Cutting themselves was a practice that the Canaanites followed, hence the prohibition against doing this. Once again we see the importance of not following the ways of the nations they were dispossessing.
Next there is a repeat of earlier food laws. There does not seem to be any consensus on the precise reasons for the food laws. One thing to note is that "unclean" does not equal "sinful". For see that the eagle is one of the birds they were not allowed to eat, yet in Isaiah 40 it speaks of them soaring on wings like eagles. So eagle is used as a positive symbol there.
The people were to give a tithe of all their crops to the Lord. Taken together with Numbers 18:21-29 it seems that the tithe was given for the Levites to eat. At the harvest time everyone ate some of it, but the rest was set aside for the Levites. So it was only a small fraction that the people as a whole ate.
The reason they were to give the tithe was to teach them to revere the Lord, ie to remind them that it is the Lord who provides all that we have. Tithing is still a good discipline to follow, for it strikes at a fundamental truth. Who is the one who gives us life and all that we need? It it just chance, just us, just the way the universe is? Or are we created and cared for by the Lord? Moreover, just as the tithe then provided for the Levites who served the Lord, it is through the church that God builds His kingdom in the world today. So it is good for us to give. The tithe was also used to provide for the poor (the fatherless and widows).
See the end result, "so that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands" (v29). Tithing is an act of faith, and putting faith in God is how we receive the life of God.
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