It must be eaten in one house. You shall not carry any of the meat outside of the house. Do not break any of its bones.
Not to break any bone of the Passover offering
The cited verse
The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)
וְעֶצֶם לֹא תִשְׁבְּרוּ־בוֹ
In Maimonides’ words
How Maimonides defines this commandment in his Sefer HaMitzvot — his own words, shown as a primary source.
הזהירנו משבור עצם מעצמות קרבן הפסח. והוא אמרו ועצם לא תשברו בו ומי ששבר בו עצם לוקה. (בא אל פרעה, קרבן פסח פ"י):
He prohibited us from breaking one of the bones of the Pesach-offering. And that is his saying, "neither shall you break a bone of it" (Exodus 12:46). And one who breaks one of its bones is lashed. (See Parashat Bo; Mishneh Torah, Paschal Offering 10.)
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, with modification
- Conservative Not binding
- Reform Not binding
- Reconstructionist Not binding
- Karaite Binding, with modification
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.
The New Testament
- John 19:36 reinterpreted it Cites a 'not a bone shall be broken' formula typologically to identify Jesus as the Passover lamb; the scriptural source is disputed among Exod 12:46, Num 9:12, and Ps 34:21
The Church Fathers
- Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho 40 reinterpreted it Develops the paschal-lamb typology of the crucifixion, explicitly invoking the roasting and wholeness imagery of the Passover lamb within the broader Passover typology
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 malkot for breaking a bone of the Passover offering; post-Enlightenment penal norms reject corporal punishment as a state sanction for ritual procedural infractions.
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Article 7
This framework classifies the relation as a direct contradiction.
Article 7 of the ICCPR prohibits cruel, inhuman, or degrading punishment; judicially administered flogging for a ritual slaughter procedure constitutes prohibited treatment under that article.
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abrogated_in_practice
This framework classifies the relation as abrogated in practice.
Both the malkot sanction and the underlying offense are doubly inoperative: corporal jurisdiction lapsed with the dissolution of the Sanhedrin, and the offense is temple-dependent and cannot arise in current practice.