In the Tent of Meeting, outside the veil which is before the covenant, Aaron and his sons shall keep it in order from evening to morning before Yahweh: it shall be a statute forever throughout their generations on the behalf of the children of Israel.
To kindle the menorah in the Temple daily
The cited verse
The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)
בְּאֹהֶל מוֹעֵד מִחוּץ לַפָּרֹכֶת אֲשֶׁר עַל הָעֵדֻת יַעֲרֹךְ אֹתוֹ אַהֲרֹן וּבָנָיו מֵעֶרֶב עַד בֹּקֶר לִפְנֵי יְהוָה
In Maimonides’ words
How Maimonides defines this commandment in his Sefer HaMitzvot — his own words, shown as a primary source.
היא שנצטוו הכהנים להדליק הנרות תמיד לפני ה' והוא אמרו יתברך שמו יערוך אותו אהרן ובניו וזאת היא מצות הטבת הנרות. וכבר התבארו דיני מצוה זו בשמיני ממנחות וביומא בפרק ראשון ובמסכת תמיד. (ואתה תצוה, תמידין ומוספין פרק ג'):
That is that He commanded the priests to kindle the lamps regularly in front of the Lord. And that is His, may His name be blessed, saying, "Aharon and his sons shall set them up" (Exodus 27:21)." And this is the commandment of arrangement of the lamps. And the laws of this commandment have already been explained in the eighth chapter of Menachot, in the first chapter of Yoma and in Tractate Tamid. (See Parashat Tetzaveh; Mishneh Torah, Daily Offerings and Additional Offerings 3.)
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
- Binding in the land of Israel
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 Inoperative pending the Temple
- Conservative Inoperative pending the Temple
- Reform Not binding
- Reconstructionist Not binding
- Karaite As the catalog records it: non applicable
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
- Bavli Shabbat 21b expanded it homiletically
- Menahot 86b expanded it homiletically
- Bamidbar Rabbah 15:7 expanded it homiletically
- Vayikra Rabbah 31:8 expanded it homiletically
Philo of Alexandria
- Quis Rerum Divinarum Heres 221-225 read it allegorically
- De Vita Mosis 2.102-105 read it allegorically
Josephus
- Antiquities 3.144-146 (3.6.7) The catalog describes this reception as: symbolic cosmological
- Bellum Judaicum 7.148-150 carried a parallel
The New Testament
- Hebrews 9:2 reinterpreted it Lists the lampstand among the furnishings of the 'first tent,' framing the Tabernacle cult as a typological foreshadowing of Christ's heavenly sanctuary
- Revelation 1:12-13, 20 read it allegorically Seven golden lampstands reinterpreted as the seven churches
The Church Fathers
- Clement of Alexandria, Stromata 5.6 read it allegorically
- Origen, Homiliae in Exodum 9.4 read it allegorically
The Qur'an and hadith
- Q 24:35 The catalog describes this reception as: thematic echo
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.