“Say to Aaron, ‘None of your offspring throughout their generations who has a defect may approach to offer the bread of his God.
A blemished priest shall not serve in the Temple
The cited verse
The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)
אִישׁ מִזַּרְעֲךָ לְדֹרֹתָם אֲשֶׁר יִהְיֶה בּוֹ מוּם לֹא יִקְרַב לְהַקְרִיב לֶחֶם אֱלֹהָיו
In Maimonides’ words
How Maimonides defines this commandment in his Sefer HaMitzvot — his own words, shown as a primary source.
שהזהיר בעל מום קבוע שלא לעבוד, והוא אמרו יתברך איש מזרעך לדורותם אשר יהיה בו מום לא יקרב להקריב, רוצה לומר לא יקרב לעבודה. וכל זמן שעבד בעל מום ילקה. וכן הוא בספרא אין בעל מום במיתה אלא באזהרה. (אמור אל הכהנים, הלכות ביאת המקדש פ"ו):
That He prohibited a priest with a permanent blemish to serve [in the Temple]. And that is His, may He be blessed, saying, "Anyone of your offspring, through [all] their generations who will have a blemish, shall not approach to offer" (Leviticus 21:17) - meaning to say, he shall not approach for service. And any time one with a blemish serves, he is lashed. And so too is it in the Sifra (Sifra, Emor, Chapter 3:11): "A [priest] with a blemish is not with death, but with a prohibition." (See Parashat Emor; Mishneh Torah, Admission into the Sanctuary 6.)
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
- 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
- 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 Rejected
- Reconstructionist Rejected
- Karaite As the catalog records it: in abeyance (Temple contingent)
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)
- 1QM 7:4-6 The catalog describes this reception as: analogical extension (war camp purity)
- 1QSa 2:3-9 read it more strictly
Philo of Alexandria
- De Specialibus Legibus 1.80-81 The catalog describes this reception as: rationalized (allegorical)
Josephus
- Ant. 3.276-279 The catalog describes this reception as: affirmed (general priestly fitness frame)
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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Article 7
This framework classifies the relation as a direct contradiction.
UDHR Article 7 guarantees equal protection of the law without discrimination; the commandment categorically bars persons defined by physical characteristics — including blindness, lameness, and other disabling conditions — from performing an occupational role they are hereditarily qualified for, constituting discrimination based solely on bodily difference.
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Article 26
This framework classifies the relation as a direct contradiction.
ICCPR Article 26 prohibits discrimination on any ground including 'other status,' which in contemporary human-rights jurisprudence encompasses disability; the commandment's categorical exclusion of persons with physical blemishes from priestly service constitutes such discrimination, irrespective of the cosmological rationale.
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general principle
This framework classifies the relation as an incompatible method.
The commandment prescribes corporal punishment (thirty-nine lashes) for a blemished priest performing a sacrificial act; modern norms prohibit flogging as a sanction for any offense, including occupational violations.
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general principle
This framework classifies the relation as a direct contradiction.
Modern penal proportionality precludes corporal punishment for performing a ritual act while having a physical disability; 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 after 70 CE; the conflict is de jure, not enforced. The commandment is additionally doubly inoperative because it presupposes a functioning Temple.