How to Get Exiled #3

Deuteronomy 16: 9 “You shall count seven weeks. Begin to count the seven weeks from the time the sickle is first put to the standing grain. 10 Then you shall keep the Feast of Weeks to the Lord your God with the tribute of a freewill offering from your hand, which you shall give as the Lord your God blesses you. 11 And you shall rejoice before the Lord your God, you and your son and your daughter, your male servant and your female servant, the Levite who is within your towns, the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow who are among you, at the place that the Lord your God will choose, to make his name dwell there. 12 You shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt; and you shall be careful to observe these statutes.

As God continued to prepare His people for life in the promised land.  Having been nomadic shepherds, then being held in bondage in Egypt for over 400 years, they were now going to be experiencing something they never had before: sojourners abiding in their land.  They would have land, and its produce, which had been given by God to them.  Would they become greedy with it? They were given seven weeks to harvest it, then they were to give God an offering from with as part of a thanksgiving celebration for His provision.  They were to make sure that those who did not have land of their own: their servants, sojourners, orphans and widows, were included in the celebration: that they had something to eat and something to give as part of the celebration.