What does it mean to tithe mint, dill, and cumin (Matthew 23:23)?

In Matthew 23:23–24, Jesus taught, "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy, and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel." Jesus used the Pharisees’ precise tithing of tiny spices like mint, dill, and cumin to show that they wrongly focused on small outward acts of obedience. At the same time, they neglected the far more important matters of justice, mercy, and faithfulness.

In the Mosaic Law, God commanded the Israelites to give a tenth of nearly everything they produced, including crops, herbs, and spices. This tithe supported the Levitical priesthood. Leviticus 27:30 states that a tenth of everything from the land belongs to the Lord and is holy to Him. Israel lived in a covenant relationship with God.

At Mount Sinai, God made His expectations clear. He promised to bless Israel for obedience and warned of punishment for disobedience. Deuteronomy 28 describes both the blessings and the consequences tied to Israel's faithfulness to God's Law. When Israel broke the covenant, God used Assyria and Babylon as instruments of judgment, as described in 2 Kings 17 and 25. The Israelites spent seventy years in exile in Babylon. That experience profoundly shaped later Jewish attitudes toward obedience to the Law.

When Jesus came to earth about 400 years after the Babylonian exile, the Jewish religious leaders had fallen into the opposite error. The suffering of the exile had led many Jews to take God's Law very seriously and to avoid idolatry. As a result, the Pharisees followed the Law of Moses in careful detail and also observed rabbinic teachings on how to apply unclear parts of Leviticus and Deuteronomy. They taught that people should tithe a tenth of everything, including the smallest herbs and spices. Some may have counted out individual dill seeds to ensure they gave the correct amount.

Jesus, however, rebuked the religious leaders for ignoring what He called "the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy, and faithfulness" (Matthew 23:23–24). He did not tell them to stop tithing. Tithing was a good and biblical practice. But it was less important than doing justice, showing mercy, and remaining faithful to God. The leaders were so focused on outward obedience that they missed the heart of God's Law. In the following verse, Jesus also condemned them for appearing righteous on the outside while neglecting the condition of their hearts (Matthew 23:25).

This raises an important question about how believers today should apply Jesus’ words. In Matthew 23, Jesus gave seven warnings to the Jewish religious leaders for misleading the people. The Pharisees and teachers of the Law kept the tithing requirements down to the smallest detail, yet their hearts were far from God. Through His death and resurrection, Jesus fulfilled the Old Testament Law. Because of this, Christians are not bound by the Old Testament's specific commands about tithing or the sacrificial system.

In 2 Corinthians 8, the apostle Paul instructed the church about giving. He taught that Christians should give their money, time, and resources freely, cheerfully, and willingly. God is more concerned with the attitude of the heart than with the size of the gift. Christians are not required to calculate a precise ten percent and give it away. Instead, they are called to give generously, according to their ability, to those in need. Jesus' teaching about tithing mint, dill, and cumin is a warning that a person can obey God's Law in great detail and still miss Him entirely. Christians should take that warning seriously.