He shall bring his trespass offering to Yahweh: a ram without defect from the flock, according to your estimation, for a trespass offering, to the priest.
Not to extinguish the fire on the altar
The cited verse
The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)
אֵשׁ תָּמִיד תּוּקַד עַל־הַמִּזְבֵּחַ לֹא תִכְבֶּה
In Maimonides’ words
How Maimonides defines this commandment in his Sefer HaMitzvot — his own words, shown as a primary source.
שהזהירנו מלכבות אש מעל המזבח, והוא אמרו יתעלה אש תמיד תוקד על המזבח לא תכבה. ובספרי המכבה עובר בלא תעשה וכל העובר על לאו זה וכבה ואפילו גחלת אחת מגחלי המזבח לוקה. וכבר התבארו משפטי מצוה זו בעשירי מזבחים. (צו את אהרן, תמידין ומוספין פ"ב):
That He prohibited us from extinguishing the fire on top of the altar. And that is His, may He be exalted, saying, "A perpetual fire shall be kept burning on the altar, not to go out" (Leviticus 6:6). And in the [Sifra] (Sifra, Tzav, Chapter 10:7): "One who extinguishes [it] transgresses a negative commandment." And anyone who transgresses this negative commandment and extinguishes even one coal from the coals of the altar is lashed. And the regulations of this commandment have already been explained in the tenth [chapter] of Zevachim. (See Parashat Tzav; Mishneh Torah, Daily Offerings and Additional Offerings 2.)
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 Binding
- Conservative Not binding
- Reform Not binding
- Reconstructionist Not binding
- Karaite Not 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.
Rabbinic aggadah
- Vayikra Rabbah 7:5 expanded it homiletically
Philo of Alexandria
- De Specialibus Legibus 1.285-288 read it allegorically
Josephus
- Ant. 3.199 affirmed 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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general principle
This framework classifies the relation as an incompatible method.
The commandment prescribes corporal punishment (thirty-nine lashes) for extinguishing a sacrificial fire, a non-violent act; modern norms prohibit flogging as a sanction.
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Article 7
This framework classifies the relation as an incompatible method.
ICCPR Article 7 prohibits cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment; the malkot sanction for a temple-maintenance infraction constitutes such treatment under contemporary international human-rights standards.
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general principle
This framework classifies the relation as a direct contradiction.
Modern penal proportionality precludes corporal punishment for a ritual-maintenance offense that causes no harm to persons; lashes for extinguishing a hearth fire is disproportionate under any post-Enlightenment sentencing framework.
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general principle
This framework classifies the relation as abrogated in practice.
Rabbinic tradition holds that the Sanhedrin's jurisdiction to impose malkot lapsed with the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE and the dissolution of ordained courts; the conflict is de jure, not de facto enforced. The commandment is additionally doubly inoperative because it presupposes a functioning Temple.