“Everything that opens the womb of all flesh that they offer to Yahweh, both of man and animal.” The opening of the womb, the firstborn, refers to males only, not females. this is more clearly presented in Exodus 13 (cp. Exod. 13:2, 12). The clean animals were sacrificed and the unclean animals were redeemed or killed, and the baby boys were redeemed.

“redeem, yes, redeem.” This is the figure of speech polyptoton, where the word “redeem” is repeated twice in the Hebrew text, but the two occurrences are inflected differently. The double use of “redeem” is for emphasis, which some translations express by saying something such as, “You shall surely redeem.”

[For more on the use of polyptoton, and the translation of it, see commentary on Genesis 2:16.]