Bible Strands
Numbers 18:13
The firstfruits of everything in their land that they bring to the LORD will belong to you. Every ceremonially clean person in your household may eat them.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Moses addresses Aaron and the priestly tribe of Levi, establishing the material provisions required to sustain the tabernacle ministry during the wilderness journey.
The words — בִּכּוּרֵ֞י (bi.ku.Rei) denotes the initial yield of agricultural harvests, while יִהְיֶ֑ה (yih.Yeh) declares a permanent transfer of ownership to the recipient.
The thread — This provision echoes the firstfruits mandates in Exodus 22:29 and Exodus 23:19, which command Israel to deliver the earliest harvests to God’s house.
Why it lands — The text requires the community to recognize the Levites’ right to consume the firstfruits and restricts that consumption to ceremonially clean household members.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
And whatsoever is first ripe in the land, which they shall bring unto the Lord, shall be thine; every one that is clean in thine house shall eat of it.
Cross-references
- Exodus 22:29 You must not hold back offerings from your granaries or vats. You are to give Me the firstborn of your sons.
- Exodus 23:19 Bring the best of the firstfruits of your soil to the house of the LORD your God. You must not cook a young goat in its mother’s milk.
- Jeremiah 24:2 One basket had very good figs, like those that ripen early, but the other basket contained very poor figs, so bad they could not be eaten.
- Hosea 9:10 I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness. I saw your fathers as the firstfruits of the fig tree in its first season. But they went to Baal-peor, and consecrated themselves to Shame; so they became as detestable as the thing they loved.
- Micah 7:1 Woe is me! For I am like one gathering summer fruit at the gleaning of the vineyard; there is no cluster to eat, no early fig that I crave.