You shall most certainly not make gods of silver or gods of gold for yourselves to be alongside me.
Not to ascend the altar by steps but by a ramp
The cited verse
The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)
וְלֹא־תַעֲלֶה בְמַעֲלֹת עַל־מִזְבְּחִי אֲשֶׁר לֹא־תִגָּלֶה עֶרְוָתְךָ עָלָיו
In Maimonides’ words
How Maimonides defines this commandment in his Sefer HaMitzvot — his own words, shown as a primary source.
שהזהירנו מעלות על המזבח במעלות כדי שלא יפסיע פסיעה גסה אבל ילך עקב בצד גודל. והוא אמרו יתעלה ולא תעלה במעלות. ולשון מכילתא מה תלמוד לומר אשר לא תגלה ערותך עליו כשיעלה למזבח לא יהיה פוסע פסיעה גסה אלא מהלך עקב בצד גודל. וכבר התבארו צורת הכבש ואיכות בנינו בשלישי ממדות, וכל מי שמפסיע פסיעה גסה על המזבח עד שתגלה ערותו לוקה. (שם, שם):
That He prohibited us from ascending the altar by steps - so that one not take a large step, but rather walk with the heel next to the toe. And that is His, may He be exalted, saying, "And do not ascend by steps" (Exodus 20:23). And the language of the Mekhilta (Mekhilta DeRabbi Shimon Bar Yochai 20:23) is, "What do we learn to say [from], 'that your nakedness may not be exposed upon it?' That when one ascends the altar, he should not take a large step, but rather walk with the heel next to the toe." And the form of the ramp and the nature of its building have already been explained in the third [chapter] of Middot. And anyone who takes a large step on the altar, to the point that his nakedness is exposed, is lashed. (See Parashat Yitro; Mishneh Torah, The Chosen Temple 1.)
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
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, 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.
Rabbinic aggadah
- Mekhilta de-Rabbi Ishmael, Bachodesh 11 expanded it homiletically
Philo of Alexandria
- De Specialibus Legibus 1.69-70 The catalog describes this reception as: tangential
Josephus
- Ant. 4.200 The catalog describes this reception as: tangential
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.
- enuma elish Following Marduk's enthronement the gods build Esagila as the cosmic temple; the broader Mesopotamian ideology of monumental, elevated temple architecture (including the associated staged tower Etemenanki) stands as a cultural backdrop against which Israel's altar-ramp restriction may be read. Relationship to the parallel: polemical contrast Tablet VI, lines 50-68 (the gods construct Esagila, Marduk's temple/shrine in Babylon) Lambert, Babylonian Creation Myths (Eisenbrauns, 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 ascends the Temple altar by steps rather than the prescribed ramp, a ritual-protocol violation; modern penal frameworks recognize no legitimate basis for corporal punishment for non-violent ceremonial procedural infractions.
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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 ascending an altar via steps rather than a ramp 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 procedural violations in religious ceremonial settings; the malkot sanction for ascending the Temple altar by steps rather than a ramp exceeds any proportionate response 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.