You’ve planted your crops, hoed the weeds, and prayed for rain. Now it’s time for the harvest. And the Lord says, after all your hard work, you are not to try to get every bit of the yield for yourself. “When you reap your harvest in your field and forget a sheaf in the field, you shall not go back to get it. It shall be for the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow, that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands” (Deuteronomy 24:19).

The version of this law we read a couple weeks ago in Leviticus is similar: “When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field right up to its edge, neither shall you gather the gleanings after your harvest. And you shall not strip your vineyard bare, neither shall you gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard. You shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner: I am the Lord your God” (Leviticus 19:9-10). At harvest time, the crops at the edges of the field, and the fallen sheaves or grapes and the individual grains of wheat on the ground: all of these are there for the impoverished and the foreigners, for the widows and orphans, who can go and pick up this food. The two passages remind us that the identity and blessing of our God call us to this practice.

And there’s also a rule for gleaners before harvest time. “If you go into your neighbor’s vineyard, you may eat your fill of grapes, as many as you wish, but you shall not put any in your bag. If you go into your neighbor’s standing grain, you may pluck the ears with your hand, but you shall not put a sickle to your neighbor’s standing grain” (Deuteronomy 23:24-25). Before harvest time you can’t gather up your neighbor’s crop and take it home with you; but if you’re hungry you can eat.

The Law of Gleaning thus recognizes that even in the Land of Milk and Honey, illness and misfortune happen: which might mean that any of us could end up in poverty and hunger. If that happens, we don’t get something for nothing, food without effort: we have to go and pick up the food, maybe scouring the ground for individual fallen grains after the crop has been harvested. And if this year we are the ones who have received the blessing on our produce, we are not to claim it all for ourselves: we must leave some for the poor to glean. “You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt; therefore I command you to do this” (24:22).


* * * * *
At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry, and they began to pluck heads of grain and to eat (Matthew 12:1).

* * * * *
Again and again you command us to care for the poor, O Lord: the widow, the orphan, the foreigner in our midst. That is hard for us; we want every bit of what we raise to be for ourselves. Remind us what it is to go hungry: give us hearts of compassion, glad that we have enough, glad for the poor to have a share as well.

If you find these studies helpful, please Like, Subscribe, Comment, and Share. Thanks!