Why God Said "Don’t Harvest It All" (Deuteronomy’s Surprising Rule) | 66 Verses to Explain the Bible

Deuteronomy 24 teaches us that Christians should prioritize caring for the vulnerable over maximizing profits. Just as God rescued us when we were helpless, we are called to extend compassion to those in need, even when it costs us something.

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Esau: Welcome to 66 Verses That Explain the Bible. I'm Esau McCaulley, host of The Esau McCaulley Podcast. What we do in this series is choose one passage from every book of the Bible and talk about what that passage reveals about God and His purposes for the world.

Today, we are in the book of Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy is the last of what is often known as the Torah, or the Law, or the Five Books of Moses. In the narrative of Scripture, Deuteronomy takes place after Israel has spent 40 years in the wilderness. Most of the generation who witnessed the Exodus and God’s mighty deliverance are now dead. Now, the people of Israel are on the verge of entering the Promised Land. They’re about to step into a new reality. Before they do, within the context of Deuteronomy, God has Moses give the Law again—He retells the same set of laws and issues that the first generation faced when they left Egypt.

What Deuteronomy does is prepare the people for life in the land that God is giving them. Yes, God has rescued them. He has brought them out of slavery. But He has also given them a vision—a picture of how to live in freedom.

One of the interesting lessons from Deuteronomy, before we even get to today’s verse, is this: there is a difference between simply being free—being liberated from an oppressive context—and knowing how to live life before God. As Christians and believers, we need both: We need liberation from sin, liberation from oppressive structures, and a vision of life with God.

The passage I want to highlight today focuses on one of the practices God commanded His people to follow once they entered the Promised Land. The Promised Land was meant to be a place of material abundance. Everyone was supposed to have enough to eat. If you read the stories and promises made to Abraham, and the promises in Exodus, the people were going to enter a land flowing with milk and honey. There would be food and plenty—everything was going to feel like a barbecue or a cookout. But even in this abundant land, not everyone would automatically share in that abundance.

Here’s the passage from Deuteronomy 24:19 and following:

"When you are harvesting in your field and you overlook a sheaf, do not go back to get it. Leave it for the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow, so that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands.

When you beat your olive trees, do not go over the branches a second time. Leave what remains for the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow.

When you harvest the grapes in your vineyard, do not go over the vines again. Leave what remains for the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow.

Remember that you were slaves in Egypt. That is why I command you to do this."

One key lesson here is that even in a land of abundance, there will always be those who are left out of that abundance. What are the people of God supposed to do in this context?Moses wants the people to understand that their goal is not to maximize profits. If they were harvesting and thought, “Oh, here’s some more grapes I can pick up. Here’s more grain I can gather. I can maximize my resources for myself and my family”—that is not the mindset God wants.

Instead, through this passage, God is saying: your job is not to maximize things for yourself, but to leave margin—to practice intentional “inefficiency”—for the sake of those who are suffering. Specifically, God highlights the foreigner (who lacks relatives or a community to care for them), the fatherless, and the widow (those who once had someone to care for them but now, through tragedy, do not).

Why should the people who now live in the Promised Land have compassion for those in different, difficult circumstances? Because God says:"Remember that you were slaves in Egypt." In other words: Israel’s past experience of oppression was supposed to create a deep sense of empathy for the suffering of others.

Now, by the time of this narrative, there was actually no one alive who directly remembered the period of slavery in Egypt. That generation had passed away. But God wanted the story of deliverance to remain central to their identity. At the very foundation of being God’s people is this truth: We know what it is to suffer. And because of that, when we see suffering, it should remind us of our own need for rescue and God’s compassion toward us.

For Christians, the principle is the same.Every single person who becomes a child of God has been rescued—we had no resources to save ourselves. God saw us helpless and in need, and He came to rescue us. When we reflect on God’s rescue of us, it should stir in us empathy for those who need rescue today—both materially and spiritually.

So, when we encounter people in need, we should not think:"They deserve this."Or, “They’re not part of my family, so I’m not responsible for them.” Instead, we should see them as people in need of the same grace we ourselves have received.

Now, some might argue: “This is part of the Torah. Christians aren’t under the Law. We don’t have to follow these exact gleaning rules.” That may be true in a literal sense. But consider this:Out of all the ways God could have chosen to form a people, He chose to form them through liberation from slavery—and He used that liberation as the basis for their ethical reasoning. So I believe it is fully appropriate to say that this story is also part of our story as Christians. The scriptural theme of God’s liberating work leading to empathy is our spiritual inheritance.

When we encounter those who are suffering, we reflect God’s compassion—not by doing what is most efficient or self-serving, but by acting in ways that benefit others, even at a cost to ourselves.

That has been 66 Verses That Explain the Bible—today, the book of Deuteronomy.Thank you for listening.