“Sanctify to me all the firstborn, whatever opens the womb among the children of Israel, both of man and of animal. It is mine.”
To sanctify the firstborn male of every clean animal for God
The cited verse
The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)
קַדֶּשׁ־לִי כָל־בְּכוֹר פֶּטֶר כָּל־רֶחֶם בִּבְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל בָּאָדָם וּבַבְּהֵמָה לִי הוּא
In Maimonides’ words
How Maimonides defines this commandment in his Sefer HaMitzvot — his own words, shown as a primary source.
היא שצונו לקדש בכורות כלומר להפרישם ולהבדילם למה שראוי שיעשה בהם, והוא אמרו יתברך קדש לי כל בכור. ומפורש בתורה שזאת הבהמה היא בקר וצאן ומין חמור לבד. וכבר נכפל הצווי בבכור בהמה טהורה, והוא המצוה שאנחנו מדברים בה עתה ואמר כל הבכור אשר יולד וגו'. ודין זה של בכור בהמה טהורה שיביאנו לכהנים ויקריבו חלבה ודמה ויאבלו שאר בשרה. וכבר התבארו משפטי מצוה זו על השלמות במסכת בכורות. והתבאר בסוף מסכת חלה (פרק ד') שמצוה זו אינה נוהגת אלא בארץ. ולשון ספרי יכול יהא אדם מעלה בכורות מחוצה לארץ, תלמוד לומר ואכלת לפני ה' אלהיך מעשר דגנך ממקום שאתה מביא דגן אתה מביא בכורות. הנה התבאר שמצוה זו אינה נוהגת אלא בארץ בין שהיה בית המקדש קיים בין שלא היה כמו שהוא עתה בזמננו זה, כמו מעשר דגן. (בא אל פרעה, ראה, הלכות בכורות פ"א):
That is that He commanded us to consecrate firstborn animals - meaning, to separate and designate them for what is appropriate for one to do with them. And that is His, may He be blessed, saying, "Consecrate to Me every firstborn" (Exodus 13:2). And it is explained in the Torah that these animals are only cattle, sheep and the species of donkeys. And this command about the firstborn pure animal was already repeated - and that is the commandment that we are speaking about now - when He said, "Every firstborn that is born, etc." (Deuteronomy 15:19). And this law of the firstborn pure animal is that they bring it to the priest, he offers its fat and its blood, and they eat the rest of it in Jerusalem. And the regulations of this commandment have already been completely explained in Tractate Bekhorot. And at the end of Tractate Challah (Mishnah Challah 4), it is explained that this commandment is only practiced in the Land. And the language of the [Sifrei] (Sifrei Devarim 106:2) is, "I might think that one brings the firstborn from outside of the Land (to be sacrificed). [Hence] we learn to say, 'And you shall eat before the Lord, your God [...] the tithe of your grain [… and the firstborn]' (Deuteronomy 14:23). From the place where you bring the grain, you bring the firstborn." Behold it has been made clear to you that that this commandment is only practiced in the Land - whether the Temple is in existence or whether it is not in existence, like it is [not in existence] now in our times - like the tithe of grain. (See Parashat Bo, Re'eh; Mishneh Torah, Firstlings 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 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.
- Requires a standing Temple
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 Kept as an ethical principle
- 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.
Rabbinic aggadah
- Numbers Rabbah 4:8 expanded it homiletically
Philo of Alexandria
- De Specialibus Legibus 1.135 rationalized it
Josephus
- Ant. 4.70-71 affirmed it
The New Testament
- Luke 2:23 The catalog describes this reception as: cited Scriptural fulfillment-citation of the firstborn-opening-the-womb rule (cf. Exod 13:2/12) at Jesus' presentation; cited as Scripture rather than legislatively reenacted
- Colossians 1:15 The catalog describes this reception as: typologized Christ as 'firstborn of all creation' draws typologically on the firstborn-belongs-to-the-deity motif; Pauline authorship contested in critical scholarship
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.