“Speak to the children of Israel, saying, ‘These are the living things which you may eat among all the animals that are on the earth.
To distinguish between clean and unclean animals for consumption
The cited verse
The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)
זֹאת הַחַיָּה אֲשֶׁר תֹּאכְלוּ מִכָּל־הַבְּהֵמָה אֲשֶׁר עַל־הָאָרֶץ
In Maimonides’ words
How Maimonides defines this commandment in his Sefer HaMitzvot — his own words, shown as a primary source.
היא שצונו לבדוק בסימני בהמה וחיה השחוטין והוא שיהיו מעלה גרה ושוסע שסע ואז יהיו מותרין לאכלן, והיותנו מצווין לבדוק אותן באלו הסימנין הוא מצות עשה, והוא אמרו יתברך זאת החיה אשר תאכלו. ולשון ספרי אותה תאכלו אותה באכילה ואין בהמה טמאה באכילה, רוצה לומר הבהמה שיהיו בה הסימנין האלו מותר לאכלה ויורה בו שהבהמה שאין בה אלו הסימנים אינה מותרת באכילה, וזה לאו הבא מכלל עשה שהוא עשה כמו שהוא שרש אצלנו, ולכן אמר אחר המאמר הזה אין לי אלא בעשה בלא תעשה מנין תלמוד לומר את הגמל וגו' כמו שאבאר במצות לא תעשה. הנה כבר התבאר שאמרו אותה תאכלו מצות עשה. והענין במצוה זו שאנו מצווין לבדוק הסימנין האלו בבהמה וחיה ואין מותר לאכלן זולת זה והדין הזה הוא מצוה. וכבר התבארו משפטי מצוה זו במסכת חולין ובבכורות. (ויהי ביום השמיני, קדושה הלכות מאכלות אסורות פ"ב):
That is that He commanded us to check for the signs of beasts and animals that can be slaughtered - and that is that they chew the cud and have split hooves - and it is then permissible to eat them. And in that we are commended to check them for these signs, it is a positive commandment. And that is His, may He be blessed, saying, "These are the animals that you may eat" (Leviticus 11:2). And the language of the [Sifra] (Sifra, Chapter 3:1) is, "'Such may you eat' (Leviticus 11:3) - it may be eaten, but an unclean beast may not be eaten." This means to say, a beast that has these signs is permissible to eat; so it indicates that a beast that does not have these signs is not permitted to eat. And this is a negative commandment that is derived from a positive commandment - which is a positive commandment, as is a principle with us. And therefore, it said after this statement, "This tells me only of a positive commandment. From where [do we know that he also transgresses] a negative commandment? [Hence] we learn to say, 'the camel, etc.'"(Leviticus 11:4) - as I will explain in the Negative Commandments (Sefer HaMitzvot, Negative Commandments 172). Behold it has already been made clear that His saying, "such may you eat," is a positive commandment. And the content of this commandment is that we are commanded to check for these signs in the beasts and animals; and it is not permissible to eat them without this. And this law is the commandment. And the regulations of this commandment have already been explained in Tractate Chullin and in Bekhorot. (See Parashat Shemini; Mishneh Torah, Forbidden Foods 2.)
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 ritual instruction
Applicability
How the catalog describes where and when this commandment applies. These are independent descriptions, not a verdict on which laws still count.
- Recorded as practiced today
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
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 Binding
- Reform Kept as an ethical principle
- 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)
- CD 12:11-15 The catalog describes this reception as: stringent halakhic specification
Rabbinic aggadah
- Leviticus Rabbah 13:3 expanded it homiletically
- Sifra Shemini, Parashah 2 expanded it homiletically
Philo of Alexandria
- De Specialibus Legibus 4.100-118 The catalog describes this reception as: allegorized while retaining literal
Josephus
- Ant. 3.259-260 affirmed it
The New Testament
- Mark 7:18-19 treated it as abrogated Markan editorial gloss 'thus he declared all foods clean'
- Acts 10:9-16 treated it as abrogated Peter's vision of the sheet, narratively dissolving the clean/unclean distinction
- Romans 14:14 read it spiritually Paul: 'nothing is unclean in itself'
The Church Fathers
- Epistle of Barnabas, Barnabas 10 read it allegorically
- Origen, Homiliae in Leviticum 7 read it allegorically
- Novatian, De Cibis Iudaicis read it spiritually
The Qur'an and hadith
- Q 5:3 carried a parallel, with divergence
- Q 6:145 carried a parallel, with divergence
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.