The poles shall be in the rings of the ark. They shall not be taken from it.
Not to remove the staves from the Ark
The cited verse
The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)
בְּטַבְּעֹת הָאָרֹן יִהְיוּ הַבַּדִּים לֹא יָסֻרוּ מִמֶּנּוּ
In Maimonides’ words
How Maimonides defines this commandment in his Sefer HaMitzvot — his own words, shown as a primary source.
הזהירנו מהסיר בדי הארון מתוך הטבעות. והוא אמרו בטבעות הארון יהיו הבדים לא יסורו ממנו, והעובר על לאו זה לוקה. ובסוף מכות (דף כ"ב) אמרו כשנזכרו מחוייבי מלקות, והא איכא המסיר בדי הארון רוצה לומר שהוא לוקה ואזהרתיה מהכא לא יסורו ממנו. הנה התבאר לך שהוא מצות לא תעשה ולוקין עליו. (ויקחו לי תרומה, שם):
He prohibited us from removing the poles of the ark from the rings. And that is His saying, "The poles shall be in the rings of the ark; they shall not be taken from it." (Exodus 25:15). And at the end of Makkot (Makkot 22a) when they mentioned those liable for lashes, they said, "But behold, there is [also] the one who removes the poles of the ark!" [This] means to say that he is lashed. And its prohibition is from here - "they shall not be taken from it." Behold it is been made clear to you that it is a negative commandment and that we give lashes for it. (See Parashat Vayakhel; 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 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
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 As the catalog records it: non binding (inapplicable absent Temple/Ark)
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
- Bamidbar Rabbah 4:20 expanded it homiletically
Philo of Alexandria
- De Vita Mosis 2.94-96 The catalog describes this reception as: parallel with allegorical gloss
Josephus
- Ant. 3.134-138 carried a parallel
The New Testament
- Hebrews 9:4-5 carried a parallel Catalogues the Ark's contents and the cherubim of glory overshadowing the kapporet but does not address the poles specifically; reflects continued interest in Ark furnishings.
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.
- egyptian cult and festival texts permanent carrying-poles for portable divine shrines Relationship to the parallel: parallel with divergence general (New Kingdom barque-shrine iconography and texts) general scholarship on Egyptian processional barques (e.g., Karnak/Luxor reliefs); no specific section number verifiable
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.
-
general principle
This framework classifies the relation as an incompatible method.
The commandment carries a default malkot sanction for removing a carrying pole from a cultic object; modern norms prohibit corporal punishment.
-
Article 7
This framework classifies the relation as an incompatible method.
ICCPR Article 7 prohibits cruel, inhuman, or degrading punishment; lashes for detaching a ritual object's transport stave constitutes such treatment under contemporary international human-rights standards.
-
general principle
This framework classifies the relation as a direct contradiction.
Modern penal proportionality precludes corporal punishment for the non-violent detachment of a decorative or functional component of a cultic object; the default lashes sanction is disproportionate under any post-Enlightenment sentencing framework.
-
general principle
This framework classifies the relation as abrogated in practice.
Rabbinic tradition holds that the Sanhedrin's jurisdiction to impose malkot lapsed after 70 CE; the conflict is de jure, not enforced. The commandment is additionally doubly inoperative because it presupposes a functioning Temple and the Ark's existence.