Whoever touches a dead person, the body of a man who has died, and doesn’t purify himself, defiles Yahweh’s tabernacle; and that soul shall be cut off from Israel; because the water for impurity was not sprinkled on him, he shall be unclean. His uncleanness is yet on him.
To observe the purification ritual involving the waters of lustration (mei niddah)
The cited verse
The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)
כָּל־הַנֹּגֵעַ בְּמֵת בְּנֶפֶשׁ הָאָדָם אֲשֶׁר־יָמוּת וְלֹא יִתְחַטָּא אֶת־מִשְׁכַּן יְהוָה טִמֵּא וְנִכְרְתָה הַנֶּפֶשׁ הַהִוא מִיִּשְׂרָאֵל כִּי מֵי נִדָּה לֹא־זֹרַק עָלָיו טָמֵא יִהְיֶה עוֹד טֻמְאָתוֹ בוֹ
In Maimonides’ words
How Maimonides defines this commandment in his Sefer HaMitzvot — his own words, shown as a primary source.
היא שצונו והורונו במשפטי מי נדה שאמרו שיטהרו בענין אחד ויטמאו בענין אחר כמו שיתבאר בדקדוק מצוה זו, ודע כי אלו שלשה עשר מינין מהטמאות שקדם מנינם והם טומאת נבלה ושרצים ואוכלין ומשקין וטומאת נדה ויולדת וצרעת אדם [וצרעת בגדים] וצרעת בתים וטומאת זב וזבה ושכבת זרע וטומאת מת ומי נדה וטהרת כל אחד מהם הוא כתוב בתורה בכתובים רבים ודינים ותנאים כמו שכתוב בפרשת ויהי ביום השמיני ובפרשת תזריע וזאת תהיה ופרשת פרה אדומה. ואלו הארבע פרשיות יכללו כתובים אלו הטמאות כלם. אמנם דיני המינין האלו כולם ודקדוק כל מין מהם סדר טהרות כולל כל זה. מסכת טהרות מכשירין ועוקצין (כי) אלו שלש מסכתות כוללות טומאת אוכלין בלבד ולהם הם מחוברים ומה שנמשך מהם מזכרון דין מדיני טומאות אהרות אמנם בא בהם במקרה, וכן מסכת נדה כוללת דיני זב וזבה ושכבת זרע, ומסכת אהלות כוללת דיני טומאת מת, ומסכת פרה כולל מי נדה לטמא ולטהר. אמנם טומאת נבלות וטומאת שרץ לא נתיחד להם מסכת אבל דיניהם מפוזרים במקומות רבים מהסדר הזה ורוב זה במסכת כלים וטהרות, וכן דברו על שאלות רבות מאלו הענינים במסכת עדיות. וכבר פירשנו זה הסדר בכללו כלומר סדר טהרות פירוש לא יצטרך עמו לעיין ספר אחר בשום דבר מעניני טומאה. (זאת חקת התורה, טהרה הלכות פרה אדומה בט"ו פרקים):
That is that He commanded us and instructed us [to administer] the laws of purification water, about which they said that it renders impure in one way and purifies in another way - as is explained in the analysis of this commandment. And you should know that these thirteen types of impurities, the counting of which preceded this - being the impurities of a carcass; of creeping animals; of foods and drinks; of a menstruant woman; of a woman after childbirth; of tsaraat of a person; [of tsaraat of garments;] of tsaraat of houses; of a zav; of a zavah; of semen; of a corpse; and of purifying waters - and the purification of each one of them, is written in the Torah in many verses and with many laws and stipulations, as are written in Parashat Shemini, Parashat Tazria and Metzora and in Parashat Parah. And these four sections completely include all of these impurities. Moreover, the Order of Tahorot includes all of the laws of all of these types and the analysis of each type. Tractates Tahorot, Makhshirin and Oktzin - these three tractates only contain the impurity of food and that which is attached to [this topic], and those laws from other types of impurities the mention of which is relevant to it. However they only appear contingently. And likewise Tractate Niddah includes all the laws of [the impurities of a menstruant woman and a woman after childbirth. And some of the laws of a woman after childbirth are also in Tractate Keritot. And in Tractate Negaim are the laws of the blemishes of people, garments and houses. And Tractate Zavim includes the laws of] of a zav, a zavah and of semen. And Tractate Oholot contains the laws of the impurity of a carcass. And Tractate Parah includes the purifying waters, to render impure and to purify. But no tractate was dedicated to the impurity of carcasses or the impurity of creeping animals; however their laws are scattered in many places in this order, and the majority are in Tractates Kelim and Tahorot. And likewise did they speak about many questions about these topics in Tractate Eduyot. And we have already explained this order in its entirety (in the Commentary on the Mishnah) - meaning the Order of Tahorot. It is a commentary that does not require any other book with it for any topic related to impurity. (See Parashat Chukat; Mishneh Torah, Red Heifer 1-15.)
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 case law — "if X, then Y"
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
No court-imposed penalty is recorded.
At the hands of Heaven
- Karet — being 'cut off'
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 As the catalog records it: non binding (awaiting Temple)
- Conservative Not binding
- Reform Not binding
- Reconstructionist Not binding
- Karaite 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)
- 11QTemple (Temple Scroll) 49:16-21 read it more strictly
- 4Q277 (4QTohorot Bb) read it more strictly
- 4Q276 (4QTohorot Ba) read it more strictly
Rabbinic aggadah
- Numbers Rabbah 19:1-8 expanded it homiletically
- Pesiqta de-Rav Kahana 4 (Parah) expanded it homiletically
Josephus
- Ant. 4.79-81 rationalized it
The New Testament
- Hebrews 9:13-14 read it spiritually Contrasts the ashes of a heifer sprinkling the unclean with the blood of Christ as a superior internal purification; foundational for supersessionist typology
The Church Fathers
- Epistle of Barnabas, Barnabas 8 read it allegorically
- Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho 13-14 read it spiritually
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.
- hittite ritual texts Hittite royal funerary and purification rituals employ water-and-ash mixtures applied by sprinkling to persons contaminated by contact with the dead, paralleling the Israelite mei niddah procedure of mixing red-heifer ashes with living water and sprinkling on the third and seventh days Relationship to the parallel: parallel with divergence General Hittite funerary purification rituals involving water, ash, and sprinkling (cf. CTH 450; no single Hittite Laws section number) Hoffner, The Laws of the Hittites: A Critical Edition (Brill, 1997)
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.