“You shall perform the duty of the sanctuary and the duty of the altar, that there be no more wrath on the children of Israel.
Not to leave the Temple unguarded
The cited verse
The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)
וְלֹא־יִהְיֶה עוֹד קֶצֶף עַל־בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל
In Maimonides’ words
How Maimonides defines this commandment in his Sefer HaMitzvot — his own words, shown as a primary source.
שהזהירנו מהתעצל בשמירת המקדש ומלכת סביבו תמיד כל הלילה, והוא אמרו יתעלה ושמרתם את משמרת הקודש. וכבר התבאר במצוה כ"ב ממצות עשה ששמירת מקדש ולכת סביבו מצות עשה, וכן נבאר הנה שבטול זה הוא מצות לא תעשה. ולשון מכילתא ושמרו את משמרת אהל מועד אין לי אלא בעשה בלא תעשה מנין תלמוד לומר ושמרתם את משמרת הקדש. וכבר התבארו משפטי מצוה זו בראש תמיד ומדות. (ויקח קרח, בית הבחירה פ"ח):
That He prohibited us from being lethargic in guarding the Temple and constantly walking around it the whole night. And that is His, may He be exalted, saying, "And you shall keep the charge of the sanctuary" (Numbers 18:5). And it has already been explained in Commandment 22 of the Positive Commandments that guarding the Temple and walking around it is a positive commandment; and we are now likewise explaining that its negation is a negative commandment. And the language of the Mekhilta is, "'And they shall keep the charge of the Tent of Meeting' (Deuteronomy 18:4) - I only have a positive commandment. From where [do we know] that it is [also] a negative commandment? [Hence] we learn to say, 'And you shall keep the charge of the sanctuary.'" And the regulations of this law have already been explained at the beginning of Tamid and Middot. (See Parashat Korach; Mishneh Torah, The Chosen Temple 8.)
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 command
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 Not binding
- 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.
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.
- erra epic Marduk's departure from his Esagila/temple leaves Babylon exposed to Erra's devastation; thematic parallel on divine absence/neglect of the sanctuary precipitating disaster, not a legal parallel. Relationship to the parallel: shared theme Tablet I Cagni, The Poem of Erra (SANE 1/3, 1977)
- Curse of Agade Naram-Sin's violation/neglect of Enlil's Ekur at Nippur brings ruin on Akkad; illustrates the ANE logic of temple offense provoking destructive divine response. Thematic, not statutory. Relationship to the parallel: shared theme lines ~149ff. (Naram-Sin's assault on the Ekur) Cooper, The Curse of Agade (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983)
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 leaving the Temple sanctuary without assigned guard coverage, a cultic-institutional duty; modern penal frameworks recognize no legitimate basis for corporal punishment for non-violent omissions of religious institutional obligations.
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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; imposing flogging for failing to maintain Temple guard duty 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 failures of religious institutional obligations; the malkot sanction for leaving the Temple unguarded exceeds any proportionate response recognized in post-Enlightenment penal theory.
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general principle
This framework classifies the relation as abrogated in practice.
This commandment is doubly inoperative: both the Temple context on which the prohibition depends and the Sanhedrin's corporal jurisdiction have lapsed since 70 CE; the conflict is de jure, but no enforcement mechanism has existed since then.