You shall give him the first fruits of your grain, of your new wine, and of your oil, and the first of the fleece of your sheep.
To set apart terumah (the priest's portion) from one's produce
The cited verse
The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)
רֵאשִׁית דְּגָנְךָ תִּירֹשְׁךָ וְיִצְהָרֶךָ וְרֵאשִׁית גֵּז צֹאנְךָ תִּתֶּן־לּוֹ
In Maimonides’ words
How Maimonides defines this commandment in his Sefer HaMitzvot — his own words, shown as a primary source.
היא שצונו להוציא תרומה גדולה. והוא אמרו יתברך ראשית דגנך תתן לו. ומצוה זו אינה נוהגת מן התורה אלא בארץ ישראל. וכבר התבארו משפטי מצוה זו במסכת תרומה. (שופטים ושוטרים, הלכות תרומה פ"ב):
And that is that He commanded us to extract the great (priestly) tithe (terumah gedolah). And that is His, may He be blessed, saying, "The first portion of your grain [...] are you to give him" (Deuteronomy 18:4). But this commandment is only practiced in the Land of Israel. And the regulations of this commandment have already been explained in Tractate Terumah. (See Parashat Shoftim; Mishneh Torah, Heave Offerings 2.)
Hebrew: Sefer HaMitzvot, Warsaw 1883 (public domain). English: Sefaria Edition, trans. Rabbi Francis Nataf, 2021 (CC0). Via Sefaria; translator’s footnotes omitted.
Literary form: a flat, unconditional command
Applicability
How the catalog describes where and when this commandment applies. These are independent descriptions, not a verdict on which laws still count.
- Recorded as practiced today
- Binding in the land of Israel
Classical halakhic consequences
The consequences the classical halakhah attaches to this commandment, grouped by who imposes them. Where a category has none recorded, that absence is itself meaningful.
Imposed by a court
No court-imposed penalty is recorded.
At the hands of Heaven
No divinely-imposed consequence is recorded.
Ritual remedy
No ritual remedy is recorded.
How the streams of Judaism treat this commandment
The streams of Judaism read the same commandment differently — an ongoing plurality, not a ranking. Each position below is reported as the catalog records it; none is presented as the correct one.
- Orthodox Binding
- Conservative Binding, with modification
- Reform Not binding
- Reconstructionist Not binding
- Karaite Contested
24 of 613 commandments have been examined in depth so far — this one is queued.
How later traditions received this commandment
How later traditions read or reworked this commandment, each attributed to its own voice. The catalog’s own classification of each reception is shown as it records it, never adopted as GEBible’s.
Qumran (the Dead Sea Scrolls)
- 4QMMT B (section on tithes and priestly gifts; specific line attribution to terumah uncertain due to composite reconstruction of the halakhic letter) read it more strictly
- 11QTemple (11Q19) 60:6-9 reinterpreted it
Rabbinic aggadah
- Numbers Rabbah 12:4 expanded it homiletically
Philo of Alexandria
- De Specialibus Legibus 1.131-144 rationalized it treats priestly portions and firstfruits within the broader priestly-dues framework
Josephus
- Antiquities 4.69-75 affirmed it paraphrastic restatement of priestly-dues legislation rather than independent legal affirmation
The New Testament
- 1 Corinthians 9:13-14 reinterpreted it Paul invokes the principle that cultic ministers live from the offerings, applied to gospel preachers
- Matthew 23:23 affirmed it Tithing of produce affirmed as not to be neglected, though framed critically; concerns ma'aser (tithe) generally and does not address terumah specifically — affirmation is by analogy only.
Where this commandment meets modern human-rights frameworks
One modern normative lens, attributed to it — not GEBible’s assessment. Each row names the framework it measures against and the catalog’s own classification of the relation.
This framework catalogues tensions; it records agreement in only one of its entries. The near-total tension rate is the shape of the instrument, not a finding.
No tension with the catalogued modern frameworks is recorded here.