You shall offer no strange incense on it, nor burnt offering, nor meal offering; and you shall pour no drink offering on it.
Not to offer unauthorized incense or any offering on the golden altar
The cited verse
The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)
לֹא־תַעֲלוּ עָלָיו קְטֹרֶת זָרָה וְעֹלָה וּמִנְחָה וְנֵסֶךְ לֹא תִסְּכוּ עָלָיו
In Maimonides’ words
How Maimonides defines this commandment in his Sefer HaMitzvot — his own words, shown as a primary source.
שהזהירנו מהקריב שום דבר מהקרבנות במזבח הזהב שבהיכל. והוא אמרו יתעלה לא תעלו עליו קטרת זרה, וכל מי שהקריב עליו או נסך עליו זולת מה שעבר לוקה. (ואתה תצוה, כלי המקדש פ"ב):
That He prohibited us from offering any sacrifices on top of the golden altar in the sanctuary. And that is His, may He be exalted, saying, "You shall not offer alien incense upon it" (Exodus 30:9). And anyone who offers or pours something besides that which is commanded upon it is lashed. (See Parashat Tetzaveh; Mishneh Torah, Vessels of the Sanctuary and Those who Serve Therein 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
- Death at the hands of Heaven (mitah bidei shamayim)
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 Kept as an ethical principle
- Reform Not binding
- Reconstructionist Not binding
- Karaite Kept as an ethical principle
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 20:8-10 expanded it homiletically
- Bamidbar Rabbah 18:8 expanded it homiletically
Philo of Alexandria
- De Specialibus Legibus 1.171-176 read it allegorically
Josephus
- Ant. 3.197-199 affirmed it
The New Testament
- Luke 1:8-11 affirmed it Zechariah's lot to offer incense in the sanctuary presupposes the exclusive priestly incense protocol of the golden altar
- Revelation 8:3-4 read it spiritually Incense reimagined as the prayers of the saints offered on a heavenly golden altar
The Church Fathers
- Origen, Homilies on Leviticus read it spiritually
Beside the older legal codes of its world
The commandment set beside the ancient Near-Eastern legal collections scholars compare it to — a descriptive comparison, not a claim of dependence.
- ugaritic texts Ugaritic ritual texts treat incense (qṭr) as an offering ingredient within West Semitic temple sacrificial sequences, providing the comparative context of less-restricted incense use against which the Israelite exclusivity legislation defines itself Relationship to the parallel: polemical contrast KTU 1.39-43 (ritual texts in which incense, qṭr, appears among offering components in temple sacrificial sequences) Pardee, Ritual and Cult at Ugarit (SBL, 2002)
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 placing an unauthorized substance on a cultic object, a non-violent ritual offense; modern norms prohibit flogging.
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Article 7
This framework classifies the relation as an incompatible method.
ICCPR Article 7 prohibits cruel, inhuman, or degrading punishment; the malkot sanction for an unauthorized incense offering 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 non-violent ritual offense involving placement of an unauthorized aromatic substance; the lashes sanction 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 dissolution of ordained courts after 70 CE; the conflict is de jure, not de facto enforced. The commandment is additionally doubly inoperative because it presupposes a functioning Temple.