And you shall respond and say before Hashem your God: “An Aramean sought to destroy my father, and he went down to Egypt and sojourned there, few in number; and there he became a nation, great, mighty, and numerous.”
English: “And they require confession (vidui). As it is written: ‘And you shall respond and say before Hashem your God.’ So far [this is said] of maaser. Whence for bikkurim? As Rabbi Yaakov bar Acha said in the name of Rabbi Elazar: the higher holiness is implied.”
In the Yerushalmi: The Mishnah states that both maaser sheni and bikkurim require vidui (unlike terumah alone). The Gemara derives the requirement for bikkurim from the opening words of the mikra bikkurim itself — “ve’anisa ve’amarta lifnei Hashem.” The verbal declaration is therefore not an optional flourish but an integral component of the mitzvah of bringing the first fruits.
Type of Learning
Custom (diyuk from the mandatory language of speech before Hashem; parallel to the explicit vidui of maaser).
What Is Learned
Bringing bikkurim is incomplete without the spoken declaration. The words “and you shall respond and say before Hashem” establish that the mikra bikkurim is an obligatory part of the mitzvah.