Thursday, July 23, 2026
Scripture Readings
- Primary Reading: Deuteronomy 15-16
Key Verse
Deuteronomy 15:23 — “Only thou shalt not eat the blood thereof; thou shalt pour it upon the ground as water.”
Devotional Thought
The seventh year was coming. That is the quiet tension running beneath Deuteronomy 15. A creditor in ancient Israel could count the calendar and calculate that a loan made in the sixth year might never be repaid, because at the end of every seven years the LORD’s release cancelled the debt. Moses anticipates the math and names the temptation: “Beware that there be not a thought in thy wicked heart, saying, The seventh year, the year of release, is at hand; and thine eye be evil against thy poor brother.” God sees the shrewd hesitation before it becomes a closed hand. He commands instead an open hand — “thou shalt open thine hand wide unto him” — and a heart that does not grieve over the generosity. The same chapter frees the Hebrew servant in the seventh year, and not empty-handed: he goes out furnished “liberally out of thy flock, and out of thy floor, and out of thy winepress.” Why? “Thou shalt remember that thou wast a bondman in the land of Egypt, and the LORD thy God redeemed thee.” Israel’s mercy was to be memory in motion.
Then the chapter turns to worship, and the two belong together. Three times a year the men of Israel appear before the LORD — at the Feast of Unleavened Bread in the month of Abib, at the Feast of Weeks seven weeks after the sickle first touched the corn, and at the Feast of Tabernacles after the harvest was gathered in. And no one comes empty. Each gives “as he is able, according to the blessing of the LORD thy God which he hath given thee.” Notice who is named at these feasts: sons and daughters, menservants and maidservants, the Levite, the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow. The joy is not a private banquet. It is a table wide enough for everyone whose life has been touched by the LORD’s kindness.
We read this in late July, when gardens are heavy and the first fruits are coming in — a fitting season to remember that everything we hold came as gift. The passage asks something concrete of us today: not merely to feel charitable, but to open the hand, to lend without calculating the risk, to release what is owed, to include the overlooked at our tables, and to give in worship according to what we have received. Justice and mercy are not abstractions here; they are the shape of a redeemed people’s ordinary life.
And the ground of it all is redemption. Israel gave because Israel had been given to. The servant who loved his master and chose to stay had his ear pierced to the door — a willing bond, not a captive one. We who have been redeemed by a greater release than the seventh year can give freely, because we were first set free.
Reflection
- Where have I quietly calculated what generosity might cost me, and closed my hand because the timing seemed unwise?
- Who is missing from my table — the stranger, the fatherless, the widow, the servant — and what would it look like this week to bring them in?
Prayer
LORD, we were bondmen, and Thou didst redeem us. Teach us to remember Egypt, that memory might make us merciful. Open our hands wide to the poor among us, and keep our hearts from grieving when we give. Let us not shut the door on our brother while the year of release draws near. Make our worship joyful and our tables wide, that the Levite, the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow may rejoice with us. And let everything we bring be given as we are able, according to the blessing Thou hast given us. In the name of Him who became poor that we might be rich. Amen.