Ezekiel 20:40 · World English Bible
For in my holy mountain, in the mountain of the height of Israel,” says the Lord Yahweh, “there all the house of Israel, all of them, shall serve me in the land. There I will accept them, and there I will require your offerings and the first fruits of your offerings, with all your holy things.
The mountain is the oldest image of the hierarchy of value, and service is only accepted at its height. A scattered people is gathered to the one high place, because worship that means anything has to aim at the top of things rather than at whatever is nearest.
From the Clinical Psychology reading below.
The same verse, read by one tradition.
CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY
The mountain is the oldest image of the hierarchy of value, and service is only accepted at its height. A scattered people is gathered to the one high place, because worship that means anything has to aim at the top of things rather than at whatever is nearest. What is offered there is the firstfruits, the first and best of the increase, handed over before a man keeps any for himself. The leftovers do not reach the summit.
To give the firstfruits is to put the highest good ahead of your own appetite in the very order of your acts. That priority is what gets a life accepted. A person climbs toward what is highest and lays the best of himself down at the peak of it. Bring your first and finest to the top of the mountain, and you are received there.
Clinical Psychology lens
What has been getting my leftovers that should be getting my first and best?
He tells himself to have one aim and give it the best of his attention, since a life pulled toward many small goods never reaches any of them. The highest thing is served first or not at all.
Whatever you do, offer it up before you take anything from it, and let the offering be the real first portion rather than the remainder. The giving comes before the keeping.
The first and best of the harvest was brought up before any of it was eaten, so that the order of the giving showed what the giver actually valued. Leftovers were not counted as a gift.
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Clinical Psychology