“ ‘If a man dedicates to Yahweh part of the field of his possession, then your valuation shall be according to the seed for it. The sowing of a homer of barley shall be valued at fifty shekels of silver.
To evaluate fields consecrated by vow for the sanctuary
The cited verse
The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)
וְאִם מִשְּׂדֵה אֲחֻזָּתוֹ יַקְדִּישׁ אִישׁ לַיהוָה וְהָיָה עֶרְכְּךָ לְפִי זַרְעוֹ
In Maimonides’ words
How Maimonides defines this commandment in his Sefer HaMitzvot — his own words, shown as a primary source.
היא שצונו בערכי שדות, והוא אמרו ואם משדה אחוזתו יקדיש. ואם אשר לא משדה אחוזתו, וכן בשדה אחוזה והיה ערכך לפי זרעו, ובשדה מקנה והשב לו הכהן את מכסת הערכך. וכבר התבארו משפטי מצוה זו במסכת ערכין. ואל יחשוב חושב שאלו ארבעה מינין מהערכין יהיה ביניהם שתוף יחייב שימנו מצוה אחת, אבל הם ארבע מצות יש לכל אחת דין זולת דין האחרת, ואולם יכללם שם ערך על צד שתוף השם, ואין ראוי שימנו מיני הערכים כלם מצוה אחת, וזה מבואר עם ההשתכלות. (אם בחקותי, הפלאה הלכות ערכין וחרמין פ"ד):
That is that He commanded us about field appraisals. And that is His saying, "If anyone consecrates any field that he holds [...] And if a field that is not of his holdings" (Leviticus 27:16-22). And likewise with a field of his holdings, "its appraisal shall be in accordance with its seed requirement" (Leviticus 27:16); and with a purchased field, "The priest shall compute for him the proportionate appraisal" (Leviticus 27:23). And the regulations of this commandment have already been explained in Tractate Arakhin. And one should not think that these four types of appraisals have a commonality, such that it would be necessary to count them as one commandment. Rather they are four commandments. Each one has a law that is separate from the law of the other. However what is common to them is [only] the name, appraisal; such that they share one name. And with [careful] observation, this is clear. (See Parashat Bechukotai; Mishneh Torah, Appraisals and Devoted Property 4.)
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 case law — "if X, then Y"
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 Not binding
- Conservative Not binding
- Reform Not binding
- Reconstructionist Not binding
- Karaite Not 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.
Philo of Alexandria
- De Specialibus Legibus 2.32-34 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.
- code of hammurabi restrictions on alienation of institutionally-granted land (ilkum/feudal-service fields); structural analogy on balancing institutional claims against individual property rights, not a direct votive-dedication/redemption parallel Relationship to the parallel: parallel with divergence §§36-41 Roth, Law Collections 2nd ed. (1997)
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.