Open Thine Hand

Friend,

Moses says the poor will never run out in the land, and he says it only seven verses after saying there will be none among you.

Both sentences are in the same chapter, and neither one is a mistake. Verse four describes what obeying God would produce: "there shall be no poor among you; for the LORD shall greatly bless thee." The next verse hangs that on a condition: "Only if thou carefully hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy God." Verse eleven then describes what will really happen in the land, and it builds a command on top of it.

So the hard fact comes with a job attached: "Thou shalt open thine hand wide unto thy brother, to thy poor, and to thy needy, in thy land." The chapter even sees ahead to the sums you might do in your head as the year when debts were cancelled came near, and it names that thinking for what it is: "Beware that there be not a thought in thy wicked heart, saying, The seventh year, the year of release, is at hand; and thine eye be evil against thy poor brother."

Jesus quoted this teaching at a supper in Bethany, and people usually leave off the half that matters most: "For ye have the poor with you always, and whensoever ye will ye may do them good." Notice the words "whensoever ye will." The need that never goes away was never given to you as a reason to stop. It is the reason the chance to help is still there this week, and it comes as an invitation with no limit on it.

Your hand is the one part of this you control, and God has attached a strong word to it. In Hebrew the verb is doubled, "opening thou shalt open," which the King James renders "wide." May you open it the way He opens His own, as the psalm says: "Thou openest thine hand, and satisfiest the desire of every living thing."

Yours with an open hand,

a fellow learner

Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 170 is Beauty for Ashes (Isaiah 61:3).

All 365 readings in Daily Manna, Year Two