John Calvin Commentary Deuteronomy 26:2

"that thou shalt take of the first of all the fruit of the ground, which thou shalt bring in from thy land that Jehovah thy God giveth thee; and thou shalt put it in a basket, and shalt go unto the place which Jehovah thy God shall choose, to cause his name to dwell there." — Deuteronomy 26:2 (ASV)

That you shall take of the first. We know that in the first-fruits the whole produce of the year was consecrated to God. The people,³³⁸ therefore, bore in them a testimony of their piety to Him, whom they daily experienced to be their preserver and the giver of their food. This typical rite has now, indeed, ceased, but Paul tells us that the true observation of it still remains, where he exhorts us, whether we eat or drink, to do all to the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:31).

As for the place where the first-fruits were to be offered, and why God is said to have placed His name there, we will consider this later when we come to the sacrifices; I now only briefly touch upon what concerns the present subject.

I profess this day. In these words, the Israelites confess that they had not gained dominion of the land either by their own strength or good fortune, but by the free gift of God, and according to His promise.

There are, therefore, two clauses in this sentence: first, that God had gratuitously promised to grant that land to Abraham as the inheritance of his descendants; and, secondly, that He had performed His promise, not only when He brought the children of Abraham into possession, but by adding to His grace by their peaceful enjoyment of it.

He pursues the same point more fully immediately afterwards, where the Israelites are commanded to declare how wretched the condition of their fathers was before the Lord embraced them with His favor and granted them His mercy.

The original word in verse 5, meaning to answer, I translate simply, according to the Hebrew idiom, as to speak or say; unless to testify is thought better, which would be very suitable, for the solemn profession is described here by which they bound themselves every year to God.

They do not count their origin from Abraham, but from Jacob, in whose person God’s grace shone forth more brightly. For, being compelled to flee from the land of Canaan, he had spent a good part of his life in Syria (for he did not return home until he was old), and then, being driven into Egypt again by the famine, he had finally died there.

The land had not, therefore, fallen to them by hereditary right, nor by their own efforts, as their father Jacob had not been permitted even to sojourn there. They call him a Syrian because, after he had married Laban’s daughters, had children, and was advanced in years before he returned home, he might seem to have renounced the land of Canaan.

Since he had been content for many years with the dwelling that he chose for himself in Syria, his descendants justly confessed that he was a pilgrim and stranger because of his long exile; and for the same reason, they also might be counted foreigners.

They add that their father Jacob again abandoned the land of Canaan when he was forced by the famine to go down into Egypt. While they recount that he sojourned there with a few people and afterwards grew into a mighty nation, they thus acknowledge that they were Egyptians, since they had originated from there, where the beginning of their name and race was.

In the rest of the passage, they further confirm the fact that they were led into the land of Canaan by the hand of God, because when they were oppressed by tyranny, they cried to Him and were heard.

They are also commanded to celebrate the signs and wonders by which their redemption was more clearly manifested, so that they would unhesitatingly give thanks to God and contrast His pure worship with all the imaginations of the heathen; otherwise, this would have been only a cold exercise of piety.

What follows in the last verse, “And you shall rejoice,” etc., seems indeed to have been a promise, as if God, by setting before them the assurance of His blessing, added a stimulus to arouse the people to more cheerful affection. However, the sense would appear clearer and more natural if the copula were changed into the temporal adverb then. For this is the main thing in the use of our meat and drink: to accept it with a glad and joyful conscience as a testimony of God’s paternal favor.

Nothing is more wretched than doubt; and therefore Paul especially requires this confidence from us, bidding us eat not without faith (Romans 14:23). Therefore, to make the Israelites more prompt in their duty, Moses reminds them that they would only be able to rejoice freely in the use of God’s gifts if they expressed their gratitude as He commanded.

³³⁸ “Ainsi les enfans d’Israel apportoyent en leur corbeille une protestation qu’ils se vouloyent ranger a Dieu comme enfans, selon qu’ils l’experimentoyent Pere nourissier;” thus the children of Israel bore in their basket a protestation that they desired to rank themselves as God’s children, since they daily experienced Him to be their nursing Father. — Fr.