3959 — Jacob and the Tithe
By T. E. W.
In what way did Jacob pay the tenth to the Lord? Gen. 28:22. T. E. W. We do not have means of knowing this. We can only suggest ways in which he might do it, namely, in the offering of sacrifices to God. If there were godly priests in that land, he may have offered through them. There may have been descendants of Shem. But when he had his own household, he himself was the priest of the household. Of course, we could conceive of various ways of how that money could be dedicated to God and used wholly for a sacred purpose. While we may not know the way in which he used it, we may know that he certainly recognized his duty to pay the tithe. While he was in his father's house, his father, of course, paid tithe for the whole household; but when he left his father's house he stood alone in the world, and he simply vowed that he would carry out what doubtless his father and grandfather had done before him.