“ ‘Whoever of the offspring of Aaron is a leper or has a discharge shall not eat of the holy things until he is clean. Whoever touches anything that is unclean by the dead, or a man who has a seminal emission,
An impure priest shall not eat terumah
The cited verse
The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)
אִישׁ אִישׁ מִזֶּרַע אַהֲרֹן וְהוּא צָרוּעַ אוֹ זָב בַּקֳּדָשִׁים לֹא יֹאכַל עַד אֲשֶׁר יִטְהָר
In Maimonides’ words
How Maimonides defines this commandment in his Sefer HaMitzvot — his own words, shown as a primary source.
שהזהיר החללה מאכול את הקדש שהיה מותר לה לאכול תרומה וחזה ושוק. והוא אמרו יתעלה ובת כהן כי תהיה לאיש זר היא וגו'. ובגמרא יבמות (דף ס"ח) אמרו לאיש זר כיון שנבעלה לפסול לה פסלה ואמרו היא בתרומת הקדשים במורם מן הקדשים לא תאכל רוצה לומר חזה ושוק, ושם נאמר לכתוב קרא היא בקדשים לא תאכל מאי תרומת הקדשים שמע מיניה תרתי, כלומר כיון שנבעלה לפסול לה נפסלה בתרומה ושהיא כשתהא נשואה לזר ומת חוזרת לתרומה ואינה חוזרת לחזה ושוק, ויהיה זה הלאו שהוא לא תאכל כולל שני ענינים אחד מהם אזהרה לחללה מאכילת קדשים, והשני אזהרה לכהנת שנשאת לזר מאכילת חזה ושוק ואע"פ שמת בעלה או גרשה. ואולם איסור אכילתה בתרומה והיא תחת הזר אינו מזה הכתוב, ואמנם הביאו ראיה עליו מאמרו וכל זר לא יאכל קדש, ואמרו מי שהיא תחת הזר הוי אומר היא כזר. וכשעברה לאו זה גם כן היא לוקה. (שם, הלכות תרומות פ"ו):
That He prohibited a desecrated woman (challalah) from eating the consecrated foods that had been permitted for her to eat - the priestly tithe, the breast and the thigh. And that is His, may He be exalted, saying, "And if a priest’s daughter be married to an outsider, etc." (Leviticus 22:12). And in the Gemara, Yevamot (Yevamot 68a), they said, "'To an outsider' - once she has sexual relations with someone disqualified from her, he disqualifies her." And they said, "'From the priestly tithe of the consecrated foods (terumat hakodashim)' - that which is lifted (muram) from the consecrated foods - 'she shall not eat.'" [That] means to say, the breast and the thigh. And there, it is said, "Let Scripture write, 'from consecrated foods, she shall not eat.' What is [added by writing], 'the priestly tithe of the consecrated foods?' We understand two [things, and not just one]!" Meaning (those two things are): Once she has sexual relations with someone disqualified from her, he disqualifies her from [eating] priestly tithe; and if she marries an outsider and he dies, she returns to [eating] priestly tithe, but she does not return to [eating] the breast and the thigh. And it comes out that this negative commandment - which is "she shall not eat" - includes two matters. One of them is the prohibition of a desecrated woman eating consecrated foods; and the second is the prohibition for a priestess who married an outsider eating the breast and the thigh - even though her husband dies or divorces her. However the prohibition of her eating priestly tithe when she is [still married] to the outsider is not from this verse. Indeed, they brought a proof about it from His saying, "And no outsider shall eat of the consecrated food" (Leviticus 22:10); and they said, "One who is [married to an] outsider - I would say is like an outsider." And she is also lashed if she transgresses this negative commandment. (See Parashat Emor; Mishneh Torah, Heave Offerings 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 flat, unconditional command
Applicability
How the catalog describes where and when this commandment applies. These are independent descriptions, not a verdict on which laws still count.
- 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
- Karet — being 'cut off'
Ritual remedy
- A sin-offering (ḥatat)
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 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.
Qumran (the Dead Sea Scrolls)
- 4QMMT B (49-54) read it more strictly
- 11QTa (Temple Scroll) 45-47 read it more strictly
Philo of Alexandria
- De Specialibus Legibus 1.116-118 rationalized it
Josephus
- Ant. 3.278-279 affirmed it
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.
- mesopotamian incantation series Treats ritual impurities and transgressions as barriers obstructing access to the divine, providing a broadly analogous Mesopotamian concern with impurity impeding cultic contact, though it operates through incantatory release rather than the Priestly waiting-and-immersion model. Relationship to the parallel: shared theme Šurpu Tablets II–III Reiner, *Šurpu* (AfO Beiheft 11, 1958)
- hittite instructions Requires bodily cleanness of Hittite temple personnel and mandates exclusion from temple service following contact with impurity-generating sources, providing a structural comparative analogue for purity demands on cultic staff with consequences parallel to the Levitical terumah restriction. Relationship to the parallel: shared theme CTH 264 (Instructions for Temple Officials), passim Miller, *Royal Hittite Instructions and Related Administrative Texts* (SBL WAW 31, 2013)
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 flogging (malkot) for a priest who eats sacred food while ritually impure -- a state that frequently arises from involuntary bodily conditions (skin disease, genital discharge, corpse contact, seminal emission); modern penal frameworks reject corporal punishment for non-voluntary or medically explicable bodily states.
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Article 7
This framework classifies the relation as a direct contradiction.
ICCPR Article 7 prohibits cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment; mandating flogging for an impure priest who eats terumah -- where the impure state may result from handling a deceased family member or from an involuntary medical condition -- violates this prohibition.
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general principle
This framework classifies the relation as a direct contradiction.
Modern penal proportionality doctrine precludes corporal punishment for non-violent dietary infractions arising from ritual-purity status; the malkot sanction for an impure priest's terumah consumption exceeds any proportionate response in post-Enlightenment penal theory, the more so where the impurity arises from unavoidable bodily events.
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general principle
This framework classifies the relation as abrogated in practice.
Rabbinic tradition holds that the Sanhedrin's corporal jurisdiction lapsed with the disruption of ordained court succession; malkot for this offense is de jure but has not been enforceable within Jewish legal history since the cessation of ordained courts.