And Jacob awaked out of his sleep, and he said, Surely the LORD is in this place; and I knew it not. And he was afraid, and said, How dreadful is this place! this is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven. And Jacob rose up early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put for his pillows, and set it up for a pillar, and poured oil upon the top of it. And he called the name of that place Bethel: but the name of that city was called Luz at the first. And Jacob vowed a vow, saying, If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on, So that I come again to my father’s house in peace; then shall the LORD be my God: And this stone, which I have set for a pillar, shall be God’s house: and of all that thou shalt give me I will surely give the tenth unto thee. Genesis 28:10-22
And Jacob went out from Beersheba, and went toward Haran. And he lighted upon a certain place, and tarried there all night, because the sun was set; and he took of the stones of that place, and put them for his pillows, and lay down in that place to sleep. And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it. And, behold, the LORD stood above it, and said, I am the LORD God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac: the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed; And thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south: and in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed. And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land; for I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of.
INTRODUCTION
Have you vowed to return a tenth of all you are blessed to God? As we have seen my blog on the History of Tithes, Jacob tithes was the least amount a person could pay because of the limitations of counting in those days. A tenth was the smallest part known. Jacob was offering to God the least amount he could imagine. This was consistent with his character as the sup-planter.
The conception is also suspicious. The idea is: if you pay God a “tenth”, He will bless you; or its converse, if God has already blessed you then you should return a “tenth” to Him to be assured of future blessing. The only other mention of a tenth of something before Jacob’s tenth was Abraham’s, and as we have seen this was a one-time tenth given of the spoils of war. Further, we notice this is Jacob, the sup-planter, before he wrestled with God, had his “Jabbok experience” and name changed to Israel. This tithe appears to be a mere promise on the part of Jacob, which he had no intention of fulfilling.
PRESENT TEACHING
Although there is no scriptural record showing Jacob ever carried out his vow, preachers sometimes insist that he knew of and was following an eternal principle laid down by God in the Garden of Eden.
LIMITATIONS OF THE PRESENT TEACHING
The Bible clearly states “Jacob vowed a vow…,” (v.20) yet preachers and ministers insist Jacob made a covenant with God. A vow is voluntary. A vow is not a covenant; a covenant is initiated by God. Neither Jacob nor any other man has standing on which to initiate a covenant with God since cutting a covenant with God required the death of the testator. Even if Jacob made a covenant, its duration could only be for as long as Jacob was alive and was not binding on the rest of humanity. All of the Biblical covenants were initiated by Jehovah, while men like Jacob and Jephthah only vowed rash vows.
Careful reading of the paragraph reveals he was motivated by fear, rather than the faith of his grandfather and father, Abraham and Isaac.
There was no faith to be counted as “righteousness”, but he is driven by greed and did not take God at his word, but attached his own conditions to the promises of God. He bargained with God on the basis of his fears and unbelief.
Those who tithe as a means of getting things from God are following Jacob’s carnal mind of unbelief.
They think they are following an eternal spiritual principle while they are following the thought of their own carnal minds. There are no eternal principles of getting things from God; but we have the word of God and the grace of God. These should be sufficient.
Jacob would not acknowledge God as his God unless He proved Himself.
In this matter Jacob behaved as though Jehovah is his servant. Jacob had more evidence of his grandparents and parents of what God had done in their lives and of the promises He had made. Yet his response was one of unbelief: “If God will…then shall the LORD be my God.”
This event shows Jacob setting conditions to be fulfilled by God before he would give the tenth.
This bears no similarity of the way any Christian should behave toward God. Jehovah had unconditionally given him the promise of Abraham (28:12-15) and promised safe return from wherever he may go. On awaking, he began setting conditions he thought God should have included in the promise. God did not require these things of him or of anyone else; therefore this incident cannot be used to show tithing was an established requirement.
Jacob set the time or regularity when he would return the tenth to God.
He would give to God only after he had received. Thus, he was not responding to any universal principle or command from the LORD God to tithe to a particular person or ministry or pay for a spiritual service provided by a priest for God appeared to him, in a dream, without any intermediary.
Jacob decided the amount of a tenth.
It is clear God did not ask him to follow the example of Abraham as some has claimed. As we have seen, Abram gave a “tenth of the spoils” of war to the Priest, but Jacob proposed to give a tenth of “whatever God would bless him with.”
He showed no knowledge of the incident with Abraham and Melchizedek.
If he did, he did not associate it with his dream. There is no indication in the scriptures whether Jacob ever fulfilled his vow and if so, to whom he gave the tenth. Nevertheless, Jacob’s vow is not the modern Church tithe on gross income but on “all that God shall give me.”
A BETTER UNDERSTANDING OF JACOB’S TITHE.
Jacob was a Patriarch and a grandson of Abraham.
He was fifteen years old when Abraham died. Therefore, he certainly knew whether a tithe was a requirement, or if it were an eternal principle, or if his grandfather and father practiced tithing on a regular basis. If it was an eternal principle or requirement, then, why was he setting conditions for tithing here? Jacob’s tithe is nothing more than a rash vow. It’s the sup-planter trying to scheme God out of a blessing He had already given. I believe it is similar to Jephthah’s vow (Judges 11:29-40) to give something to God, He had not requested, when God had already granted their requests.
The focus of this passage is not Jacob’s vow, but God’s renewal of His promise to Abraham.
GOD had made an unconditional covenant with Abraham and Isaac and was now passing it on to Jacob. Although, God is involved, He gave no eternal principles; it is quite clear He did not require anything from Jacob but was simply informing him of the promises he had inherited from his father.
This “tithe” makes it evident, if there was tithing before the Mosaic Law it was voluntary and negotiable.
In the account, Jacob uses if, a conditional. If tithing was an eternal, universal, spiritual law for all peoples and for all time, as many teachers, preachers and pastors profess, this vow of Jacob does not belong to that classification; by placing the word if into his vow Jacob made it conditional.
The use of if created a situation in which God first had to perform something for Jacob and then Jacob would be obedient. His use of if meant his vow cannot be the following of a well-known, eternal, universal, spiritual law. We cannot treat known laws in this manner. It is analogous to someone saying to God: “If you will bless me and keep me in all my ways then I will not steal.” One does not slight the laws of God by making them conditional. However, it is not wrong to think this way if a voluntary thanksgiving offering were in mind. If, makes the tenth Jacob said he would return, a free will offering and his promise, conditional (Lev.22:23). As clear as it can be, both Abraham and Jacob were the ones who set the parameters, not God!
CONCLUSION
I believe Jacob’s tithe to be a rash vow made when he was overwhelmed by the presence of God. While God was present it is clear that no covenant for tithes was made.
A vow is personal; it involves only the person and GOD.
When the person making the vow dies or fulfil its terms and condition, that is the end of the vow. A vow therefore is not binding on the whole world, nor does it establish an eternal principle, but concerns only the person making it, for the specified period. There are laws established under the Mosaic system governing vows; one such law is,
If a man vow a vow unto the LORD, or swear an oath to bind his soul with a bond; he shall not break his word, he shall do according to all that proceedeth out of his mouth. Numbers 30:2 KJV