“ ‘Notwithstanding, no devoted thing that a man devotes to Yahweh of all that he has, whether of man or animal, or of the field of his possession, shall be sold or redeemed. Everything that is permanently devoted is most holy to Yahweh.
To devote the property of one who is under the ban (cherem) as prescribed
The cited verse
The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)
אַךְ כָּל־חֵרֶם אֲשֶׁר יַחֲרִם אִישׁ לַיהוָה מִכָּל־אֲשֶׁר־לוֹ מֵאָדָם וּבְהֵמָה וּמִשְּׂדֵה אֲחֻזָּתוֹ לֹא יִמָּכֵר וְלֹא יִגָּאֵל כָּל־חֵרֶם קֹדֶשׁ־קָדָשִׁים הוּא לַיהוָה
In Maimonides’ words
How Maimonides defines this commandment in his Sefer HaMitzvot — his own words, shown as a primary source.
היא שצונו לדון בדיני חרמים. והוא כל מי שהחרים דבר ממה שיש לו ואמר הרי זה חרם ינתן הדבר ההוא לכהן אלא אם כן באר שזה יהיה לבדק הבית. כי סתם חרמים לכהנים הוא. והוא אמרו יתעלה אך כל חרם אשר יחרם מן האדם וגו'. ורמז לנו על היות סתם חרמים לכהנים נאמר כשדה החרם לכהן תהיה. וכבר התבארו משפטי מצוה זו בפרק שמיני מערכין ופרק ראשון מנדרים. (אם בחקותי, הפלאה הלכות ערכין פ"ו):
That is that He commanded us to administer the laws of dedications. And that is that when anyone dedicates something of his and says, "This is dedicated," that thing is given to a priest - though if he specified that it would be for Temple upeep, it will be for Temple upkeep - since undifferentiated dedications are for the priests. And that is His, may He be exalted, saying, "However, any dedication that a man will dedicate, etc." (Leviticus 27:28). And the hint to us about undifferentiated dedications being for the priests, is its being stated (Leviticus 27:21), "like a field that was dedicated, it shall belong to the priest." And the regulations of this commandment have already been explained in the eighth chapter of Arakhin and the first chapter of Nedarim. (See Parashat Bechukotai; Mishneh Torah, Appraisals and Devoted Property 6.)
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.
No applicability flags are recorded for this commandment.
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 As the catalog records it: theoretically binding inoperative
- Conservative Not binding
- Reform Not binding
- Reconstructionist Not binding
- Karaite Position not stated
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)
- CD 16:13-15 The catalog describes this reception as: restrictive regulation
- 11QTa (Temple Scroll) 60:3-4 The catalog describes this reception as: priestly allocation regulation
Rabbinic aggadah
- Vayikra Rabbah 37:2 expanded it homiletically
Philo of Alexandria
- De Specialibus Legibus 1.248-254 rationalized it
Josephus
- Antiquities 4.73 rationalized it
The New Testament
- Mark 7:11 The catalog describes this reception as: cognate tradition critique the korban/qorban vow-dedication tradition critiqued as a device to evade filial obligation; cognate votive-dedication practice rather than cherem proper
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 regulations governing the nadītu and šugītu temple-dedicated women, whose property is irrevocably assigned to temple or palace oversight and may not be alienated by the woman or her family — a structural parallel to votive cherem where property is permanently removed from ordinary ownership Relationship to the parallel: shared theme §§178-182 Roth, Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor, 2nd ed. (Scholars Press, 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.