Thou shalt eat it before the Lord thy God, year by year,.... Which, if understood of male firstlings, as in connection with the preceding verse, only priests might eat of them, being devoted to the Lord; so Jarchi says, to the priest he speaks; but if this respects the Israelites in common, then they must be understood either of female firstlings or second firstlings, which the people voluntarily separated, and which they were not to eat in their own houses: but in the place which the Lord shall choose, which was the city of Jerusalem; see Deu 12:5, thou and thy household; the household of the priest, as Aben Ezra interprets it; but if it designs the same as in Deu 12:17, then the Israelites and their families are meant.