So you’ve had time to ponder the supposed “tithe of everything” given by Abraham. Pretty amazing what you can draw from His Word if you don’t consider the context or really understand the story, don’t you think?
So let’s now look at the second major mention of the tithe in the Old Testament, which is in Genesis 28, involving Jacob and his amazing dream at Bethel. If you’ve read the story, you probably read it with some amusement. Jacob stops one night near Haran, takes a stone, puts it under his head and goes to sleep. How he sleeps with a rock for a pillow … well, thankfully, pillow technology has progressed somewhat from that!
In the dream he sees a stairway reaching up to heaven, with angels going up and down. Above it is the Lord and He tells Jacob how his descendants will be like the dust of the earth and will spread out to the west and the east and the north and the south. He hears the Lord say that all peoples will be blessed through him and his offspring. The Lord also tells him that He will watch over him wherever he goes and will not leave him until He has done what He has promised. When he awoke, Jacob says this in verse 17:
“How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven.”
To use 21st century vernacular, he was blown away by the dream, as I think all of us would have been!
And in response, Jacob makes a vow – a promise – to the Lord. But it’s not quite what you might think. See if you can pick out the essence of what he vowed in verses 20-22:
“If God will be with me and will watch over me on this journey I am taking and will give me food to eat and clothes to wear so that I return safely to my father’s household, then the Lord will be my God and this stone that I have set up as a pillar will be God’s house, and of all that you give me I will give you a tenth.”
Did you catch it? Remember that this is still pre-Law. Yes, Jacob promises to give a tenth but … does he really? Notice two little but very important words in the passage – and these are the same words in virtually every translation:
IF God … THEN the Lord will be my God … and of all that you give me I will give you a tenth.
So … Jacob has this tremendous dream, hearing God Himself speak, and calling the place literally the gate of heaven and what does Jacob do? He makes a conditional promise: If you, God, provide me food … and clothing … and safety, then you will be my God and I will do this and that, including giving you a tenth. Can you see how ridiculous that is? Jacob is trying to run the show here, vowing that the Lord will not even be his God unless He essentially proves Himself to him by meeting his demands. And if He does, then and only then will he give a tenth.
Not a very convincing model for tithing, is it? It would be like the church today saying, “Oh, don’t give now; lay out all your demands to Him to prove Himself to you and wait to see if He satisfies them; then decide if you want to give.” Not much faith in that, is there?
And one other thing generally not mentioned when this event is cited as evidence for us to tithe today: Did Jacob ever satisfy this highly conditional and fairly faithless vow? We don’t know.
Next time, we’ll talk about the tithe mentioned in the Mosaic Law itself – the Levitical tithe. And we will see again how we must be ever so careful of context when reading and interpreting His Word. We will also see that 10% is not always what it appears to be …