You shall surely tithe all the increase of your seed, that which comes out of the field year by year.
To set apart the second tithe (maaser sheni) and eat it in Jerusalem
The cited verse
The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)
עַשֵּׂר תְּעַשֵּׂר אֵת כָּל־תְּבוּאַת זַרְעֶךָ הַיֹּצֵא הַשָּׂדֶה שָׁנָה שָׁנָה
In Maimonides’ words
How Maimonides defines this commandment in his Sefer HaMitzvot — his own words, shown as a primary source.
היא שצונו להוציא מעשר שני. והוא אמרו עשר תעשר וגו' מלמד שאין מעשרין משנה לחברתה אין לי אלא מעשר שני שבו דבר הכתוב מנין לרבות שאר מעשרות תלמוד לומר עשר תעשר. ולשון התורה להיות זה המעשר עולה לירושלים ושם יאכלוהו בעליו. וכבר קדם לנו זה (מ"ע קי"ט). וכבר דקדק הכתוב במצוה זו אם אי אפשר להביאו לרוחק הדרך יפדה אותו ויעלה דמיו לבית הבחירה ויוציאוהו שם במזון לבד, והוא אמרו וכי ירחק ממך המקום וגו'. וכבר בא לשון התורה גם כן בדין מצוה זו שאם פדאו לעצמו יוסיף חומש, והוא אמרו ואם גאול יגאל איש ממעשרו וגו'. וכבר התבארו משפטי מצוה זו כלם במסכת מעשר שני, והוא גם כן אינו חובה אלא לפירות ארץ ישראל מן התורה, ולא יאכל זה המעשר אלא בפני הבית. ולשון ספרי מקיש אכילת בכור למעשר שני, מה בכור אינו נאכל אלא בפני הבית כך מעשר אינו נאכל אלא בפני הבית. (ראה אנכי, הלכות מעשר שני פ"א):
That is that He commanded us to extract the second tithe. And that is His saying, "You shall surely set aside [a tithe of all the yield of your sowing that is brought from the field every year" (Deuteronomy 14:22). And the language of the Sifrei (Sifrei Devarim 105:1-2) is, "'You shall surely set aside' - teaches that the tithe is not to be taken from one year for another. This tells me only of the second tithe, of which Scripture speaks [here]. From where [do we know] to include other tithes? [Hence] we learn to say, 'You shall surely set aside.'" And the language of the Torah is that this tithe be brought up to Jerusalem and that its owners eat it there; and this was already [discussed] earlier (Sefer HaMitzvot, Positive Commandments 119). And Scripture already specified about this commandment, that if it is impossible for him to bring it - due to the far distance - he redeems it, brings up its money to the Chosen [Temple] and spends it there exclusively for food. And that is His saying, "should the place be too far from you, etc." (Deuteronomy 14:24). And the language of the Torah also already appeared about the law of this commandment - that if he redeemed it for himself, he adds a fifth. And that is His saying, "And if a man will at all redeem of his tithes, [he shall add to it the fifth part of it]" (Leviticus 27:31). And the regulations of this commandment have all already been explained in Tractate Masser Sheni. And it too is only an obligation with the produce of the Land of Israel by Torah law. And this tithe is only eaten in the presence of the Temple; and the language of the Sifrei (Sifrei Devarim 106:4) compares the eating of the firstborn animals to the second tithe, "Just as firstborn animals are eaten only in the presence of the Temple, so too is [the second] tithe eaten only in the presence of the Temple." (See Parashat Reeh; Mishneh Torah, Second Tithes and Fourth Year's Fruit 1.)
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 command
Applicability
How the catalog describes where and when this commandment applies. These are independent descriptions, not a verdict on which laws still count.
- Requires a standing Temple
- 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, with modification
- Conservative Not binding
- Reform Not binding
- Reconstructionist Not binding
- Karaite Binding
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)
- 11QT 43:12-16 reinterpreted it
Philo of Alexandria
- De Specialibus Legibus 1.141-144 rationalized it
Josephus
- Ant. 4.205 rationalized it
Beside the older legal codes of its world
The commandment set beside the ancient Near-Eastern legal collections scholars compare it to — a descriptive comparison, not a claim of dependence.
- neo babylonian temple archives temple tithe as straightforward revenue transfer Relationship to the parallel: polemical contrast eššû (temple-tithe) records Jursa, Aspects of the Economic History of Babylonia (2010), pp. 59-67
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.