Endnote 5 – Where the Temple Tax Was Buried

It is true that the heave offering was nor normally subject to redemption. It had to be committed to burial either permanently or for temporary safeguarding pending rehabilitation of a Jewish Jerusalem. It was the custom to transport the terumah (Nehemiah 10:38–39) and the Second Tithe (Malachi 3:10) to the Temple; after the destruction, people apparently felt a voluntary need to preserve the terumah, or at least its counter-value, for delivery to the Temple in Jerusalem after its rebuilding. There are other special circumstances in which this offering might have been exchanged for money under the law. (See Manfred R. Lehmann, “Identification of the Copper Scroll Based on Its Technical Terms,” Revue de Qumran 17/4 [1964], pp. 97–105, esp. p. 101.)