They shall eat those things with which atonement was made, to consecrate and sanctify them; but a stranger shall not eat of it, because they are holy.
To eat the flesh of the sin offering and guilt offering in the Temple precincts
The cited verse
The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)
וְאָכְלוּ אֹתָם אֲשֶׁר כֻּפַּר בָּהֶם לְמַלֵּא אֶת־יָדָם לְקַדֵּשׁ אֹתָם
In Maimonides’ words
How Maimonides defines this commandment in his Sefer HaMitzvot — his own words, shown as a primary source.
היא שצוה הכהנים לאכול בשר קדשים כלומר החטאת והאשם שהם קדשי הקדשים, והוא אמרו ואכלו אותם אשר כפר בהם. ולשון ספרי מנין שאכילת קדשים כפרה תלמוד לומר ואותה נתן לכם לשאת את עון העדה, כיצד כהנים אוכלים ובעלים מתכפרין. ומתנאי מצוה זו שהיא האכילה שהיא מצוה אמנם תהיה ליום ולילה עד חצות ואחר כך תאסר אכילת החטאת ההיא או האשם, אמנם תהיה אכילת מצוה בזמן המוגבל. ומבואר הוא שמצוה זו מיוחדת בזכרי כהונה ואין נשים חייבות בה כי קדשי הקדשים שבא בהם הכתוב לא תאכלנה הנשים. אמנם שאר קדשים כלומר קדשים קלים הנה הם יאכלו לשני ימים ולילה אחד זולתי תודה ואיל נזיר שהם ליום ולילה עד חצות ואע"פ שהם קדשים קלים ותאכלנה הנשים גם כן אלו הקדשים קלים ואכילתם גם כן נגררת אחר המצוה, וכן גם כן תרומה הנה אכילתה נגררת אחר המצוה. אכל אין אכילת הקדשים קלים ותרומה כאכילת בשר חטאת ואשם. כי אכילת הבשר הזה מן החטאת ומן האשם בם תשלם כפרת המתכפר כמו שבארנו ובא לשון הצווי באכילתם מה שלא בא בקדשים קלים ותרומה ולפיכך הוא נגרר אחר המצוה והאוכל אותם עושה מצוה. ולשון ספרי עבודת מתנה אתן את כהונתכם לעשות אכילת קדשים בגבולים כעבודת מקדש במקדש מה עבודת מקדש מקדש ידיו ואח"כ אוכל אף אכילת קדשים מקדש ידיו ואח"כ אוכל. וכבר התבארו דיני מצוה זו בזבחים. (ואתה תצוה, מעשה הקרבנות פ"י):
That is that He commanded the priests to eat the meat of consecrated animals - meaning the sin-offering and the guilt-offering, which are the most consecrated of the consecrated (kodshei kedoshim). And that is His saying, "And they shall eat those with which they atoned" (Exodus 29:33). And the language of the [Sifra] (Sifra, Shemini, Chapter 2:4) is, "From where [do we know] that the eating of offerings is atonement? [Hence] we learn to say, 'and it, has He given to you to forgive the sin of the congregation' (Leviticus 10:17). How is this? Priests eat and the owners are atoned for." And from the stipulations of this commandment - and that is the eating that is the commandment - is, however, that it be for the day and the night, until midnight. And afterwards, the eating of that sin-offering or guilt-offering is forbidden. Indeed, the commandment of eating is for a limited time. And women are not obligated in it, since women do not eat the most consecrated of the consecrated, about which the verse appears. However the other consecrated foods, meaning the less consecrated of the consecrated (kodshim kalim), are eaten for two days and a night - except for the thanksgiving-offering and the ram of the nazarite, which are for one day and the night until midnight, even though they are of the less consecrated of the consecrated. And women also eat from the less consecrated of the consecrated. And its eating is also an extension of the commandment; likewise is the eating of the priestly tithe an extension of the commandment. However the eating of the less consecrated of the consecrated and of priestly tithes is not like the eating of the meat of the sin-offering and the guilt-offering. For the atonement of the penitent is completed with the eating of this meat from the sin-offering and the guilt-offering, as we explained; and the language of the command is about their eating, which is not the case with the less consecrated of the consecrated and priestly tithes. And therefore it is [only] an extension of the commandment; but one who eats them does a commandment. And the language of the Sifrei (Sifrei Bamidbar 116:2) is "'I give you your priesthood as a service of gift' (Numbers 18:7) - to make the eating of consecrated items in the [outer] limits like the Temple service in the Temple: Just like for the service of the Temple, he washes his hands and then eats; so too does he wash his hands and then eat the consecrated items [outside the Temple]. And the laws of this commandment have already been explained in Zevachim. (See Parashat Tetzaveh; Mishneh Torah, Sacrificial Procedure 10.)
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
- Binding in the land of Israel
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.
Qumran (the Dead Sea Scrolls)
- 11QT (Temple Scroll) cols. 20-22 read it more strictly
Rabbinic aggadah
- Sifra Tzav, parashat Tzav expanded it homiletically
Philo of Alexandria
- De Specialibus Legibus 1.145-150 rationalized it
Josephus
- Ant. 3.226-236 rationalized it
The New Testament
- 1 Corinthians 9:13 reinterpreted it Paul invokes the principle that those who serve at the altar share in the altar's offerings to argue for the material support of apostles
- Hebrews 13:10-11 reinterpreted it typologically reworks the sin offering whose flesh is burned outside the camp, contrasting the altar from which tabernacle servants 'have no right to eat' with Christian participation
The Church Fathers
- Origen, Homiliae in Leviticum 5 read it allegorically
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 sacrificial ritual texts prescribe offerings and the allocation of portions within the cult; the parallel to the Israelite principle that priestly consumption of the sacrificial portion is integral to the cultic act is thematic and should not be overstated, since Ugaritic texts lack the explicit consumption-as-atonement theology of P Relationship to the parallel: shared theme KTU 1.39, 1.41//1.87 (Ugaritic sacrificial liturgies prescribing offerings and the disposition of cultic portions) 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.
No tension with the catalogued modern frameworks is recorded here.