Exodus 22:29

Translations

King James Version (KJV)

You shall not delay to offer the first of your ripe fruits, and of your liquors: the firstborn of your sons shall you give to me.

American King James Version (AKJV)

You shall not delay to offer the first of your ripe fruits, and of your liquors: the firstborn of your sons shall you give to me.

American Standard Version (ASV)

Thou shalt not delay to offer of thy harvest, and of the outflow of thy presses. The first-born of thy sons shalt thou give unto me.

Basic English Translation (BBE)

Do not keep back your offerings from the wealth of your grain and your vines. The first of your sons you are to give to me.

Webster's Revision

Thou shalt not delay to offer the first of thy ripe fruits, and of thy liquors: the first-born of thy sons shalt thou give to me.

World English Bible

"You shall not delay to offer from your harvest and from the outflow of your presses. "You shall give the firstborn of your sons to me.

English Revised Version (ERV)

Thou shalt not delay to offer of the abundance of thy fruits, and of thy liquors. The firstborn of thy sons shalt thou give unto me.

Clarke's Exodus 22:29 Bible Commentary

The first of thy ripe fruits - This offering was a public acknowledgment of the bounty and goodness of God, who had given them their proper seed time, the first and the latter rain, and the appointed weeks of harvest.

From the practice of the people of God the heathens borrowed a similar one, founded on the same reason. The following passage from Censorinus, De Die Natali, is beautiful, and worthy of the deepest attention: -

Illi enim (majores nostri) qui alimenta, patriam, lucem, se denique ipsos deorum dono habebant, ex omnibus aliquid diis sacrabant, magis adeo, ut se gratos approbarent, quam quod deos arbitrarentur hoc indigere. Itaque cum perceperant fruges, antequam vescerentur, Diis libare instituerunt: et cum agros atque urbes, deorum munera, possiderent, partem quandam templis sacellisque, ubi eos colerent, dicavere.

"Our ancestors, who held their food, their country, the light, and all that they possessed, from the bounty of the gods, consecrated to them a part of all their property, rather as a token of their gratitude, than from a conviction that the gods needed any thing. Therefore as soon as the harvest was got in, before they had tasted of the fruits, they appointed libations to be made to the gods. And as they held their fields and cities as gifts from their gods, they consecrated a certain part for temples and shrines, where they might worship them."

Pliny is express on the same point, who attests that the Romans never tasted either their new corn or wine, till the priests had offered the First-Fruits to the gods. Acts ne degustabant quidem, novas fruges aut vina, antequam sacerdotes Primitias Libassent. Hist. Nat., lib. xviii., c. 2.

Horace bears the same testimony, and shows that his countrymen offered, not only their first-fruits, but the choicest of all their fruits, to the Lares or household gods; and he shows also the wickedness of those who sent these as presents to the rich, before the gods had been thus honored: -

Dulcia poma,

Et quoscumque feret cultus tibi fundus honores,

Ante Larem gustet venerabilior Lare dives.

Sat., lib. ii., s. v., ver. 12.

"What your garden yields,

The choicest honors of your cultured fields,

To him be sacrificed, and let him taste,

Before your gods, the vegetable feast."

continued...

Barnes's Exodus 22:29 Bible Commentary

The offering of firstfruits appears to have been a custom of primitive antiquity and was connected with the earliest acts of sacrifice. See Genesis 4:3-4. The references to it here and in Exodus 23:19 had probably been handed down from patriarchal times. The specific law relating to the firstborn of living creatures was brought out in a strong light in connection with the deliverance from Egypt Exodus 13:2, Exodus 13:12-13; compare Exodus 23:19; Leviticus 22:27; Deuteronomy 26:2-11; Nehemiah 10:35.

The first of thy ripe fruits, and of thy liquors - See the margin. The rendering of our King James Bible is a paraphrase.

Wesley's Exodus 22:29 Bible Commentary

22:29 The first - born of thy sons shalt thou give unto me - And much more reason have we to give ourselves and all we have to God, who spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all. The first ripe of their corn they must not delay to offer; there is danger if we delay our duty, lest we wholly omit it; and by slipping the first opportunity in expectation of another, we suffer Satan to cheat us of all our time.

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