You must not offer to Yahweh that which has its testicles bruised, crushed, broken, or cut. You must not do this in your land.
Not to sprinkle the blood of a blemished animal on the altar
The cited verse
The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)
וּמָע֤וּךְ וְכָתוּת֙ וְנָת֣וּק וְכָר֔וּת לֹ֥א תַקְרִ֖יבוּ לַֽיהוָ֑ה
In Maimonides’ words
How Maimonides defines this commandment in his Sefer HaMitzvot — his own words, shown as a primary source.
שהזהירנו מזרוק דם בעלי מומין לגבי המזבח. והוא אמרו יתברך לא תקריבו לה', ובאה הקבלה שזה הלאו יהיה מקבלת הדם שהרי אמרו בספרי לא תקריבו לה' משום בל תקבל את הדם. ובגמרא תמורה (דף ז') אמר לת"ק האי לא תקריבו ל"ל מבעי ליה לזריקת דמים והא נפקא ליה מעל המזבח ר"ל מאמרו ואשה לא תתנו יורה שכל מה שינתן על גבי המזבח לא יהיה בו מום והשיב אורחיה דקרא הכי משתעי, כלומר שזה הלאו שהוא ואשה לא תתנו מהם בא בהקטר אימורין ולא תקח ראיה דאמר המזבח כי לא יסודר הדבור אלא בו איך היה אומר ואשה לא תתנו מהם לבד זה לא ישלם בו דבור. הנה כבר התבאר שכל מה שקדם שאמר לא תקריבו לה' אזהרה מזריקת הדם. (שם, שם):
That He prohibited us from sprinkling the blood of animals with blemishes on top of the altar. And that is His, may He be blessed, saying, "you shall not offer to the Lord" (Leviticus 22:24). And the tradition came [to say] that this negative commandment would be [about the sprinkling of the blood, (although there is another opinion that it is)] from the receiving of the blood. For they said in the [Sifra] (Sifra, Emor, Chapter 7:10), "'You shall not offer to the Lord' - is on account of, 'do not receive the blood.' But in the Gemara, Temurah (Temurah 7a), [they] said, "According to the first teacher, why do I need, 'you shall not offer?' He requires it for sprinkling the blood. But behold, he derives this from, 'upon the altar' (Leviticus 22:22)!'" This means to say from His saying, "and as a fire-offering you shall not place," it indicates that anything that is placed on the altar should not have a blemish. And it answered, "It is the manner of the verse, that it speaks like this." Meaning, that this negative statement - "and as a fire-offering you shall not place of them" - is coming about the burning of the innards. And you should not take it as a proof [about the blood], that He said, "the altar." As the statement could only be made orderly with it - how [else] would He say [it]: "and as a fire-offering you shall not place of them," by itself? Behold it has been explained from everything above that His saying, "you shall not offer to the Lord," is a prohibition for the sprinkling of the blood. (See Parashat Emor; Mishneh Torah, Things Forbidden on the Altar 1.)
Hebrew: Sefer HaMitzvot, Warsaw 1883 (public domain). English: Sefaria Edition, trans. Rabbi Francis Nataf, 2021 (CC0). Via Sefaria; translator’s footnotes omitted.
Literary form: a prohibition
Applicability
How the catalog describes where and when this commandment applies. These are independent descriptions, not a verdict on which laws still count.
- Requires a standing Temple
Classical halakhic consequences
The consequences the classical halakhah attaches to this commandment, grouped by who imposes them. Where a category has none recorded, that absence is itself meaningful.
Imposed by a court
- Lashes (malkot)
At the hands of Heaven
No divinely-imposed consequence is recorded.
Ritual remedy
No ritual remedy is recorded.
How the streams of Judaism treat this commandment
The streams of Judaism read the same commandment differently — an ongoing plurality, not a ranking. Each position below is reported as the catalog records it; none is presented as the correct one.
- Orthodox Binding
- Conservative Kept as an ethical principle
- Reform Not binding
- Reconstructionist Not binding
- Karaite Not binding
24 of 613 commandments have been examined in depth so far — this one is queued.
How later traditions received this commandment
How later traditions read or reworked this commandment, each attributed to its own voice. The catalog’s own classification of each reception is shown as it records it, never adopted as GEBible’s.
Qumran (the Dead Sea Scrolls)
- 11QTa (Temple Scroll) col. 52 read it more strictly
Rabbinic aggadah
- Leviticus Rabbah 27:11 expanded it homiletically
Philo of Alexandria
- De Specialibus Legibus 1.166-167 (cf. the perfection-of-victim discussion in the surrounding sacrificial treatment) read it allegorically
Josephus
- Antiquities 3.226-228 The catalog describes this reception as: paraphrastic restatement
The New Testament
- Hebrews 9:13-14 read it spiritually Contrasts the blood of sacrificial animals with the 'unblemished' blood of Christ; the perfection requirement is allegorized onto a christological offering.
- 1 Peter 1:19 read it spiritually Describes Christ as a lamb 'without blemish or spot' (amōmou kai aspilou), drawing on the LXX blemish-disqualification vocabulary.
The Church Fathers
- Origen, Homilies on Leviticus 1.4-5 read it allegorically
Where this commandment meets modern human-rights frameworks
One modern normative lens, attributed to it — not GEBible’s assessment. Each row names the framework it measures against and the catalog’s own classification of the relation.
This framework catalogues tensions; it records agreement in only one of its entries. The near-total tension rate is the shape of the instrument, not a finding.
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general principle
This framework classifies the relation as an incompatible method.
The commandment prescribes flogging (malkot, thirty-nine lashes) as the court-imposed sanction for sprinkling the blood of a blemished animal on the altar; modern human-rights norms categorically prohibit judicially administered corporal punishment as degrading treatment.
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Article 7
This framework classifies the relation as a direct contradiction.
ICCPR Article 7 prohibits cruel, inhuman, or degrading punishment; the malkot sanction prescribed for this offense is incompatible with that prohibition as interpreted by the Human Rights Committee.
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general principle
This framework classifies the relation as abrogated in practice.
Rabbinic tradition holds that criminal Sanhedrin jurisdiction lapsed with the destruction of the Second Temple; the offense is also temple-dependent, rendering the sanction doubly inoperative — both institutionally and substantively — in any post-70 CE context.