A FREEWILL OFFERING — a gift given because the giver chose to, as distinct from anything owed or commanded; the root nadav means to volunteer. It runs through the return literature: the neighbours' contributions here (1:4, 6), the householders' gifts at the foundation, and — in the same idiom — the people who 'freely offered themselves' for the work. ⭐ Deuteronomy 23:24 (already on these pages) makes the noun carry an argument: what goes out of your lips you must do, as you have vowed to Jehovah your God, a nedavah — the offering you were entirely free not to promise is the one you are now bound to bring. The freedom is in the making; there is none in the keeping. → first discussed at Ezra 1:4