Yahweh said to Moses and Aaron, “This is the ordinance of the Passover. No foreigner shall eat of it,
Not to allow an apostate Israelite to eat the Passover offering
The cited verse
The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)
זֹאת חֻקַּת הַפָּסַח כָּל־בֶּן־נֵכָר לֹא־יֹאכַל בּוֹ
In Maimonides’ words
How Maimonides defines this commandment in his Sefer HaMitzvot — his own words, shown as a primary source.
שהזהירנו מאכול הפסח ישראל שהמיר, והוא אמרו יתעלה כל בן נכר לא יאכל בו, אמר המתרגם כל בר ישראל דישתמד. ולשון מכילתא כל בן נכר זה ישראל מומר לע"ז. (שם, שם):
That He prohibited us from feeding the Pesach-offering to an Israelite who has defected. And that is His, may He be exalted, saying, "no foreigner may eat from it" (Exodus 12:43). The translator (Targum Onkelos Exodus 12:43) [translated this as], "no Israelite that defected." And the language of the Mekhilta (Mekhilta DeRabbi Shimon Bar Yochai 12:43) is, "'No foreigner' - that is an Israelite who is an apostate to idolatry." (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 ritual instruction
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 Rejected
- Reconstructionist Rejected
- 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.
Rabbinic aggadah
- Mekhilta de-Rabbi Yishmael, Pisḥa 15 reinterpreted it
Philo of Alexandria
- De Specialibus Legibus 2.145-149 The catalog describes this reception as: cited
Josephus
- Ant. 3.248 reinterpreted it
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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UDHR Article 18-19
This framework classifies the relation as a substantive tension.
In the rabbinic reading, the commandment excludes a person from the communal Passover meal on the basis of their religious beliefs or defection from the faith; modern freedom-of-conscience norms hold that individuals may not be penalized by state-backed sanctions for their religious convictions or change of belief.
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general principle
This framework classifies the relation as an incompatible method.
The commandment prescribes malkot for the host who permits an apostate to eat the Passover offering; post-Enlightenment penal norms reject corporal punishment as a state sanction for policing ritual meal participation.
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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 of a host for allowing a disbeliever to participate in a religious meal 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.