Commandments · Negative commandments

Not to carry the flesh of the Passover offering out of the house where it is eaten

#129 Negative commandment Exodus 12:46

The cited verse

The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)

בְּבַ֤יִת אֶחָד֙ יֵֽאָכֵ֔ל לֹא־תוֹצִ֧יא מִן־הַבַּ֛יִת מִן־הַבָּשָׂ֖ר ח֑וּצָה

In Maimonides’ words

How Maimonides defines this commandment in his Sefer HaMitzvot — his own words, shown as a primary source.

הזהירנו מהוציא כלום מבשר הפסח לחוץ ממקום החבורה לאכול. והוא אמרו ולא תוציא מן הבית מן הבשר חוצה. ובמכילתא חוצה חוץ למקום אכילתו, ומה שהוציא אין מותר לאכלו שהוא במדרגת הטרפה, והמוציאו מחבורה לחבורה אע"פ שהוא בלא תעשה אינו חייב עד שיניח, ושם נאמר המוציא בשר הפסח מחבורה לחבורה אינו חייב עד שיניח כמו הוצאה הכתובה בשבת. וכשיניחהו חייב מלקות. וכבר התבארו משפטי מצוה זו בששי מפסחים. (בא אל פרעה, שם פ"ט):

He prohibited us from removing any of the meat of the Pesach-offering outside of the place of the eating group. And that is His saying, "you shall not remove any of the meat from the house to the outside" (Exodus 12:46). And in the Mekhilta (Mekhilta d'Rabbi Yishmael 12:46:2): "'Outside' - outside from [the place of] its eating." And it is not permissible to eat what one removed - as it is on the level of a 'torn' animal (tereifah). And even though one who removes it from one group to another is [violating] a negative commandment, he is not liable until he places it down." And [in the Gemara, Pesachim 85b),] it is said, "One who removes it from one group to another is not liable until he places it down, like the removal (hotzaah) that is written about Shabbat." But when he places it down, he is liable for lashes. And the regulations of this commandment have already been explained in the sixth [chapter] of Pesachim. (See Parashat Bo; Mishneh Torah, Paschal Offering 9.)

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 Inoperative pending the Temple
  • Conservative Not binding
  • Reform Not binding
  • Reconstructionist Not binding
  • Karaite Inoperative pending the Temple

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.

Rabbinic aggadah

  • Mekhilta de-Rabbi Ishmael, Pisḥa 15 expanded it homiletically

Philo of Alexandria

  • De Specialibus Legibus 2.145-148 read it allegorically

Josephus

  • Ant. 2.312-313 affirmed it

The New Testament

  • John 19:36 reinterpreted it Cites the companion bone-breaking clause of Ex 12:46 typologically of Jesus; the house-restriction clause itself is not directly engaged

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.

  • general principle

    This framework classifies the relation as an incompatible method.

    The commandment prescribes malkot for removing Passover flesh from the designated eating space; post-Enlightenment penal norms reject corporal punishment as a state sanction for ritual food-location infractions.

  • 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 moving sacrificial food outside a prescribed spatial boundary constitutes prohibited treatment under that article.

  • 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.

Source & licence

The commentary, cross-references, reception, and modern-conflict analysis in this section are drawn from a public compilation of the 613 commandments, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. The cited biblical text is rendered from GEBible’s own public-domain reading corpus. CC BY-SA 4.0 (opens in a new tab). GEBible’s presentation of this material is offered under the same CC BY-SA 4.0 terms.