Copyright © 2000 by Detroit
Baptist Seminary, cited with permission
THE PRE-MOSAIC TITHE:
ISSUES AND IMPLICATIONS
Mark A. Snoeberger*
In
Leviticus 27 the Mosaic Law expressly commands the practice of
tithing, codifying it for all
and economic obligation for the advancement of the
nation. This
codification, however, was by no
means the birth of the tithe, but a new
expression of the ancient Near Eastern tithe
infused with theological sig-
nificance for the new political
entity of
The payment of tithes was no novel practice,
having been performed
for centuries by both biblical figures and pagans
alike. It is well attested
that the tithe2 was present in the very
earliest of cultures_-Roman,
Greek,
Carthaginian, Cretan, Silician, Phoenician, Chinese,
Babylonian,
Akkadian, and Egyptian--stretching back to the
earliest written records
of the human race.3 This extra-biblical
practice of tithing must, of
course, be considered when searching for the origin of
the tithe. Was the
tithe a divinely conceived custom, original with
Yahweh and unique in
its expression, or was tithing a divine adaptation
of an originally pagan
custom, bequeathed with theological significance by
divine fiat? Further,
was the tithe an act of worship alone, or a
demonstration of political
subservience: a primitive form of
taxation? Or was it a combination of
the two?
Many scholars (including most liberals) contend
that the levitical
*Mr. Snoeberger is
Director of Library Services at Detroit Baptist Theological
Seminary in
l Henry Landsell, The Sacred
Tenth or Studies of Tithe-Giving, Ancient and Modern,
2 vols. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1955),
2 The author intends the term in its
technical sense--a tenth. As John E. Simpson
notes of the nearly universal pagan practice of
tithing, "the amount so given was almost
invariably one-tenth" (This World’s Goods [New York: Revell,
1939], p. 88). Cf., how-
ever, Joseph M. Baumgarten,
"On the Non-literal Use of ma'aser/dekate,"
Journal of
Biblical Literature 103 (June 1984):
245-51.
3 Landsell, Sacred Tenth, 1: 1-38; Arthur Babbs, The Law of the Tithe
As Set
the Old Testament (New York: Revell,
1912), pp. 13-24; E. B. Stewart, The
Tithe (Chi-
cago: Winona Publishing Co.,
1903), pp. 7-13.
72
institution was borrowed strictly from early
contemporary heathen prac-
tices.4 On the other pole,
some, generally more conservative, scholars
contend that the universality of the tithe and
the failure of attempts to
discover its origin within secular sources point
to a much more ancient
practice--one instituted by God at the very dawn
of human history.5
To make either claim, one must look to the early
chapters of Gene-
sis for clues to the genesis of the tithe. If,
indeed, concrete evidence for
its origin can be discovered here, one can be
assured that the tithe origi-
nated with God and that it
was revealed by him from the very earliest
times to mankind. Failure to discover the origin here
does not rule out
the possibility of divine origin, but it does
render the origin of the tithe
an argument from silence for either position. It
is, therefore, the purpose
of this essay is to probe the OT material,
beginning with the sacrificial
practices of Cain and Abel, continuing with the
unprecedented payment
of tithes by Abram to the priest of the most high
God, Melchizedek, and
concluding with Jacob's intention to tithe, for
clues to the genesis of the
pre-Mosaic tithe. We will then decide whether
sufficient evidence exists
to confirm its divine origin, then discuss briefly
its relationship to the
levitical tithe and its
continuing applicability (or non-applicability) to-
day.
THE GIVING PRACTICES OF
CAIN
AND
ABEL (GENESIS 4:3-7)
So it came about in the course of time that Cain
brought an offering to the
LORD of the fruit of the ground. Abel, on his
part also brought of the
firstlings of his flock and of
their fat portions. And the LORD had regard
for Abel and for his
offering; but for Cain and for his offering He had no
regard. So Cain became very
angry and his countenance fell. Then the
LORD said to Cain, "Why are you angry? And
why has your countenance
fallen? If you do well, will
not your countenance be lifted up? And if you
do not do well, sin is
crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but
you must master it."6
In an attempt to establish the continuity of the
tithe throughout
human history, several older conservative scholars
adopted an alternative
4 H. Jagersma,
"The Tithes in the Old Testament," in Remembering All the Way,
Oudtestamentische Studien
XXI (Leiden: Brill, 1981), pp. 116-28; Marvin E.
Tate,
"Tithing:
Legalism or Benchmark?" Review and
Expositor 70 (Spring 1973): 153; Ency-
clopedia Judaica, s.v.
"Tithe," by M. Weinfeld; The Interpreters Dictionary of the Bible,
s.v. "Tithe," by H. H. Guthrie, Jr.
Included in this group are all those who view
"cultus" as evolutionary and
not revelational.
5 Landsell, Sacred Tenth,
6 All Scripture quotations, unless
otherwise noted, are taken from the 1995 edition
of NASB.
The Pre-Mosaic Tithe 73
text and translation to affirm that Cain's and
Abel's sacrifices establish
tithing as early as Genesis 4. The LXX reading
of verse 7 apparently
reflects the Hebrew "Htnl" (to dissect or divide) rather than the MT's
"Htpl" (reflected in NASB's
"at the door"). The resulting English trans-
lation of verse 7 identifies
Cain's sin as his failure to "divide rightly."
Furthering
this conclusion is an alternate reading of a NT text, Hebrews
11:4,
namely, that "Abel offered unto God a more abundant7 sacrifice
than Cain." The conclusion drawn from these
combined readings is that
Cain's
sin was specifically a failure to give an adequate percentage of his
income to God. The percentage, it is deduced, must be
none other than
a tithe.8 This understanding is not
unreasonable, as it follows the reading
of the LXX, the text (though not the
interpretation) of the early church
fathers.9 However, the difficulty
of this reading and the high degree of
accuracy of the MT at this point have led most
modern commentators
to reject this reading out of hand,10
and with it the implied reference to
proportional tithing by Abel.
The Occasion
The preceding discussion does not render the
Cain and Abel inci-
dent as having no value to the discussion of the
tithe. On the contrary,
herein is the first recorded instance of an offering
presented to God in
the OT--offerings that would later be expanded to
include the tithe.11
7 The term in question, plei<ona, includes in its range
of meaning both the qualita-
tive idea of excellence and
the quantitative idea of abundance (BAGD, p. 689), though
most NT commentators have understood the usage in
Hebrews 11:4 to be qualitative,
that is, "a better sacrifice."
8 Landsell, Sacred Tenth,
9 Clement, The
First Epistle o/Clement 4, in The Ante-Nicene
Fathers, ed. Alexander
Roberts
and James Donaldson, 1st series, reprint ed., 10 vols. (
1977),
1:6; Irenaeus, Against
Heresies 4.18.3, in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, 1:485; Tertul-
lian, An Answer to the Jews 2, in The
Ante-Nicene Fathers, 2: 153; See also the note on
10 E. A. Speiser,
Genesis, 2nd ed., AB (Garden City,
NY: Doubleday, 1978), p. 32.
Most
commentators follow the MT without even entertaining the LXX reading in their
discussions (e.g., S. R. Driver, The Book of Genesis [
65;
Franz Delitzsch, A
New Commentary on Genesis, 2 vols., trans. Sophia
Taylor, reprint
of 1888 ed. [
Book of Genesis, 2 vols.,
NICOT [
Gordon
J. Wenham, Genesis, 2 vols., WBC [
Claus
Westermann gives an otherwise complete list of
philological options for the verse,
but does not view the LXX reading as worthy of
mention (Genesis, 3 vols.,
Continental
Commentaries
[
11 The use of the word "expanded"
in not intended to imply that the Israelite "cult"
evolved on its own apart from the sovereign hand
of God, as is asserted by many liberals
74
The background of this incident is meager. We
are no sooner told
that Cain and Abel have been born when we suddenly
find the boys as
men, each with the respective occupations of
agriculturalist and herds-
man. After a period of time, both bring an offering
to Yahweh. Cain
brings some of the vegetables and fruits resulting
from his labor as a
farmer, Abel an offering of some of his livestock. For
some reason not
specified in this text, Yahweh rejects the former
but receives the latter.
Several obvious questions arise from the
narrative. How did Cain
and Abel know to bring an offering to Yahweh? What
was the nature of
their offering? Why was Cain's offering rejected and
Abel's accepted?
And,
ultimately, does their gift have any bearing on the levitical tithe or
on the NT believer? Naturally, a correct
understanding of the term used
for this offering (hHAn;mi) is essential to the understanding
of the purpose
of the sacrifices presented in Genesis 4. We begin
here in our search for
the tithe in the OT.
The Term Employed
Many have concluded that the offerings of
Genesis 4 were intended
as atoning, expiatory sacrifices, based on the assumption
that God's dis-
pleasure with Cain's offering stemmed from his
failure to give a blood
sacrifice.12 This theory fails on
two counts. First, the term used to de-
scribe the offering, hHAn;mi, is elsewhere used of a
bloodless sacrifice,13 and
is the standard term used in the levitical code for the meal offering. Here
in Genesis 4 Moses avoids using readily available,
general terms that
(see below); instead, it simply recognizes the progress of
divine revelation which expands
man's knowledge and adjusts his responsibilities. We
need not, indeed, must not see the
shadow of the Mosaic code veiled in the Cain/Abel
narrative; nonetheless, this first re-
corded sacrifice does give us insight into God's
expectations and the means by which he
communicated them to early
believers.
12 Robert S. Candlish,
An Exposition of Genesis (reprint
ed.,
ereign Grace Publishers,
1972), p. 65. Scofield sees the sin offering in the
phrase "sin is
crouching at the door." The term for sin (txF.AHa) may refer to sin or to its sacrificial rem-
edy, the "sin
offering." Thus, Yahweh was informing Cain that he had not done well,
and that his only solution was to offer a blood
sacrifice (The Scofield
Reference Bible [New
however, makes this option unlikely.
13 J. H. Kurtz goes so far as to say that
the hHAn;mi was
"exclusively" bloodless (Sac-
rificial Worship of the Old Testament, reprint of 1863 edition
[
Klock, 1980], pp. 158-59), as does Hamilton (Genesis, 1:223), though 1 Samuel
and 26:19 indicate otherwise. The term has a
broader meaning than its technical sense as
a meal offering (New International Dictionary of Old Testament Theology and Exegesis,
s.v.
"hHAn;mi," by Richard E. Averbeck, 2:980-87). It is best to conclude that the hHAn;mi was
usually bloodless, and in its
prescriptive, levitical sense (which is not the case
here) was
always bloodless.
The Pre-Mosaic Tithe 75
denote blood sacrifice (e.g., Hbaz,). While we may not
extrapolate levitical
language anachronistically onto the Genesis 4
incident, Moses' usage of
the same term he would later use for the meal
offering strongly suggests
that this sacrifice was not intended to be viewed as
a sin or guilt offer-
ing.14 Second, the event is
predicated on the culmination ("in the course
of time"—MymiyA
Cq.emi [v. 3]) of a lengthy period of agricultural productiv-
ity ("Abel was a
keeper of flocks, but Cain was a tiller of the ground"
[v.
2]), indicating that this was no ordinary expiatory sacrifice, but a spe-
cial, additional offering--one
of thanksgiving for God's abundant
blessing.15 Thus it is roughly,
though not exactly, equivalent to
firstfruits or meal offerings, not
to their regular sin offerings or tithes.
The term hHAn;mi, in its non-technical usage, is also frequently associ-
ated with payment of tribute
or taxes (Gen 32:13 [14 MT]; Judg
17-18;
1 Sam 10:27). For this reason, it may be suggested that Cain and
Abel's
gifts were mandatory. However, the term may simply be em-
ployed ''as an expression of
respect, thanksgiving, homage, friendship,
dependence,"16 which functions do
not all imply obligation.
The Reason
for Cain's and Abel's Offerings
Having deduced, then, that this was an offering
additional to the
ordinary expiatory sacrifices, we move on to
discover why the offering
was given. While biblical revelation gives us no
precedent or mandate for
this type of offering, God's displeasure with Cain's
offering implies that
Cain
failed to meet some divinely revealed requirement. We have already
rejected the possibilities of the inappropriate
content or quantity of the
sacrifice. Other options include inadequate
quality in the offering,17
14 Bruce K. Waltke,
"Cain and His Offering,"
(Fall
1986): 365-66.
15 I assume that the practice of expiatory
sacrifices has been a theological necessity in
every dispensation to effect forgiveness of sins and
right standing before God. Cain's and
Abel's
gifts, however, did not fall into this category.
16 HALOT
(in English), 2:601. Cf. also George B. Gray, Sacrifice in the Old Testa-
ment: Its Theory and Practice (New York: Ktav,
1971), pp. 16-17; NIDOTTE, s.v.,
"hHAn;mi" by Richard E. Averbeck, 2:986; and TWOT, s.v.
"hHAn;mi," by G. Lloyd
Carr,
1:514-15.
17 Waltke
suggests that the v; opening v. 4 is
adversative, highlighting the "fat" and
"firstborn" elements of Abel's sacrifice in contrast to
Cain's mere offer of "some" of his
fruits and vegetables ("Cain and His
Offering," p. 368; cf. also Delitzsch, Genesis,
pp.
180-81;
Hermann Gunkel, Genesis
[
42-43;
Allen P. Ross, Creation & Blessing: A
Guide to the Study and Exposition of Genesis
[
NAC
(Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 1996), pp. 267-68.
We note, however, that
there is no equivalent of fat for Cain's offering,
nor does Moses specify that Cain's of-
fering was not of the firstfruits. John Sailhamer, in
fact, suggests that Cain was also
76
deficient integrity in the offerer,18
or even the simple possibility that
Abel
was the object of God's elective prerogative while Cain was
not19--the
text does not specify. The NT commentary is simply that
Abel's
offering was offered "in faith" while Cain's was not (Heb 11:4).
This
may imply that God had given explicit instructions regarding ex-
piatory and other sacrifices;20
however, this argument flows purely from
silence. All that can be conclusively deduced is
that Cain's sacrifice did
not issue from faith, but from other, inferior,
motivation.
Conclusion
The offerings of Cain and Abel give evidence
that men professing to
be God-fearers, from earliest times, brought
offerings to Yahweh (v. 3)
from their bounty. There was, however, no percentage
specified, nor any
purpose delineated other than direct worship and
gratitude addressed to
God. Thus, there is little to link these offerings
with the basis of the en-
suing levitical tithe, nor
to shed light on its continuing applicability.
While
it is possible that God may have established binding requirements
for offerings in the OT apart from written
revelation, we certainly can-
not deduce from the Cain and Abel narrative that
the tithe was among
these requirements.
ABRAM'S TITHE TO MELCHIZEDEK
(GENESIS 14:17-24)
Then after his return from the defeat of Chedorlaomer and the kings who
were with him, the king of
lem brought out bread and
wine; now he was a priest of God Most High.
He blessed him and said, "Blessed be Abram
of God Most High, Possessor
of heaven and earth; And
blessed be God Most High, Who has delivered
your enemies into your
hand." He gave him a tenth of all. The king of
self." Abram said to
the king of
Most High, possessor of heaven and earth, that I
will not take a thread or a
bringing his firstfruits
("Genesis," in vol. 2 of The
Expositors Bible Commentary, ed.
Frank
E. Gaebelein [
18 John J.
p.
99; John Calvin, Commentaries on the
First Book of Moses Called Genesis, 2 vols.,
trans.
John
King (reprint ed.,
1:224;
Driver, Genesis, p. 65.
19 Gerhard Von Rad,
Genesis: A Commentary (Philadelphia:
Westminster, 1974), p.
104.
20 Landsell, Sacred Tenth, 1:41.
The Pre-Mosaic Tithe 77
sandal thong or anything that
is yours, for fear you would say, 'I have made
Abram rich.' I will take nothing
except what the young men have eaten,
and the share of the men
who went with me, Aner, Eshcol,
and Mamre; let
them take their share."
We move onward from Cain and Abel in our quest
for the genesis
of the tithe in the OT to Abram's unprecedented
tithe paid to
Melchizedek,
king of
passage that the technical term
"tithe" (rWefEma) is first used in
Scripture,
making it the first recorded instance of OT tithing.
In this incident is
found the most promising data for the current study,
thus a large seg-
ment of the essay will be
dedicated to it.
The Occasion
In Genesis 14, Abram is informed that a band of
marauding mon-
archs led by Chedorlaomer had sacked the pentapolis
that included
had been seized, and
small band from his household, attacks and defeats
the marauders in an
unlikely nighttime foray, pursues them far to the
north, and recovers
what had been stolen. Emboldened by Abram's
remarkable success, king
Bera of Sodom travels northward to the "King's
Valley" just south of
the valley. King Bera
begrudges Abram the spoils but asks for the re-
captured citizenry. Melchizedek, identified here
as a priest of the most
high God (NOyl;f,
lx,),
brings out bread and wine to refresh and reward
Abram
and his men, blesses Abram repeatedly, and blesses Abram's God
for the victory. As a biblically unprecedented
reciprocation, Abram gives
to Melchizedek a tenth of all (presumably of all
the spoils). The rest of
the spoils are then meted out and the incident is
closed.
The Term Employed
The Hebrew term for "tithe" (rWefEma) is simply the adjectival form of
the number ten, rW,f,.21 The term
is used infrequently in Scripture apart
from the levitical and deuteronomic legislation concerning its contribu-
tion within the assembly.
The term's employment is by no means com-
plex, but it is precise. The
tithe is an exact tenth, and is not used in a
generic sense to refer to multiple types of
offerings of varying amounts.22
In Ugaritic and
Phoenician sources the tithe was generally paid as
21 BDB, p. 798.
22 NIDOTTE, s.v. "rWefEma," by Richard E. Averbeck,
2:1035; cr. also H.
Jagersma, "Tithes in the Old
Testament," p. 117.
78
the standard unit of taxation owed to the throne.
While priests some-
times collected this tithe, there was often no idea
of worship in-
volved--the priests were
viewed as any secular recipient of the tithe
would be.23 Further, it is apparent that,
even when the priests collected
the tithe, the state, and not the religious
personnel, controlled its distri-
bution.24 This is contrary to the
Mosaic legal practice, where, in all re-
corded situations save one (1 Sam
Yahweh
through the hand of the priest, and presumably dispensed by
the same.25
The ancient Near Eastern tithe was paid to the
king on everything
earned by the subjects of the throne, including
produce, animals, and
loot won in battle. For this reason it is not
unusual that Abram paid a
tithe. What is unusual is the abruptness of
Melchizedek's appearance,
the lack of explanatory details concerning his
kingship and priesthood,
and the mystery surrounding his relationship to
Abram. These enigmas
must be resolved along with other questions, such as
whether Abram was
paying tithes to Melchizedek as his king or as his
priest (or both) and
whether the tithe Abram paid was voluntary or
mandatory. A brief look
at Melchizedek is in order to answer these
questions.
The Recipient of Abram's Tithe—Melchizedek
Because Abram's tithe, unlike that of the other
pre-Mosaic offerings,
involves a human as well as a divine recipient,
and because that recipi-
ent's role seems even more
prominent than Abram's in the context of the
narrative, Melchizedek merits special study.
Rising suddenly to prestige
in verse 18 and vanishing just as suddenly a scant
two verses later,
Melchizedek's
function raises many questions. This brief study cannot
answer them all, but will endeavor to answer two: What
did
Melchizedek's
offices entail, and what was Abram's relationship to these
offices?
Melchizedek as King
Several questions must be answered concerning
Melchizedek as king
before conclusions may be drawn about the tithe paid
him. First, what
23 NIDOTTE,
s.v. "rWefEma," by Richard
Tithe
Paid in Grain at
ever, Averbeck's remarks
on the Akkadian tithe (2:1036).
24 Jagersma,
"Tithes in the Old Testament," pp. 123-24.
25 Ibid., p. 123.
This is not to say that. the Mosaic tithe had no secular
func-
tion--the Mosaic tithe
provided poverty relief (Deut
function was to finance "the service of the
tent of meeting" and to provide for the Levites
"who have no inheritance" (Num
The Pre-Mosaic Tithe 79
was the nature of his kingship and the extent of
his realm? Second, and
closely related to the first, what was Abram's
political relationship to the
king?
Melchizedek's
Realm
The term "king" (j`l,m,) may be misleading for
the reader accustomed
to the pomp and prestige of present-day royalty.
The fact that at least six
kings occupied such a small area of southern
kingdoms were quite small and the kings little
more than local chief-
tains26 who ruled a city and
the small tract of surrounding land used by
his constituency. This is further attested by the
fact that little extrabibli-
cal material survives to tell us about these
"kingdoms." On the other
hand the marauding eastern kings were apparently
much more powerful,
one each from the Elamite,
Amorite, Hurrian, and Hittite empires.27
This
is not to say, however, that these kings represented the full force of
these empires, nor that these empires were in the
height of their glory
when the invasion occurred.
Melchizedek's realm was the city of
ening of "
least entertain the possibility that this was not
other town, perhaps
Psalms
76:2 (3 MT) and 110:2, 4 identify Melchizedek's realm with
"
is confirmed by 2 Samuel 18:18 to be the junction
of the nearby Kidron
and
There
is nothing to suggest, however, that Meichizedek’s reign
in Jeru-
"holy city" until David's establishment of the seat of
his kingdom and
the tabernacle (and later Solomon's temple) there.30
26 Philip J. Nel
indicates a wide range of meaning for the term, the minimum ele-
ment being the exercise of
rule over a realm, whether that be of a tribe, city-state, or
larger territory such as a country or empire (NIDOTTE, s.v.
"jlm," 2:956).
27 Hamilton, Genesis, 1:399-400; Speiser, Genesis, 1:106-8.
28 For an overview of the options posited,
see J. A. Emerton's article, "The Site of
Emerton, Supplements to Vetus Testammtum XLI (Leiden:
Brill, 1990): 45-71.
29 Contra Driver, Genesis, p. 164.
30 In fact, the Jebusite
occupation of the city until David's conquest of the city in
998
B.C., recorded in 2 Sam 5:6-8, makes it one of the last Canaanite cities to be
con-
quered by
80
Melchizedek's Royal
Relationship to Abram
Since it is widely held in liberal circles that
the narrative concerning
Melchizedek
(vv. 18-20) is a fictional, secondary insertion, very little
scholarship has been spent studying the historicity
of Melchizedek or the
correlation of the Melchizedek pericope
with the local context.31 This
void of serious study makes Melchizedek's
relationship to the surround-
ing kings and to Abram
difficult to discern.
Some propose that Melchizedek's was the smallest
of the kingdoms
in the narrative, suggested by his lack of
involvement in the defensive
campaign.32 Perhaps he could spare
no men but could provide some
provisions for the victors.
Others have suggested that
geous geographical location
for a city in the region, would have been the
capital of a very important city-state in
Palestine.33 Its presidence over
the "valley of kings," apparently a very
famous and important place in
the ancient Near East34 also suggests
that Melchizedek's kingship was a
powerful, even a supervisory one. Wenham suggests
that his dual role as
king and priest would have made him a wealthy and
hence a powerful
king, as evidenced by his supply of "royal
fare" for Abram.35 He further
suggests that his supply of bread and wine was
his duty as the "dominant
ally."36 There is no explanation
given, however, why Melchizedek, if he
was so dominant, did not become involved in the
military action. It is
also inconclusive that bread and wine were
"royal fare" or that
Melchizedek's
wealth exceeded that of the other local kings.
It seems, therefore, unlikely that Melchizedek
exercised authority as
an overlord over Abram and the five western kings.
This factor is of con-
siderable importance for
discussing the tithe paid by Abram--it is un-
likely that the tithe represented a tribute or tax
paid as a matter of duty
to Abram's ruler.
Melchizedek as Priest
Having established the unlikelihood that
Melchizedek's regal
31 Hamilton, Genesis, 1:408-9, n. 4.
32 H. H. Rowley, Worship in Ancient
17-18.
33 J. A. Emerton,
"The Riddle of Genesis XIV," Vetus Testamentum 21 (October
1971):
413.
34 Gunkel, Genesis, p. 279.
35 Genesis, 1 :316.
36 Ibid.
The Pre-Mosaic Tithe 81
authority extended over Abram, we now turn to Melchizedek's
role as
priest of the most high God (NOyl;f, lxel; Nheko). We face similar questions
with Melchizedek's priesthood as we did with his
kingship--What was
the nature of his priesthood and the extent of his
authority as priest?
Second, and again related to the first, what was
Abram's spiritual rela-
tionship to Melchizedek?
Melchizedek's Priesthood
Melchizedek is labeled by Moses as a NheKo--a priest. This is the first
mention of a priest in the OT, though the
concept was not new. A priest
is someone who stands in the gap between God and
man, representing
man to God and God to man.37 We note,
then, that Abram, Noah, and
presumably all godly familial heads and
clan-leaders in the pre-
Abrahamic era functioned as microcosmic priests in
a limited capacity as
primitive mediators of what would later become the
theocratic kingdom.
The first consideration in the study of
Melchizedek's priesthood is a
very basic one--Whom was Melchizedek serving as
priest? The text in-
dicates that the deity served
was called "the Most High God" (NOyl;f,
lxe).
What
has been of considerable debate is whether this deity is to be iden-
tified with Yahweh, the God of
Abraham, or with some local deity.
Liberals have generally contended that NOyl;f,
lxe was a local deity.38
Based
on their assumption that the Hebrew religion began with Abram
and over time evolved into modern Judaism, they
naturally contend that
a reference to Abram's Yahweh in this pericope would be anachronistic.
This
contention is furthered by their conclusions that the shortened
names for Myhilox,, NOyl;f, and lxe are very late developments,39 heightening
the anachronism of seeing Yahweh in Genesis
14:18-20. Further com-
plicating the matter is the
absence of the article on lxe, suggesting that
this is a local god, and not the Hebrew God.
Instead, it is assumed that
the use of lxe is the widely used
Semitic term for various and sundry
gods, a term which
God.
This theory is fraught with bad exegesis and
unbiblical assumptions.
First,
it must be noted that the absence of the article is common with
compound names for God,40 rendering
its absence here ancillary to the
discussion. Second, the Hebrew term NOyl;f, has no secular
parallels other
37 NIDOTTE, s.v. "Nhk," by Philip Jenson, 2:600.
38 Speiser, Genesis, 1:104; Westermann,
Genesis, 2:204; Driver, Genesis, p. 165;
Gunkel, Genesis,
pp. 279-80. Wenham also takes this view (Genesis,
1:316-17).
39 Speiser, Genesis, 1:104.
40 Delitszch,
Genesis, 1:409.
82
than a rather recently developed Phoenician god,
whom Philo labeled as
]Eliou?n,
o[ u!yistoj, who even liberals admit emerged long after the
Is-
raelite usage had been
established (Num 24:16, Deut 32:8, etc.). We
conclude with Speiser
and Gunkel that the term was not borrowed by
term from her.41 Further, as
deity ]Eliou?n was the grandson of lxe.42 Thus,
even if a correlation is
attempted, it fails to give us a single god, but
two separate ones. In only
one other occasion in all known ancient Near
Eastern literature are lxe
and NOyl;f, found together--in
Psalm 78:35 of the Hebrew canon, and
that with reference to the God of Israel.43
We conclude that there is
simply no evidence for a god by the name of NOyl;f, lxe
in the Canaanite
or any other pantheon.
Furthering this conclusion is later revelation
in Psalm 110, where
Melchizedek's
priesthood is discussed with reference only to
hvhy—neither lxe nor its cognates are mentioned in the entire psalm.
Sealing
the matter is Hebrews 5:6, 10, where the Greek equivalents of
both hvhy and lxe (ku<rioj and
qeo<j) are used
interchangeably in the
context of the priesthood of Melchizedek. There
is no question that the
NOyl;f< lxe whom Melchizedek served
as priest was Abram's God, the God
of
[Abram]
would have acknowledged the priesthood of anyone other than
a representative of the true God."44
We add to this that Abram would
never have acknowledged anyone put the one true God
as the "creator of
heaven and earth" and the God who gave him
victory in battle (vv.
19-20).
We move on now to discuss the extent of the
authority of
Melchizedek's priesthood. It apparently was a
common practice in the
ancient Near East for a king to function as a
priest for his people.45 In
fact, it is apparent that Abram himself functioned
in much the same ca-
pacity, building altars and
offering sacrifices (functions of a priest) while
functioning as the leader of his clan as a
"mighty prince" (Myhilox<
xyWin;), a
term translated as "king" (basileu<j) in the LXX version of
Genesis
23:6.
This is in keeping with the dispensational setting of
Melchizedek's
day. As yet there had been no establishment of a
single central altar.
41 Speiser, Genesis, 1:104; Gunkel,
Genesis, p. 280.
42 Genesis,
1:410.
43 Cf. also Psalm
44 The
Epistle to the Hebrews (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1972), p. 124.
45 Gunkel, Genesis, p. 280; Westermann,
Genesis, 2:204-5; Wenham, Genesis,
1:316.
The Pre-Mosaic Tithe 83
There
had been no formal introduction of Abram as the priest for the
world, though it had been privately revealed that his
was to be the cho-
sen line to bring blessing
to all the nations. Thus it seems likely that,
until this point, the dispensation of human
government was in effect.
God-fearers
of this period approached God through their various God-
fearing clan-leaders--such as Melchizedek.
This solution, however, only leads to another
question. If
Melchizedek
had jurisdiction as priest only within his own clan (there
being no biblical basis for regional high priests
with hierarchical sover-
eignty over lesser priests)
why did Abram recognize Melchizedek as his
priest?
Melchizedek's Spiritual
Relationship to Abram
If Melchizedek's jurisdiction extended no
further than his clan, the
tithe paid by Abram to Melchizedek46 seems
a bit out of place. Hebrews
7:7,
however, in discussing Abram and Melchizedek, insists that, "with-
out any dispute, the lesser is blessed by the
greater," thus implying that
Melchizedek
was in some sense greater than Abram when he blesses
Abram,
and, presumably, when he received tithes from Abram.
Alva J. McClain recognizes the complexity of
this passage and ac-
knowledges the possibility that
"in the era before Abraham there were
other kings who held a similar mediatorial
authority between their sub-
jects and the true God."47
He goes on to theorize that it was "this precise
point in Biblical history. . . [that]
marks the end of an era and the begin-
ning of a new order of
things."48 Melchizedek's blessing effectively her-
alded for the whole world
that the mediatorial idea was being localized
in "concrete form historically in
miniature."49 The theory makes
Melchizedek
roughly comparable to other transitional figures, such as
Anna,
Simeon, and John the Baptist, who, having announced the arrival
46 This essay assumes, with most commentators, that the tithe was paid by Abram to
Melchizedek, although the text is perhaps less
than absolutely explicit on this point. R.
H.
Smith contends that it was Melchizedek who paid the tithe as an attempt to
bribe the
warlike Abram to leave the area ("Abraham
and Melchizedek," Zietschrift fur die Alttes-
tamentliche Wissenschaft 77 [1965]: 134). This
narrow view ignores, however, the
broader context of Scripture (Hebrews 7) and the
traditional understanding of the pas-
sage (LXX). J. A. Emerton
objects to Smith's view, but asserts that leaving Abram as the
tither contradicts verse 23,
where Abram is said to have given all the spoil back to the
king of
Abram
would not take anything that belonged to the king of
does not preclude his tithing or giving the
culturally accepted share owed to hired mer-
cenaries (see below).
47 The
Greatness of the Kingdom (Grand Rapids: Zondervan,
1959), p. 50.
48 Ibid., p. 51.
49 Ibid., p. 50
84
of the Messiah, faded into oblivion.
Representative of this view before
McClain
was none other than Robert S. Candlish, who, though
no dis-
pensationalist, on this one point
sounds like one:
Melchizedek, as the last preserver, as it were,
of the primitive patriarchal
hope, hands over his
function to one more highly favored than himself, in
the very spirit of the
Baptist--"He must increase, but I must decrease"
(John 3:30). His own occupation, as a witness
and standing type of the
Messiah, is over; one newly called out of
heathenism is to succeed and to
take his place He hails in
Abram the promised seed, and blesses him ac-
cordingly Thus the Patriarchal,
the Abrahamic, and the Levitical
dis-
pensations appear, all of them, in
their true character, as subordinate and
shadowy.50
Although the theory cannot be verified (McClain
and Candlish ar-
gue from silence that
Melchizedek relinquished his priestly functions
after this incident), there is much to commend it.
The timing is correct,
since Abram's call was quite recent. The public
announcement is appro-
priate, for without it no one
would have been aware of the dispensa-
tional change. The prominence
of Melchizedek's delivery of blessings
(j`raBA is employed three times
in the two verses of Melchizedek's brief
discourse) is also significant in light of the
reciprocal blessings promised
in the Abrahamic
Covenant (Gen 12:1-3) to those who would bless
Abram. Melchizedek's repeated blessings and his
disclosure that God
was blessing and being blessed51
specifically through Abram announced
to the listening world that Abram had been specially
selected by God as
his unique mediatorial
representative.52
The question still remains, however, why
Melchizedek was viewed as
"greater" than Abram, able to give him a blessing, and
worthy of receiv-
ing his tithe. The
commentaries are generally silent on this issue, and the
question is difficult to answer. It seems best to
understand that
50 Genesis,
p. 143.
51 The action of blessing implied in the
term j`raBA, as explained by
Hebrews 7:7, al-
ways flows from the greater to the lesser. It is no
contradiction, however, that
Melchizedek
"blessed" God. While active blessing (the impartation of something of
value to someone) can never be offered by mortals to
God, men can "bless" God in a
"passive and stative sense" by
speaking highly of him or attributing praise to him
(NIDOTTE, s.v.
"jrb," by Michael L.
Brown, 1:764). Hebrews 7:7 is by no means at
odds with Genesis 14:20.
52 Victor Hamilton completely misses the
point of the repeated use of j`raBA when he
begrudges Abram his blessings while his 318 companions
went unmentioned with the
sarcastic comment, "As one would expect, it
is the general, not the private, who gets the
kudos" (Genesis,
1:409). It is not because Abram was the "general" that he got the
"ku-
dos"; it was because he was one with whom God
had covenanted to make a great nation
and to be a source of blessing to all the nations.
The Pre-Mosaic Tithe 85
Melchizedek
was not permanently or personally superior to Abram, but
that at that moment Melchizedek stood between God
and Abram and
as the better."53
Indeed, any time a person stands
in the place of God
his superiority is instantly, if temporarily,
confirmed by virtue of the
God
he represents. McClain's comments (above) may also be informa-
tive: Melchizedek,
representing the authority of the old dispensation,
was ceding the reins of the incipient mediatorial kingdom to its new
mediator, after which time Abram became superior
to Melchizedek.
We thus conclude that Abram's recognition of
Melchizedek as a su-
perior was not because
Melchizedek was some type of regional high
priest, hierarchically presiding over all other lesser
priests in the area.
Nonetheless,
for the moment, Melchizedek stood in the place of God,
and, as such, exercised temporary spiritual
authority over Abram, an
authority which Abram recognized by the giving of
a tithe.
The Reason for Abram's Tithe
In the previous section we established that the
basis for Abram's
tithe was the (temporarily)54 superior
priesthood of Melchizedek. We
now move to Abram's purpose for giving him a tithe.
Was it a social
(political) function or an act of pure worship? Was it
mandatory or vol-
untary?
Some suggest that Abram's was a primitive
payment to the deity for
making him victorious in battle.55 This is
generally a liberal idea56 and is
held only by those who deny that Melchizedek was a
priest of the one
true God.
Others, chiefly those who view Melchizedek as a theophany, view
53 Kent, Hebrews, p. 129.
54 By using this qualifier the author is
not intending to negate the arguments of He-
brews 5-7 or Psalm 110. For typological purposes,
that moment of superiority was cap-
tured by the later authors
and coupled with a few of the sudden and mysterious factors
surrounding the appearance of Melchizedek in
Scripture to provide vivid illustrations of
the superiority of Christ. As with all types there
is not a one-to-one correspondence be-
tween every detail, thus it
is not necessary to elevate Melchizedek to some mysterious or
supernatural plane to preserve the
analogy between him and Christ (as some have done
by suggesting that Melchizedek's appearance in
Genesis 14 was a theophany).
Melchizedek,
it should be concluded, was simply a literal, historical human being whose
life was directed by God to serve as a type of
Christ (See Kent, Hebrews, pp. 124-27).
55 Westermann, Genesis, 2:206; Speiser,
Genesis.,
1:109; Wenham, Genesis, 1:317.
56 A more radically liberal idea, held by Gunkel (Genesis,
p. 281) and Driver (Gene-
sis, pp. 167-68), is that
the character Melchizedek was pseudepigraphal, being
invented,
along with the legend of the Jebusite
coalition, in David's time to lend legitimacy to the
establishment of his new capital in
86
the gift as a direct act of worship to God.57
Still others suggest that the tithe was rendered
to Melchizedek as his
share of the spoils of battle in compensation for his
role in the conquest
of the four invading kings, a "postbellum distribution of the booty, in
which the spoils are distributed equally between
those who personally
fought. . . and for those who for one reason or
another did not actively
engage in the fighting."58 This
reminds us of similar incidents in Num-
bers 31:17 and 1 Samuel
30:21-25, where personnel left behind were
afforded shares of the spoils despite their
failure to actively participate in
the battle.
While this last theory is attractive, it has a
few flaws. First, the tithe
to Melchizedek is set apart from the rest of the
distribution of the
spoils--the tithe occurs in verse 20, but the
provisions for distribution
of the spoils are not made until the very last
verse of the chapter. Fur-
ther, Abram's tithe is
mentioned in close proximity to Melchizedek's
priestly blessing of Abram, suggesting that his
tithe-giving had a purely
spiritual purpose, not a politico-cultural one.
The king of
did not understand this exchange, and apparently
thought that the divi-
sion of spoils had begun in
v. 20. He immediately jumped in and made
his bid for the people of his city, abandoning all
hope of regaining any-
thing else. Abram's negative response is quite
revealing: he wanted no
blessings, material or spiritual, from the wicked
king of
cloud or overshadow the priestly blessing he had just
received from
Melchizedek,
nor create any sense of obligation of Abram to Sodom.59
As
a result, he renounced all claim to the spoils. Third, Abram's com-
ments in verse 23, that he
would not take anything that rightly belonged
to the king of
and a small mercenary stipend for the efforts of
Abram's companions,
the rest of the spoils went back to their previous
owners. This is in con-
trast to the ancient Near
Eastern custom. While the spoils belonged le-
gally to Abram,60
simple kindness required him to return the property to
its rightful owners.
It seems most likely that the tithe was paid to
Melchizedek as a vol-
untary reciprocation for the
priestly functions performed by
Melchizedek
and a thank offering given to God for the success of the
military excursion.61 As such it
represented a willing consecration of a
57 Candlish, Genesis, pp. 142-46.
58 Hamilton, Genesis, 1:413.
59 Ibid.,
1:413-14; Ross, Creation and Blessing,
p. 300-302; Sailhamer, "Genesis,"
pp.
123-24.
60 Wenham, Genesis, 1 :317.
61 Delitzsch, Genesis,1:410.
The Pre-Mosaic Tithe 87
portion of the goods to God through the hand of
the priest, in acknow-
ledgement that the whole belonged
to God.62 It also represented
Abram's
recognition that the dispensational baton, as it were, was being
passed to him by its legitimate forebear.
Why Abram chose a tenth and not some other
amount is not ex-
plained. As has been already
demonstrated, payment of a tenth was a
universal practice in the ancient known world. We
may hypothesize that
God,
though unrecorded in the Hebrew Scriptures, established the tenth
as a general figure to be spent on priestly
administration, but it may be
that this amount was simply selected by Abram as a
reasonable amount
to fulfill sacrificial duty to God. Nor have we ruled
out the idea that the
custom was merely adopted from Abram's heathen
neighbors. Genesis
26:5,63 which informs us that Abrabam
obeyed God, along with all his
commandments, statutes, and laws,
could point to the first of these op-
tions, but there is no clear
link of 26:5 with the specific statute of tith-
ing.
We may only speculate about Melchizedek's
subsequent usage of the
tithes he received, but it seems likely that they went
to finance the
priestly services provided by Melchizedek as a
mediator for God.64
Conclusion
While Abram's tithe apparently meets with God's
approval, several
factors lead us to conclude that it has little
bearing on the levitical tithe
and on our current practice. First, the tithe
mentioned here is unique to
the transition between the dispensations of human
government and
promise and has no genuine parallels in the rest
of Scripture. Second, the
silence as to the origin of and the apparently
voluntary nature of
Abram's
tithe render it unlike anything in the rest of
biblical experience.
Abram's
tithe had a purpose, origin, and nature distinct from the Mosaic
institution.
JACOB'S PROMISED TITHE
(GENESIS 28:18-22)
So Jacob rose early in the morning, and took the
stone that he had put un-
der his head and set it up
as a pillar and poured oil on its top. He called the
name of that place
been Luz. Then Jacob made a
vow, saying, "If God will be with me and
will keep me on this journey
that I take, and will give me food to eat and
garments to wear, and I return
to my father's house in safety, then the
62 Candlish, Genesis, p. 142.
63 See W. W. Barndollar's
extensive discussion of this verse in his "The Scriptural
Tithe" (Th.D.
dissertation, Grace Theological Seminary, 1959), pp. 80-99.
64 Ibid.
88
LORD will be my God. This stone, which I have
set up as a pillar, will be
God's house, and of all that You
give me I will surely give a tenth to You."
The second and only other OT mention of the
tithe prior to the
giving of the Mosaic Law comes in the form of a tithe
promised to God
by Jacob after his ladder vision at
Abrahamic
Covenant to Jacob there (vv. 10-15). As in the
Abram/Melchizedek
narrative, the Hebrew term rWefEma is used, so we are
sure that it is an actual tithe in question. Since
this term has already been
discussed, we move directly to a study of the
occasion of this promised
tithe to understand its purpose and to glean insights
into the validity and
continuing applicability of Jacob's practice.
The Occasion
The event comes at a particularly turbulent
period in Jacob's life, a
fact which weighs heavily on our study. In chapter
27, Jacob, true to his
name, had completed the two-fold deception of his father
and brother,
and had successfully stolen the birthright away
from Esau. Esau's resul-
tant rage and apparent
intent to kill Jacob for the deception led Jacob, at
his mother's bidding and with the blessing of his
father, to flee to the
house of his uncle, Laban,
until his brother's anger abated.
In route to Laban's
house Jacob is arrested by a dream in the city of
Luz
(which he later renamed "Bethel"). In the dream, Yahweh renewed
the Abrahamic Covenant
with Jacob. In so doing, Yahweh confirmed to
Jacob
that he was the chosen son through whom the covenant blessings
would flow. Jacob awakens in fear and quickly erects
an altar at the site
of the dream and gives a sacrifice of oil on an
altar to God. Upon mak-
ing the sacrifice he offers
up a vow to God that he would make Yahweh
his God and give him a tenth, presumably of all his
possessions, so long
as Yahweh spared him, provided for his needs, and
prospered him dur-
ing his sojourn at his
uncle's residence. God was true to his promise, but
there is no indication whether or not Jacob fulfilled
his vow.
Again, questions arise from the narrative that
affect our under-
standing of the promised tithe. Was Jacob's
promised tithe an act of
faith or part of some sort of inappropriate
"bargain" made with God? If
the latter, can Jacob's tithe be considered
normative or foundational to
the study of the tithe in the rest of the OT, or
have any bearing on its
practice (or non-practice) today? Whether or not
the vow was actually
fulfilled, what was the reason and purpose for
Jacob's tithe?
The
While most evangelicals have maintained that
this dream finds or at
least leaves Jacob converted, there are three factors
in the narrative and
The Pre-Mosaic Tithe 89
one in Genesis 32 which indicate that Jacob's vow
to tithe to Yahweh
was an illegitimate act of worship.
First, Jacob's reaction of fright upon the
appearance of Yahweh in-
dicates an improper
relationship to God. Many commentators take the
reaction by Jacob to be a healthy, reverential
awe of God and his de-
scription of the site as
"awesome," inducing genuine worship.65 If this is
the case, Jacob's succeeding actions denote
consecration. This is a le-
gitimate interpretation of the
terms employed. In fact, the "fear of the
Lord"
seems to be the OT equivalent for faith (Prov 1:7).
The Hebrew
root xry ("to fear"),
represented in the Jacob narrative by the Qal im-
perfect and niphal
participle respectively, however, has a wide range of
meaning, extending from a meaning of
"reverence" or "respect" on one
pole to "terror" or "fright" on
the other.66 The present context favors the
second pole.67 First, whenever the term is
used elsewhere of Jacob in
subsequent contexts, it clearly denotes
"fright," that is, fear that caused
him to respond by running or conniving, rather than
trusting (e.g.,
31:31,
32:7, 11).68 Second, Jacob's ignorance that God could be here in
Luz
(v. 16) may indicate that he was shocked to find God here.69 Waltke
and O'Connor concur, demonstrating from the
emphatic adverb NkexA
that the verse conveys "a sudden recognition in
contrast to what was
theretofore assumed."70 If this is
the case, then Jacob is betraying a
woeful lack of knowledge and respect for the Almighty.
Third, as Ham-
ilton points out, this is the
only instance in the patriarchal narratives
(except possibly
or fright. The other patriarchs always "took theophanies in stride."71
Further developing the "fright" idea
of the term xry
is Jacob's ap-
parent lack of faith in the explicit promises of God.
After hearing the
promises, Jacob makes a conditional vow whose
conditions were the very
promises he had just received from Yahweh. In
verse 15 Yahweh prom-
ises to be with Jacob, to
keep him, and bring him back to the land. Ja-
cob responds in verse 20 that if indeed God remains
with him, keeps
65 Candlish, Genesis, pp. 294-96; Delitzsch, Genesis, 2:165; Ross, Creation and
Blessing, pp. 491-94; Wenham,
Genesis, 2:223-25; John J. Davis,
Studies in Genesis (Grand Rapids: Baker,
1975), pp. 243-44.
66 BDB, s.v. "xreyA," p. 431.
67 NIDOTTE,
s.v. "xry," by M. V. Van
Pelt and W. C. Kaiser, Jr., 2:528-29.
68 Hamilton, Genesis, 2:244.
69 Ibid.,
2:243-44.
70 Bruce K. Waltke
and M. O'Connor, An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax
(Winona
Lake,IN: Eisenbrauns,
1990), p. 670.
71 Genesis,
2:245.
90
him safe, clothes and feeds him, and returns him to
the land, then he
would make Yahweh his God, pay tithes, etc.72
By thus casting his con-
version in the future, Jacob is apparently
refusing to exercise faith at this
time. Some suggest the conditional particle, Mxi (“if”) used here precludes
a genuine contingency,73 instead
meaning “since," or “forasmuch as,''
much like the Greek first class condition. However,
the grammar of this
passage suggests otherwise. In his remarks about
conditional clauses, Ge-
senius comments:
With regard to the difference between Mxi (xlo
Mxi) and Ul (xleUl), the
fundamental rule is that Mxi is used if the condition be regarded either as al-
ready fulfilled, or if it,
together with its consequence, be thought of as
possibility (or probability)
occurring in the present or future. In the former
case, Mxi is followed by the perfect, in the latter (corresponding to
the
Greek e]a>n with the present
subjunctive) by the imperfect or its equivalent
(frequently in the
apodosis also).74
The
immediately following lead verb (hy,h;yi) is in the imperfect, and all
the succeeding verbs of the protasis
are cast in the perfect with the v con-
secutive (making their function
equivalent to the imperfect), clearly
demonstrating that the vow represents
a genuine contingency.75 Thus,
his actions of building an altar and his promise to
tithe on his livelihood
are not deeds of faith; instead, they are wary,
fearful acts of a trapped
person to appease and "strike a bargain"
with God.
To the grammatical argument we add an obvious
theological one.
The
sheer brazenness of a mortal establishing a conditional covenant
with the Almighty gives evidence to Jacob's
unconverted state. To place
God
under obligation to act a certain way and to stipulate that God
must fulfill certain obligations before one
consecrates himself is not an
act of faith but an audacious challenge to God's
sovereignty, inspired by
72
not part of the apodosis (Genesis, 2:248). As such the verses should read, "If God stays
with me. . . protects me. . . gives me bread to eat
and clothing to wear, and I return safely
to my fathers house and if Yahweh shall be my God;
then this stone. . . shall be God's
abode. . . and a tenth will I tithe to you"
(2:237-38). This interpretation does little to
change the "bargaining" arrangement proposed
by Jacob.
73 Candlish,
Genesis, pp. 294-95; also Barndollar, "Scriptural Tithe," p. 108.
74 E. Kautzsch,
ed., Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar, 2nd English ed., rev.
A. E. Cowley
(Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1910), pp. 494-95. On p. 496, the very passage in question is
used as an example of genuine contingency. Cf. also Waltke and O'Connor, Hebrew
Syntax, pp. 526-27.
75 Barndollar
makes a serious error in affirming that "all the verbs which follow Mxi
in verses 20 and 21 are perfect"
("Scriptural Tithe," p. 108), a faulty affirmation which
he uses to support his theory that there was no
actual contingency in Jacob's vow. The
grammar, in fact, proves quite the opposite.
The Pre-Mosaic Tithe 91
unbelief.
Finally, the events surrounding Jacob's dream at
Peniel and his
wrestling match there (32:24-32 [25-33 MT])
indicate that this latter
event was the actual conversion of Jacob. The name
change (v. 28 [29
MT])
from Jacob ("deceiver") to
a mere change of name, but is representative of a
change in charac-
ter--from a depraved
self-server to one who recognizes and submits to
God's sovereignty. Likewise, Jacob's
naming of the site "Peniel" ("the
face of God") is not due to his struggling with
God himself,77 but be-
cause he has finally come to a point where he has
recognized Yahweh as
his God and, much to his relief, is enabled to
exercise true faith in the
promises made to him at
that Jacob's conversion experience took place at Peniel, then, naturally
precludes its occurrence at
One notable objection to such a late conversion
date for Jacob, and
perhaps the reason why most commentators assume
Jacob to be saved in
Genesis
28, is the bequest of the Abrahamic
promises to Jacob at
It
is contended that God's reiteration of the Abrahamic
promises to Ja-
cob assumes his salvation. This, however, is a
logical non sequitur. The
OT
teems with examples of beneficiaries of national election, even heads
of the mediatorial
kingdom, who were never converted (e.g., many of
the judges and kings, most notably, Saul). The
unconditional covenant
promises given nationally to the patriarchs and
their descendants had no
direct bearing on their individual election to salvation
(Rom 9:6). Thus
it was not necessary for Jacob to have been a
believer to receive the
blessings of the Abrahamic
Covenant.
This author, with a fair degree of confidence
asserts, then, that Ja-
cob's vow to tithe was made while he was yet
unconverted. This fact,
coupled with the silence as to the fulfillment
of the vow render this ref-
erence to tithing a rather
slender strand of evidence for affirming the
foundation of the levitical
tithe or asserting an ongoing tithe in our pre-
sent dispensation.
The Reason for Jacob's Promised Tithe
The fact that Jacob settled on a tithe as
opposed to some other
76 Hamilton, Genesis, 2:334. There is a bit of debate regarding the exact
meaning of
this name. The scope of this essay, however, does
not require interaction with the debate
except to assert that the change of name signals a
change of heart.
77 Whether or not the "man" with
whom Jacob struggled was a preincarnate form
of Christ is a matter of considerable debate;
however, since this is not, apparently, the
source of the name "Peniel,"
the issue will be left unresolved.
78 Hamilton, Genesis, 2:337.
92
amount may indicate that he had some prior exposure to
the tithe. Jacob
may have been following the lead of his grandfather
or other God-fearers
with whom he was acquainted. In light of Jacob's
faulty view of the ex-
tent of God's presence, authority, and faithfulness
to His promises and
of Jacob's willingness to demean God's sovereignty
by "bargaining" with
Him,
it is more likely that he was borrowing the tithing practice of the
surrounding pagans. As with Abram, no clear
conclusions may be
drawn.
Nor is it certain what the purpose or method of
payment was if, in-
deed, Jacob fulfilled his vow. While Abram still had
a priest external to
himself, it seems unlikely, if McClain's and Candlish's theory79 is cor-
rect, that any legitimate
priests of Yahweh remained to whom Jacob
could pay his tithes.80 Perhaps he would
have consumed the tithe on an
altar to Yahweh, or used it to finance priestly
duties performed among
his family. Again, the text gives us no sound
answers.
Conclusion
Because Jacob's promised tithe resembles, even
derives from, the
heathen practices of his neighbors, it adds
little to our study. The basis
for the levitical tithe
certainly does not derive from Jacob's practice. This
fact, coupled with Jacob's unconverted state and the
silence of Scripture
as to the fulfillment of Jacob's vow, should cause
us to dismiss Genesis
28 from consideration in the quest for the
genesis of the tithe.
IMPLICATIONS OF THE
PRE-MOSAIC TITHE
FOR
PRESENT-DAY INSTITUTIONS
If tithing were confined to the Mosaic Law it
would be easy to dis-
miss its validity today. In that the Mosaic Law has
been set aside in the
work of Christ (Rom 10:4,2 Cor
3:7-11, etc.), tithing, as part of that
unified legal corpus, would also be set aside.81
The pre-Mosaic tithe
complicates the issue, raising the possibility that
the tithe might be a
trans-dispensational practice, part of the
moral code of God, and thus a
continuing obligation for NT believers.
There can be no denial of the fact of tithing
before the Law;
80 Cf., however, Barndollar,
"The Scriptural Tithe," p. 111.
81 To be sure, many a covenant theologian
would recoil at such a statement and as-
sert that the law is still
in effect and the command to tithe is still in vogue (e.g., Edward
A.
Powell and Rousas J. Rushdooney,
Tithing and Dominion [
House,
1979], pp. 11-14). The scope of this essay does not include this issue, so it will
be left for others to debate. Instead this section
will address the continuing validity of the
tithe strictly on the basis of the pre-Mosaic
practice.
The Pre-Mosaic Tithe 93
however, the assertion of a continuing principle
necessitates more than a
mere mention of the term "tithe" prior to
the giving of the Law. As
Pieter
Verhoef, a non-dispensationalist, concedes, "a pre-Mosaic custom
does not, as a matter of course, transcend the Old
Testament dispensa-
tion, becoming an element of
the universal and timeless moral code."82
There must also be clear evidence that the tithe
was divinely mandated
before the Law or somehow sourced in God's nature.
Further, there
must be a parallelism between the practice of the
tithe in the pre-Mosaic
period and that in our present experience.
God's
Nature and Mandate and the Pre-Mosaic Tithe
Many suggest that the universal practice of the
tithe and the failure
of attempts to identify its origin in the secular
realm point to its divine
origin and continuing practice from Adam onward.83
Others do not
trace the practice to Adam, but contend that God gave
Abram direct
revelation, and "started allover,"
establishing a new precedent with
Abram
that was continued by
many flaws with this theory.
First, it has already been established that
neither Abel's nor Jacob's
practices are legitimate paradigms for a biblical
tithe. Thus, we are left
with only Abram's practice to prove that the tithe
was practiced by all
God-fearers for the millennia prior to the
giving of the Law.
This hasty
generalization from a single datum of
evidence renders the argument
very weak.
Second, universality of practice in the secular
realm does not prove
that God is the originator of the tithe. This is yet
another logical non se-
quitur. It seems far more
reasonable that Abraham was not acting by di-
vine mandate, but in accordance with the ancient
Near Eastern customs
of his day.85
82 "Tithing: A Hermeneutical
Consideration," in The Law and the Prophets: Old
Testament Studies
Prepared in Honor of O. T. Allis, ed. John H. Skilton
(
Presbyterian
and Reformed, 1974), p. 122.
83 Landsell, Sacred Tenth,
further maintains that «divine acceptance. . . is
a demonstration of a divine institution"
(The Tithe,
p. 37).
This is a classic example of a non sequitur.
84 R. T. Kendall, Tithing (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1982),
p. 45; Driver, Genesis,
p.
166; Skinner, Genesis, p. 269.
85 This possibility in no wise reduces
practices that evolved into a final form. God
clearly created the OT Jewish legal system
by divine fiat, and was by no means bound to pagan
customs in his formation of the
Law. On the other hand, neither was he obliged to
avoid all pagan customs in the for-
mation of the Law. Timothy H.
Fisher, for instance, notes that the pagan practice of cir-
cumcision predates God's
institution of circumcision in Genesis 17 by hundreds of years
("A
Study of the Old Testament Tithe," [Th.M.
Thesis, Capital Bible Seminary, 1990]
94
Third, there is no basis for claiming that
of tithing from Abraham or Jacob. On the contrary,
it is clear that "the
normative significance of tithing must be
considered within the context
of the ceremonial law."86 Indeed, both post-pentateuchal
injunctions for
not the practice of the patriarchs (Neh
Fourth, there is never an appeal to God's nature
or to creation as a
basis for tithing. How a mere percentage, apart from
an explicit com-
mand, can take on moral
value is impossible to establish.
Fifth and in summary, the hypotheses that the
pre-Mosaic tithe had
its basis in God's command, God's nature, or God's
approval all argue
from silence.
Parallels to the Pre-Mosaic Tithe
Another argument against the continuing
applicability of the tithe is
the simple lack of present-day parallels to the
pre-Mosaic practice.
First, Abram's tithe was apparently a one-time
act, not a regular
giving pattern. There is no record of Abram's return
to Melchizedek,
and the references to his tithe in the singular in
Hebrews 7:4, 6 point to
a one-time gift.87
Second, Abram's tithe was made strictly on the
spoils of war seized
from the coalition of eastern kings. While the
Hebrew and Greek texts
simply state that Abram made a tithe of
"all," this clearly cannot mean
he gave Melchizedek a tenth of his entire
possessions--Abram surely was
not
seems certain that it was only the spoils on which
Abram tithed.
Third, there is no present-day recipient of a
tithe that can parallel
Melchizedek.
The church bears little resemblance to a priest/clan-leader.
Furthermore,
the usage of the tithe by Melchizedek and the church
(missions outreach, etc.) are
dissimilar.
We conclude, then, that there is nothing in
pre-Mosaic tithing
practices to serve as a basis for viewing the
tithe as a trans-dispensational
p. 11, n. 1). This issue is also
addressed by David G. Barker ("The Old Testament He-
brew
Tithe" [Th.M. Thesis, Grace Theological
Seminary, 1979], p. 131).
86 Verhoef,
"Tithing," p. 122.
87 Again, Barndollar
shows extraordinary carelessness in his exegesis, maintaining in
support of a regular tithe that "the writer
of the Epistle to the Hebrews declares that
Melchizedek
'received tithes of Abraham' (Heb. 7:6). The plural number of the word
certainly suggests more than one visit by Abraham
to Melchizedek for the purpose of the
presentation of his tithes to the
Lord's high priest" ("Scriptural Tithe," p. 60). While the
King
James Version does cast the tithe in verse 6 in the plural, and the Greek term
for
tithe, dedeka<twken
(dedeka<twke
in the Majority Text and Textus Receptus),
is incon-
clusive, a simple comparison
with verse 4 results in a conclusion opposite Barndollar's.
The Pre-Mosaic Tithe
and thus a continuing principle for the NT church.
There is simply no
evidence to support the claim.
CONCLUSION
In summary, this paper leaves the reader with
the difficult and per-
haps unsatisfying verdict that the pre-Mosaic title
did not originate with
divine revelation. In fact, the evidence suggests
identifying the practice
of the patriarch's pagan neighbors as the basis
for patriarchal tithing
practices. It is only as God placed theological
significance on the tithe in
Leviticus that the tithe became mandatory and
meaningful.
One looks in vain for evidence of proportional
giving in the Cain
and Abel narrative, finding only a few short verses
to even fuel the possi-
bility that any sacrifices at
all were given to God apart from expiatory
sacrifices. Certainly there is insufficient evidence
to support a tithe.
The first OT mention of the tithe is in the
context of an extraordi-
nary event with no parallels in the levitical system or today. Instead, it
was a dispensational marker heralding the shift
from the dispensation of
human government to the dispensations of promise. The
recipient of
Abram's
tithe and its purpose have no parallels in NT practice or in the.
levitical system.
The second OT mention of the tithe is even less
helpful, as the
promised tithe of Jacob is never said to have
been actually paid and the
giver has been demonstrated to be unconverted at the
time of the vow.
The
recipient and purpose of Jacob's tithe, if it ever materialized, are
cloaked in such obscurity that the
identification of any parallels in the
present-day or in the levitical
system is impossible.
We conclude, therefore, that the pre-Mosaic
tithe was merely a
culture-bound, voluntary expression
of worship reflective of the ancient
Near
Eastern practice of the time, and adapted by Abraham as a means
of expressing gratitude and attributing glory to
Yahweh.
This
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