Everything that opens the womb, of all flesh which they offer to Yahweh, both of man and animal, shall be yours. Nevertheless, you shall surely redeem the firstborn of man, and you shall redeem the firstborn of unclean animals.
To redeem the firstborn son by paying five shekels to a priest
The cited verse
The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)
אַ֣ךְ ׀ פָּדֹ֣ה תִפְדֶּ֗ה אֵ֚ת בְּכ֣וֹר הָֽאָדָ֔ם
In Maimonides’ words
How Maimonides defines this commandment in his Sefer HaMitzvot — his own words, shown as a primary source.
היא שצונו לפדות בכור אדם שיתן הדמים לכהן, והוא אמרו בכור בניך תתן לי, ובאר לנו הנתינה הזאת איך תהיה והוא שנפדנו מן הכהן וכאלו הוא כבר זכה בו ונקנהו ממנו בחמש סלעים, הוא אמרו אך פדה תפדה את בכור האדם, והמצוה הזאת היא מצות פדיון הבן. ואין הנשים חייבות בה, אמנם הוא ממצות הבן על האב כמו שהתבאר בקדושין (כ"ט). וכבר התבארו דיני מצוה זו כולם בבכורות. ואין הלוים חייבים בה. (ואלה המשפטים, קרח, הלכות בכורים פי"א):
And that is that He commanded us to redeem the firstborn man, that we should give the money to the priest. And that is His saying, "you shall give me your firstborn sons" (Exodus 22:28). And He explained to us how this giving should be: And it is that we redeem him from the priest; and it is as if [the priest] already acquired him, and we purchase him from him for five sela - and that is His saying, "but surely redeem the firstborn man" (Numbers 18:15). And this commandment is the commandment of redeeming the son. And women are not obligated in it - indeed it is one of the commandments of the son that is upon the father, as it is explained in Kiddushin (Kiddushin 29a). And all of the laws of this commandment have already been explained in Bekhorot. However Levites are not obligated in it. (See Parashat Mishpatim; Mishneh Torah, Firstlings.)
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 ritual instruction
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
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
- 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.
Rabbinic aggadah
- Numbers Rabbah 4:8 expanded it homiletically
Philo of Alexandria
- De Specialibus Legibus 1.135-144 rationalized it
Josephus
- Ant. 4.71 affirmed it
The New Testament
- Luke 2:22-24 affirmed it Presentation of Jesus as firstborn at the Temple, though the Lukan text conflates purification and presentation; redemption payment not explicitly mentioned
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.