It is the season of “mellow fruitfulness” – harvest – and thus also the season for tithing. At least it was until 1977 in England. Today we will look at the connection between ten – as in the ten commandments Tenths and tithes. We will see how our harvest festivals and thanksgivings might not have been so popular back in the day. And we will consider the curious popularity of the number ten outside the Bible, which is not quite merited inside the bible.
Your starter for Ten….
So let us start with Ten. Curiously my primary reference on Bible numbers, (Kittel’s abridged theological dictionary) has little to say on the subject. “The number Ten is a favourite round number in the OT…..In the NT Ten plays a lesser role” But what about those Ten Commandments. Well if you look them up in a concordance you find just two references to them – both in Deuteronomy (4:13 and 10:4). Both are references to the same incident. Maybe the ten commandments are a hint towards the ten plagues which released Israel from Egypt. And finding the right number of commandments in the relevant accounts takes a certain … creativity.
Ten is a convenient number – we have ten fingers don’t we…. (well actually no)… But ten is a convenient number to count to. As I pointed out in my blog on 12, ten is the other counting system, the little sister who grew up to be more popular. Both 10 and 12 systems were used by both Hebrew and Roman cultures. It is interesting that Luke uses the number ten more than Mark or Matthew – particularly in his version of the parable of the talents. Ten is a good number, not a particularly holy number. With the possible exception of the Ten Commandments, Ten does not have the positive associations of holiness that Twelve does. It is almost secular, and almost urban rather than rural.
One side-note for extra nurd-worthiness…. The word for ten-thousand, at least specifically in Greek, has a different meaning. It is not deca kilioi (literally ten thousand) – it is myria – or in modern English Myriad . Myria is the biggest number you can readily think of.. at least in those much simpler times. It does mean ten thousand, but not literally. Today we might say a billion, or maybe a gazillion.
I am the one in Ten
The next stage on our journey to tithing is a Tenth. In Hebrew, just as in English the word for a tenth is similar to the word for ten. Also, just as in English, the word can have two very different meanings. It can mean the tenth item in a series. Technically this is an ordinal number as opposed to a cardinal number (the number ten as a value). A Tenth is not a number at all, it is a mathematical operation. The tenth is also not an abstract operation. It is an operation carried out on goods animals or produce in order to give a certain proportion of them away.
The easiest way to carry out this operation is to count out what you want to give a tenth of…..1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 for me and the tenth for…. God. And that is where we get the word tithe from. It has the same root as the word ten and tenth – in Hebrew, Greek and English. In Greek and English it is also a verb – to tithe, to give a tenth.
Tithes and offerings
When my wife and I joined a new church recently we signed up for envelopes to make our donation. We were initially confused to receive envelopes on which we were expected to identify whether what we were giving was a tithe or an offering. We had obviously missed a significant part of the induction course for new members and the teaching which came with it! The Bible has a lot to say about offerings, but a lot less to say about tithes. Offerings are mentioned 829 times. Tithes are mentioned 39 times. That means offerings are mentioned over 20 times more than tithes. Not quite a myriad more, but pretty close.
The crucial verse to my mind is Numbers (oh yes, that book) Ch 18 v 21 “To the Levites I have given every tithe in Israel” The chapter goes on to make it clear that the tithes were to support the Levites in their priestly role. They were expected to make an offering of their tithes “a tithe of the tithe”, and that was to go to Aaron as high priest. Kind of a Multi-Level Marketing thing, but with tithes.
And that is what tithes are – a duty on God’s people to give a percentage of their goods towards the maintenance of the priestly ministry. Tithing was established by church councils as expected practice in the 500’s, co-incidently after the Church became established . It was one way in which ministry was funded. It was maintained as an institution of the church and state all the way through the medieval period and into the modern period. The due tithes of a parish might be ascribed to a person outside the parish, even to the state or an institution. It may sound a bit archaic but the tithe in England was only finally eradicated in 1977. There are countries in Europe where you can still pay a church tax – effectively a tithe. Similar systems are common to Judaism, Islam and Sikhism. (For more on this read Wikipedia).
Which brings us to those lovely displays of harvest produce and flowers in our churches. For most people they are warm gratitude for the bounty which God has given and the earth has produced. They are offerings, which will hopefully find use to those in need – even those in need of cheering up. But they are also the reminders of days in which the church demanded a tithe from all people, a tenth of all the produce of field and garden, as a right.
