Herbert W Armstrong

Tithing in the Old Testament is an interesting study. What becomes immediately clear is that it never applied to wages, trade income, craftsmanship, fishing, commercial profit, or any other form of monetary earnings. Money certainly existed, and the monetary economy was substantial - merchants, traders, craftsmen, builders, fishermen, and labourers, including agricultural labourers and many others too numerous to list, formed a significant and essential part of Israel’s society - yet none of these were ever tithed. Towns, fortified cities, royal centres, and trade hubs had significant numbers of non‑agricultural workers. Even rural villages had essential trades (smiths, carpenters, potters, weavers, builders, transport workers, fishermen, merchants). The Bible itself depicts frequent monetary transactions, which presuppose a functioning monetary economy. The biblical tithe was restricted solely to agricultural increase and herds and flocks from the land of Israel, as laid out in Leviti...

The Jewish Encyclopedias shows there were three kinds of tithes: (1) that given to the Levites as stated in Num. xviii. 21  et seq  and termed "the first tithe" ("ma'aser rishon"); (2) the tithe which was to be taken to Jerusalem and there consumed by the landowner and his family, and which was termed "the second tithe" ("ma'aser sheni"), it being taken from what remained after the first tithe had been appropriated; and (3) that given to the poor ("ma'aser 'ani"). Therefore two tithes were to be taken every year except in the seventh year: Nos. 1 and 2 in the first, second, fourth, and fifth years; Nos. 1 and 3 in the third and sixth years.’’ The scriptures are in Leviticus 27: 31-33, Numbers 18:21-32 and Deuteronomy 14:22–27 and 26:12, I note Wikipedia “ Tithes in Judaism ” has a detailed commentary on tithing and it conforms with the extract from the Jewish Encyclopedia. I make some comment on this system: Money became...