Footnote

a In effect, such a man would be saying to his parents: ‘As far as you are concerned, my property is “corban,” a gift dedicated to God, and you cannot use it or benefit from it in any way.’ By saying the word “corban,” a person did not necessarily dedicate his property to God. Usually the word meant that he was merely making it like a gift dedicated to God, so that the person or persons to whom he spoke might not use it. In The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, Alfred Edersheim writes: “It cannot be denied that such vows, in regard to parents, would be binding, and that they were actually made.”