Deuteronomy 14:21
14:21 You may not eat any corpse, though you may give it to the resident foreigner who is living in your villages 1 and he may eat it, or you may sell it to a foreigner. You are a people holy to the Lord your God. Do not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk. 2
Deuteronomy 14:29
14:29 Then the Levites (because they have no allotment or inheritance with you), the resident foreigners, the orphans, and the widows of your villages may come and eat their fill so that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work you do.
Deuteronomy 16:11
16:11 You shall rejoice before him 3 – you, your son, your daughter, your male and female slaves, the Levites in your villages, 4 the resident foreigners, the orphans, and the widows among you – in the place where the Lord chooses to locate his name.
Deuteronomy 24:19
24:19 Whenever you reap your harvest in your field and leave some unraked grain there, 5 you must not return to get it; it should go to the resident foreigner, orphan, and widow so that the Lord your God may bless all the work you do. 6
Deuteronomy 26:12-13
Presentation of the Third-year Tithe
26:12 When you finish tithing all 7 your income in the third year (the year of tithing), you must give it to the Levites, the resident foreigners, the orphans, and the widows 8 so that they may eat to their satisfaction in your villages. 9
26:13 Then you shall say before the Lord your God, “I have removed the sacred offering 10 from my house and given it to the Levites, the resident foreigners, the orphans, and the widows just as you have commanded me. 11 I have not violated or forgotten your commandments.
1 tn Heb “gates” (also in vv. 27, 28, 29).
2 sn Do not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk. This strange prohibition – one whose rationale is unclear but probably related to pagan ritual – may seem out of place here but actually is not for the following reasons: (1) the passage as a whole opens with a prohibition against heathen mourning rites (i.e., death, vv. 1-2) and closes with what appear to be birth and infancy rites. (2) In the other two places where the stipulation occurs (Exod 23:19 and Exod 34:26) it similarly concludes major sections. (3) Whatever the practice signified it clearly was abhorrent to the Lord and fittingly concludes the topic of various breaches of purity and holiness as represented by the ingestion of unclean animals (vv. 3-21). See C. M. Carmichael, “On Separating Life and Death: An Explanation of Some Biblical Laws,” HTR 69 (1976): 1-7; J. Milgrom, “You Shall Not Boil a Kid In Its Mother’s Milk,” BRev 1 (1985): 48-55; R. J. Ratner and B. Zuckerman, “In Rereading the ‘Kid in Milk’ Inscriptions,” BRev 1 (1985): 56-58; and M. Haran, “Seething a Kid in its Mother’s Milk,” JJS 30 (1979): 23-35.
3 tn Heb “the Lord your God.” See note on “he” in 16:1.
4 tn Heb “gates.”
5 tn Heb “in the field.”
6 tn Heb “of your hands.” This law was later applied in the story of Ruth who, as a poor widow, was allowed by generous Boaz to glean in his fields (Ruth 2:1-13).
7 tn Heb includes “the tithes of.” This has not been included in the translation to avoid redundancy.
8 tn The terms “Levite, resident foreigner, orphan, and widow” are collective singulars in the Hebrew text (also in v. 13).
9 tn Heb “gates.”
10 tn Heb “the sacred thing.” The term הַקֹּדֶשׁ (haqqodesh) likely refers to an offering normally set apart for the Lord but, as a third-year tithe, given on this occasion to people in need. Sometimes this is translated as “the sacred portion” (cf. NASB, NIV, NRSV), but that could sound to a modern reader as if a part of the house were being removed and given away.
11 tn Heb “according to all your commandment that you commanded me.” This has been simplified in the translation for stylistic reasons.