Thematic Bible: First ripe of fruits, grain, oil, wine, and first of fleece, required as an offering


Thematic Bible



You shall also give him the first fruits of your grain, your new wine [the first of the season], and your [olive] oil, and the first sheared fleece of your sheep.

“You shall not delay the offering from your harvest and your vintage. You shall give (consecrate, dedicate) to Me the firstborn of your sons.


As soon as the king’s order spread, the Israelites gave in abundance the first fruits of grain, new wine, [olive] oil, honey, and of all the produce of the field; and they brought in the tithe of everything abundantly.

We will bring the first [and best] of our dough, our contributions, the fruit of every tree, the new wine and the [olive] oil to the priests, to the chambers of the house of our God, and the tithe of our ground to the Levites, for the Levites are the ones who receive the tithes in all the rural towns.

As an offering of firstfruits you may offer leaven and honey to the Lord, but they shall not be burned on the altar for a sweet odor [to the Lord, for their aid to fermentation is symbolic of corruption in the human heart]. Every cereal offering you shall season with salt [symbol of preservation]; neither shall you allow the salt of the covenant of your God to be lacking from your cereal offering; with all your offerings you shall offer salt. If you offer a cereal offering of your firstfruits to the Lord, you shall offer for it of your firstfruits grain in the ear parched with fire, bruised and crushed grain out of the fresh and fruitful ear. read more.
And you shall put oil on it and lay frankincense on it; it is a cereal offering. The priest shall burn as its memorial portion part of the bruised and crushed grain of it and part of the oil of it, with all its frankincense; it is an offering made by fire to the Lord.

All the best of the fresh [olive] oil, and all the best of the new wine and of the grain, the first fruits of those which they give to the Lord, I give them to you.

and [we obligate ourselves] to bring the first fruits of our ground and the first fruits of all the fruit of every tree to the house of the Lord annually,

For the Israelites and the sons of Levi shall bring the offering of the grain, the new wine, and the oil to the chambers; the utensils of the sanctuary, the priests who are ministering, the gatekeepers, and the singers are there. In this manner, we will not neglect the house of our God.


Israel was holy [something set apart from ordinary purposes, consecrated] to the Lord,
The first fruits of His harvest [in which no outsider was allowed to share].
All who ate of it [injuring Israel] became guilty;
Evil came on them,” says the Lord.’”

If the first portion [of dough offered as the first fruits] is holy, so is the whole batch; and if the root (Abraham, the patriarchs) is holy, so are the branches (the Israelites).