They shall leave none of it until the morning, nor break a bone of it. According to all the statute of the Passover they shall keep it.
Not to break any bone of the second Passover offering
The cited verse
The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)
לֹא יַשְׁאִירוּ מִמֶּנּוּ עַד־בֹּקֶר וְעֶצֶם לֹא יִשְׁבְּרוּ־בוֹ כְּכָל־חֻקַּת הַפֶּסַח יַעֲשׂוּ אֹתוֹ
In Maimonides’ words
How Maimonides defines this commandment in his Sefer HaMitzvot — his own words, shown as a primary source.
הזהירנו משבור עצם מעצמות פסח שני, והוא אמרו ועצם לא תשברו בו. ומי ששבר חייב מלקות. ובגמרא פסחים (דף פ"ה) אמרו כשהוא אומר ועצם לא תשברו בו בפסח שני שאין תלמוד לומר שהרי נאמר ככל חקת הפסח הוי אומר אחד עצם שיש בו מוח ואחד עצם שאין בו מוח. וכבר התבארו משפטי שבירת העצם בפרק שביעי מפסחים. (בהעלותך, שם):
He prohibited us from breaking one of the bones of the Second Pesach-offering. And that is his saying, "neither shall you break a bone of it" (Numbers 9:12). And one who breaks [one of them] is liable for lashes. And in the Gemara, Pesachim (Pesachim 85a), they said, regarding the Second-Pesach-offering, "When it says, 'neither shall you break a bone of it,' for which there is no need to say to learn [it] - as it is already surely stated, 'according to all the statute of the Passover-offering' - you must say that it is to [indicate that it applies to both] a bone in which there is marrow and a bone in which there is no marrow." And the regulations of breaking the bone have already been explained in the seventh chapter of Pesachim. (See Parashat Beha'alotecha; 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
- Conservative Not binding
- 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)
- 11Q19 (Temple Scroll) cols. 17-18 carried a parallel Addresses Passover and Unleavened Bread regulations generally; no preserved treatment of Pesah Sheni specifically
Josephus
- Ant. 9.271-273 carried a parallel Recounts Hezekiah's second-month Passover (2 Chr 30) as historical narrative; bears on the delayed festival generally, not the bone prohibition specifically
The New Testament
- John 19:36 reinterpreted it Cites the Passover bone-prohibition (drawing on Exod 12:46/Num 9:12) typologically of Jesus; not specifically Pesah Sheni
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 Pesah Sheni 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.