Leviticus 19:9-10 And when ye reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not wholly reap the corners of thy field, neither shalt thou gather the gleanings of thy harvest. And thou shalt not glean thy vineyard, neither shalt thou gather every grape of thy vineyard; thou shalt leave them for the poor and stranger: I am the Lord your God.

When I left you last I had hoped to hear those things which you might have gleaned from 1 Samuel chapter 8 which I had left untouched. It has been a week and nothing has been offered. Rather than returning to 1 Samuel 8, I thought it best to refer to the text upon which I derived my inspiration.

Did you know the root understanding of to glean is Arabic in context? It means to drink again and again, to satisfy ones thirst. Another implication is to return to those wounded in battle and kill them where they lay. Putting those two thoughts together one might see that drinking a well dry would rob anyone who comes to the well from receiving life sustaining water.

God’s instruction in our opening verse is about offering life to the poor and to the stranger. During the harvest, nothing was to be removed from the ground nor from the corners. The primary issue at hand for those two candidates was; number one, that they be present in order to obtain the gleaning while it was suitable to consume and number two that they do the work themselves.

While I was sick I thought of writing some of those items that you could have gleaned. I decided not to do that and offer this instead. The Lord said leave it lay, make them gather it for themselves.

In Exodus 16:16 the Lord commanded every man to gather the bread of life for himself, his wife and children. Who am I to countermand the Lord’s word?

Gather it for your own life.