Deuteronomy 26:5
And thou shalt speak and say before the LORD thy God, A Syrian ready to perish was my father, and he went down into Egypt, and sojourned there with a few, and became there a nation, great, mighty, and populous: And thou shalt speak and say before the LORD thy God, A Syrian ready to perish was my father, and he went down into Egypt, and sojourned there with a few, and became there a nation, great, mighty, and populous:
The verse opens the spoken confession prescribed to be made before the Lord when presenting the firstfruits, setting the offering inside a public acknowledgment of His goodness. It is part of the Lord's directions for how Israel was to acknowledge His goodness through the first-fruit offering. The confession was to be spoken and recounted as Israel brought the offering in grateful worship.
To call the father a Syrian ready to perish is to remember that Israel's ancestor was a vulnerable Aramean facing ruin. That language recalls small, vulnerable and humble beginnings. He went down into Egypt and sojourned there with only a few people. There his descendants became a great, mighty and numerous nation, showing God's favor in Israel's growth.
This remembrance belongs to a larger confession that God brought Israel out of affliction in Egypt, delivered them, and gave them the land and its produce. Remembering humble beginnings in this way framed the firstfruits offering as grateful worship acknowledging God's deliverance and gifts. It expressed gratitude to God especially for the produce of the land He had given.
The directions surrounding the verse express the principles of God's law and make His claims clear. Those blessed with life and with temporal and spiritual gifts have a continuing obligation to obey and honor Him. The offering therefore was to be presented with reverence and gratitude, not with self-sufficiency or with any sense that God owed the people anything.