Deuteronomy 14 – 16 and My Pepper Plants

Deuteronomy 14 – 16

Moses goes into a lot more detail about how the people of God shold behave since they have been set apart as holy to the Lord. I bet they were glad that they should not cut themselves in mourning for the dead, though I’m not sure how they might have felt about shaving above their foreheads – seems they would have liked that also.

One way that set these people apart from other nations is related to what they were allowed to eat. Basically, they could eat any animal that has completely split hooves and chews the cud. In view of how sick people used to get from eating pigs, I think these restrictions were for their own good, but imagine not being able to eat bacon!

For marine animals, they could eat whatever had both fins and scales. The birds they could not eat were individually listed. They also had rules about what insects could be eaten. I would not have had to worry about that because I do not intend to eat insects.

The fact that they could not eat anything that died a natural death is understandable – what might they have died of, but the fact that they were allowed to give such things to foreigners or sell it to strangers is hard to understand.

Orthodox Jews today still have two sets of dishes – one for dairy and the other for meat. I remember being at a conference in the Catskills where the resort was run by Orthodox Jews. I wondered at that time why I couldn’t have grated cheese on my spaghetti with meat sauce.

Tithing was important to this people. And when you think about it, tithing is really an act of faith, putting your money where your mouth is, so to speak. When you give the first fruits of your income to God, you honor His name and you acknowledge that He is the provider of whatever you have.

I bet a lot of you are wishing our banks operated like the Israelites were supposed to: cancel all debts at the end of every seventh year. Of course, this only was true for the Israelites, not for any foreigners living among them. Right along with this was the release of any Israelites who had sold themselves into slavery. Every seventh year, those slaves were to be set free.

Very different from today, is it not?

Moses again discusses the festivals the Israelites were to keep. This not only gave them a little down time, but also reminded them of what God had done for them, how great He is, and how much He loved His people.

Tomorrow, it’s Deuteronomy 17 – 20.

My Pepper Plants

Check out my Jalapeno pepper plant:

It actually has at least 6 bloosoms on it, but these two were most visible. There are little hints of blossoms on my yellow bell pepper plant also. I love my garden.

Until next time…