They shall bind the breastplate by its rings to the rings of the ephod with a lace of blue, that it may be on the skillfully woven band of the ephod, and that the breastplate may not swing out from the ephod.
The breastplate shall not be loosened from the ephod
The cited verse
The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)
וְלֹא־יִזַּח הַחֹשֶׁן מֵעַל הָאֵפוֹד
In Maimonides’ words
How Maimonides defines this commandment in his Sefer HaMitzvot — his own words, shown as a primary source.
הזהירנו מהסיר החשן מעל האפוד אבל יהיה החשן דבוק בו. ובסוף מכות (שם) אמרו עם זכרון מחוייבי מלקות והא איכא מזיח החשן. הנה כבר התבאר שהמזיח לוקה. (ואתה תצוה, שם פ"ט):
He prohibited us from removing the breastplate from the ephod (a type of apron worn by the high priest), but rather that the breastplate be attached to it. 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 loosens the breastplate!" Behold it has already been made clear that one who loosens [it] is lashed. (See Parashat Vayakhel; Mishneh Torah, Vessels of the Sanctuary and Those who Serve Therein 9.)
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
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 Binding, with modification
- Conservative Not binding
- Reform Not binding
- Reconstructionist Not binding
- Karaite Binding, with modification
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.
Philo of Alexandria
- De Specialibus Legibus 1.86-88 read it allegorically
Josephus
- Ant. 3.163-171 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.
No tension with the catalogued modern frameworks is recorded here.