The incense which you shall make, according to its composition you shall not make for yourselves: it shall be to you holy for Yahweh.
Not to make incense of the same formula for personal use
The cited verse
The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)
וְהַקְּטֹרֶת אֲשֶׁר תַּעֲשֶׂה בְּמַתְכֻּנְתָּהּ לֹא תַעֲשׂוּ לָכֶם קֹדֶשׁ תִּהְיֶה לְךָ לַיהוָה
In Maimonides’ words
How Maimonides defines this commandment in his Sefer HaMitzvot — his own words, shown as a primary source.
הזהירנו מעשות עשון בתאר הקטרת כלומר שיהיה מן הסממנין ההם ועל יחס המשקולות ההם ויכוין שיתעשן בו. והוא אמרו יתעלה במתכונתה לא תעשו לכם, ומבואר שכל מי שיעבור ויעשה כמוה להריח בה חייב כרת, אמר איש אשר יעשה כמוה להריח בה ונכרת, אם היה מזיד, ואם היה שוגג חייב חטאת קבועה. (שם, שם פ"ב):
He prohibited us from making a vapor with the configuration of the [Temple] incense - meaning that it be from those spices and proportionate to its measurements - and have the intention to vaporize it. And that is His, may He be exalted, saying, "according to the composition of it, you shall not make it for yourselves" (Exodus 30:37). And it is explained that anyone who transgresses and makes its likeness, to smell it, is liable for excision - His saying, "Whoever makes any like it, to smell of it, shall be excised" (Exodus 30:38) - if he was volitional; and if he was inadvertent, he is liable for a fixed sin-offering. (See Parashat Ki Tissa; 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
- Karet — being 'cut off'
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 (no operative application absent Temple)
- Conservative As the catalog records it: binding in principle (no operative application absent Temple)
- 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
- b. Keritot 6a expanded it homiletically
Philo of Alexandria
- De Vita Mosis 2.101-108 read it allegorically
Josephus
- Ant. 3.197 The catalog describes this reception as: descriptive
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 compounding an aromatic formula in its sacred proportions for personal use, a non-violent act affecting no other person; 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 punishment; lashes for privately manufacturing a scent compound 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 the non-violent private manufacture of an aromatic substance, even one designated as sacred; the lashes sanction is grossly 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 de jure conflict with modern punishment norms is not currently enforced.