Deuteronomy 18:4

WEB

The first fruits of your grain, of your new wine, and of your oil, and the first of the fleece of your sheep, you shall give him.

KJV

The firstfruit also of thy corn, of thy wine, and of thine oil, and the first of the fleece of thy sheep, shalt thou give him.

Commentary

The firstfruit also of thy corn, and of thy wine, and of thy oil,.... This is the "terumah", or heave offering, the offering of the firstfruits; what the measure or quantity was is not declared, but is fixed by the Jews; See Gill on Exo 22:29 , and the first of the fleece of thy sheep shall thou give him: concerning which in the Misnah (r) it is said, the first of the fleece is used in the land and without t he land, of which they give the weight of five shekels in Judea, which are ten shekels in Galilee; and they give white wool, and not defiled, enough to make of it a little garment. He that buys a fleece of the sheep of a Gentile, he is free from the first of the fleece; but if he buys it of his neighbour, if he leaves any of it, the seller is bound, if none the buyer is bound; if there are two sorts, russet and white, and he sells the russet but not the white, the males but not the females, everyone gives for himself. It may be observed in this account, that as much wool was to be given as would make a small garment; enough, says one of the commentators (s), to make a little garment to minister in; and the least garment fit for a priest to minister in is a girdle. Jarchi's paraphrase of it is,"when thou shearest thy flock every year, give the first of it to the priest; it does not determine the quantity, but our Rabbins fix it to the sixtieth part;''with which agrees the observation of another writer (t), that there is no quantity fixed for the first of the fleece from the law, but from the words of the Scribes it must not be less than the sixtieth part. There is no obligation to the first of the fleece until five sheep are shorn, and the fleece of everyone of the five must not be less than twelve shekels' weight; but if there is one fleece of them less than twelve shekels, though the five fleeces are more than sixty shekels, lo, this is free; so that, as Maimonides (u) says, the first of the fleece is not less than the weight of a shekel. (r) Cholin, c. 11. sect. 1, 2. (s) Bartenora in ib. (t) Ibid. (u) In Misn. ib.