, they were not exempt from paying tithes. When the other tribes brought in their tithes, the Levites were to offer God a heave offering of one tenth of those tithes.
The priest named in this verse is a son of Aaron. One writer shows which share reached him.
The tithe was for the Levites, not for the priests except a tithe of the tithe given by the Levites to Aaron.
The Levite did not give from what was left over after he had fed his household. The order ran the other way.
These tithes were to come from the best of what the Levites received. That is an important principle for us, for the Lord is always worthy of the best. Only then were the Levites free to use the rest as food for themselves and their households.
The tithe was never just a deal between two groups of Israelites. One writer tests that with a question put to each side.
If one asked the children of Israel, To whom do you give the tithes? the answer of the godly would be, We give them to the Lord. And if one asked the faithful Levites, From whom do you receive the tithes? their answer would be, We receive them from the Lord.
A tithe of a tithe is a small sum next to the harvest of a whole nation. God's valuation of it is the surprise.
It is very precious in all this to see how those who have little stand before God in their offerings together with those who have much. The Levites had a smaller offering for the Lord than the children of Israel. The one had the tithes of the fullness of the land; the other had only the tithe of the tithe for their offering. But of it the Lord said, "And this your heave offering shall be reckoned to you, as though it were the corn of the threshing floor, and as the fullness of the winepress." The Lord accepted them according to what they had, and not according to what they had not. And so, when the poor widow put in her two small coins to the offering of God, although many rich people put in much, Christ judged that she had put in more than all of them.
The storerooms named at the end of the verse fed the men who ran the house of God.
All the work of the house of God fell to them, except the duties that belonged only to the priests. Their support came from the tithes required of the people. Both the priests and the Levites were to live on the offerings of the people... The people, in their zeal to restore the law, take on these responsibilities themselves, so that the service of the house of their God would be properly established.
The promise did not hold. One writer follows what happened next.
The tithes had been neglected, because there was no more room to store them. The Levites and the singers therefore lacked what they needed to live on, and each one had fled to his own field. Because the Levites were missing, the service of the house of God suffered. This one sin brought consequences beyond measure for what was the very centre of the people's religious life.
Commentators point out that the fixed tenth no longer applies, though the giving has not stopped.
In our present day of grace there is no law about tithing. Instead the measure of our giving is "as he may prosper" (1 Cor. 16:2) or "as he purposes in his heart" (2 Cor. 9:7). The amount is left to each believer to settle with God... The Lord's servant is to care about using money for the Lord's sake just as much as they do, and be glad to give as the Lord prospers him.
- Receive — the Levites lived on what the other tribes brought, and they took it as from the Lord.
- Return — receiving did not excuse them from giving; a tenth of the tenth went back to God's house.
- Best — that portion came off the top, from the best, before the household used the rest.
- Reckoned — God counted the smaller gift as full; He measures by what you have, not by what you lack.
- Guard — when the tithes stopped, the Levites went back to their fields and the service of God's house broke down.
For the children of Israel and the children of Levi shall bring the heave-offering of the corn, of the new wine and the oil, into the chambers, where are the vessels of the sanctuary, and the priests that minister, and the doorkeepers and the singers. And we will not forsake the house of our God.
The covenant that began with the reading of the law ends here. Grain, wine and oil go into the temple storerooms, and one last line promises that God's house will not be neglected. Everything the people agreed to now rests on that line, and the rest of the book shows what became of it.
The pledge is the fourth and final heading of a written agreement. One commentator sets out the whole shape of it:
1st. As to their personal walk, that it should be in obedience to the law of God given by Moses (29). 2nd. As to the nations around, they would maintain a holy separation (30). 3rd. As to Jehovah, they would give Him His due with devotion, keeping the Sabbath, the holy days, and the law of the seventh year (31). 4th. As to the house of God, they charge themselves to maintain the service and not forsake the house (32-39).
The produce did not decorate the building. It fed the men whose whole work was the house of God, and the chambers named in the verse held it:
God gave the Levites to Aaron, in the place of the firstborn, to be offered "before the Lord for an offering of the children of Israel, that they may execute the service of the Lord." (Num. 8:11) All the work of the house of God fell to them, except the duties that belonged to the priests alone. Their support came from the tithes laid on the people. The offerings of the people were to feed both the priests and the Levites, and the law had prescribed exactly what those offerings should be. (See Num. 18) The firstfruits for the priests, and the tithes for the Levites, belonged in the chambers of the house. (1 Chr. 9:26-33)
What the ESV calls the "contribution" is the heave offering. Several different gifts carried that name, and they had one thing in common:
The heave offering included the right shoulder of the peace offering… the first of the dough (Num. 15:20), and the tithes (Num. 18:24), including the corn, wine, and oil for the priests' use. (Neh. 10:39)… These offerings differ from one another, but they share one feature. Each is a portion taken out of what remains, whether of fruits, animals, money, or land. That is why they are all called heave offerings.
Verse 39 records no argument about who pays what. One writer traces that ease to two things: real fellowship, and one aim:
For the firstfruits and tithes, they only had to follow what was plainly "written in the law". In all this they acted with one accord. Everything appears simple and easy when there is communion between brothers, and when their one motive for acting is the service of the house of God (v. 39).
This was the second temple. The visible glory of the first temple was gone, and the people knew it. That makes their promise more striking, not less:
"The house of our God" was precious even to those who knew the glory was no longer there. Such and more should be the name of Jesus, now that we are built together for God's habitation in the Spirit — the Spirit of truth given to be with us forever.
The people meant every word, and that is where the difficulty starts. Older translations read "forsake" here where the ESV reads "neglect":
They closed the last part of the covenant with the words, "And we will not forsake the house of our God." We cannot doubt that they meant it… But, as everyone knows, it is one thing to vow and another to perform. Some powerful influence moves us and shuts out everything except the one thing then set before our souls. At such a moment it is easy to bind ourselves to pursue that one object forever. Then the influence passes away. The object seems as desirable as ever, but we no longer feel the impulse to reach it. With that loss of power the flesh takes back its place, the covenant becomes impossible to keep, and it adds one more burden to a conscience already bad.
The promise did not hold, and the sign of that was practical:
It dishonoured Him when the Levites had to go back to their fields. That proved His house was forsaken, and that His servants had nothing to live on.
- Covenant. The pledge not to neglect God's house closes a four-part agreement. The other parts cover personal walk, separation from the nations, and God's own days.
- Contribution. The grain, wine and oil are heave offerings — portions taken out of what the giver already had.
- Care. Those portions fed the priests and Levites. They carried all the work of the house, and the law gave them no other income.
- Concord. The giving went without friction. Fellowship was real, and one motive ruled: the service of the house of God.
- Cost. Sincere vows rarely outlive the feeling that produced them. When the storerooms emptied, the Levites went back to their fields, and that proved the house was forsaken.