In the first day there shall be to you a holy convocation, and in the seventh day a holy convocation; no kind of work shall be done in them, except that which every man must eat, only that may be done by you.
To rest on the seventh day of Passover
The cited verse
The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)
וּבַיּוֹם הָרִאשׁוֹן מִקְרָא־קֹדֶשׁ וּבַיּוֹם הַשְּׁבִיעִי מִקְרָא־קֹדֶשׁ יִהְיֶה לָכֶם כָּל־מְלָאכָה לֹא־יֵעָשֶׂה בָהֶם
In Maimonides’ words
How Maimonides defines this commandment in his Sefer HaMitzvot — his own words, shown as a primary source.
היא שצונו לשבות ממלאכה בשביעי של פסח והוא אמרו יתעלה ביום השביעי מקרא קדש. (אמור אל הכהנים, זמנים הלכות שביתת יו"ט פ"א):
That is that He commanded us to rest from work on the seventh [day] of Pesach. And that is His, may He be exalted, saying, "a sacred occasion on the seventh day" (Exodus 12:16). (See Parashat Emor; Mishneh Torah, Rest on a Holiday 1.)
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.
- Recorded as practiced today
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
No court-imposed penalty is recorded.
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 Binding, with modification
- Reform Kept as an ethical principle
- Reconstructionist Not binding
- Karaite 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)
- 4Q325 (4QcalDoc/Mishmarot D); cf. 11QTemple (11Q19) XVII affirmed it
Rabbinic aggadah
- Mekhilta de-Rabbi Ishmael, Beshallach expanded it homiletically
- b. Sotah 11b expanded it homiletically
- Exodus Rabbah 22-23 expanded it homiletically
Philo of Alexandria
- De Specialibus Legibus 2.150-161 rationalized it
- De Vita Mosis 2.222-224 read it allegorically
Josephus
- Antiquities 3.248-251 affirmed it
The New Testament
- 1 Corinthians 5:7-8 read it spiritually Paul reinterprets the Matzot festival as ethical purging of 'leaven of malice'; the festal-week framework is christologically reread
- Colossians 2:16-17 treated it as abrogated festivals including the Passover week treated as 'shadow' fulfilled in Christ
The Church Fathers
- Melito of Sardis, Peri Pascha read it spiritually
- Origen, Treatise on the Passover (Peri Pascha, Tura papyrus) read it allegorically
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.
No tension with the catalogued modern frameworks is recorded here.