Quote:
Originally Posted by Esaias
(part 2)
So we see that Bethel was not just "the house of God" for Jacob during his personal lifetime, but it was the house of God for Jacob (ie Israel, his descendants) after the Conquest. THIS element of his vow REMAINED IN FORCE LONG AFTER HE DIED.
That's TWO elements of his vow that carried on AFTER his personal death, and which were maintained (with more or less consistency) by his descendants.
And so what of tithing? Well, it is well known that Israel practiced tithing on agricultural products from the land of Israel. So we see that the third element of Jacob's vow was perpetuated by his descendants.
So, all three elements of Jacob's vow - that is to say, the WHOLE OF JACOB'S VOW - was continued by his descendants as a nation.
As the article which I posted points out, the legislation concerning tithes is intimately connected both by location, language, and regulations to the subject of vows. In fact, the tithe is treated by the Mosaic legislation as if it were in fact part of the vows regulated by the divine law.
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So now what is to be made of all this?
While there is a theoretical legislative point of inquiry that can be brought up concerning the tithing of agricultural products outside of Canaan, by Israelites living abroad NOT as part of a punitive diaspora but as part of theoretical migrations and conquests (ie, if Israel conquered other lands and settled there would those Israelites be subject to a tithe requirement?), nevertheless as a practical matter there are several conclusions that can be made from all this data:
1. Tithing
as a legal requirement had to do with the special covenant relationship between Jacob and his descendants on one hand and their God Jehovah on the other hand, and not some financial system established for the operations of the church.
2. An individual can certainly make a vow to give a tenth (or presumably whatever amount they chose) of whatever they wanted, as a vow to God. There is no indication that I have seen yet that indicates Jacob's vow was a result of a felt LEGAL obligation (as if God had always required or expected ten percent), but was instead his own choice. (So therefore we have no business critiquing people about whatever they choose to do with what God gives them as far as how much they "give back" to God. It's quite simply their business, not ours.)
3. Vows can and often were considered binding upon future generations. The Bible is crystal clear on this point, that ancestors can and have obligated their descendants to do or not do certain things, and God honours those obligations as valid and legitimate. This in turn shows us that
autonomous individualism is not Biblical. As individuals, we are part of family, and our immediate family is part of a larger extended family, and so on up to the whole tribe and nation and indeed the entire race. After all, Adam's fall should have had no moral impact on any of us if autonomous individualism were recognised by God as valid. But Adam was what is often called "the Federal Head" of mankind, and his fall had no only social and cultural consequences, but moral consequences. By participating in sin, one participates in Adam's fall, and participates in his sentence of death as well (see
Romans 5). So then multigenerational obligations do in fact exist.
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