A foreigner and a hired servant shall not eat of it.
Not to allow a resident alien or hired servant to eat the Passover offering
The cited verse
The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)
תּוֹשָׁ֥ב וְשָׂכִ֖יר לֹא־יֹ֥אכַל בּֽוֹ׃
In Maimonides’ words
How Maimonides defines this commandment in his Sefer HaMitzvot — his own words, shown as a primary source.
הזהירנו מאפות שירי מנחות חמץ, והוא אמרו לא תאפה חמץ חלקם נתתי אותה, כאלו יאמר שחלקם שהם שירי מנחות לא יאפה חמץ. ומי שאפה אותה חמץ חייב מלקות כמו שבא לשון המשנה ואמרו (מנחות נ"ה) וחייבין על אפייתה. וכבר התבארו משפטי מצוה זו בחמישי ממנחות. (צו את אהרן, מעשה הקרבנות פי"ב):
He prohibited us from baking the remainders of the meal-offerings leavened (chametz). And that is His saying, "It shall not be baked leavened; I have given it to them for their portion" (Leviticus 6:10): [It is] as if He would be saying that their portion - which is the remainders of the meal-offerings - not be baked leavened. And one who bakes it leavened is liable for lashes - as it appears in the language of the Mishnah (Menachot 55a) - they said, "And we are liable for its baking." And the regulations of this commandment have already been explained in the fifth [chapter] of Menachot. (See Parashat Tzav; Mishneh Torah, Sacrificial Procedure 12.)
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 As the catalog records it: binding in principle (inoperative absent Temple)
- Conservative As the catalog records it: binding in principle (inoperative absent Temple)
- Reform Not binding
- Reconstructionist Not binding
- Karaite As the catalog records it: binding in principle (governed by Karaite pesaḥ practice rather than Rabbanite Temple dependence)
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.
Josephus
- Ant. 3.248 affirmed it General description of Passover/Unleavened Bread observance; does not specifically treat the toshav/sakhir exclusion
The New Testament
- Galatians 2:11-14 treated it as abrogated Paul's critique of withdrawal from Gentile table fellowship inverts the exclusionary logic of covenant-bounded meals
- 1 Corinthians 5:7-8 read it spiritually Christ as the paschal lamb; the meal reframed christologically rather than by covenantal membership
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 allowing a resident alien or hired worker to eat the Passover offering; post-Enlightenment penal norms reject corporal punishment as a state sanction for enforcing ritual meal boundaries.
-
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 permitting a non-citizen laborer to participate in a religious meal 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.