and you shall detest them. You shall not eat of their meat, and you shall detest their carcasses.
Not to eat any fish that lacks fins and scales
The cited verse
The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)
וְשֶׁקֶץ יִהְיוּ לָכֶם מִבְּשָׂרָם לֹא תֹאכֵלוּ וְאֶת־נִבְלָתָם תְּשַׁקֵּצוּ
In Maimonides’ words
How Maimonides defines this commandment in his Sefer HaMitzvot — his own words, shown as a primary source.
הזהירנו מאכול דג טמא. והוא אמרו יתעלה במיני דגים ההם ושקץ יהיו לכם מבשרם לא תאכלו. ומי שאכל כזית מהן לוקה. (שם, שם):
He prohibited us from eating impure fish. And that is His, may He be exalted, saying about those species of fish, "They shall be repulsive to you, you shall not eat of their meat" (Leviticus 11:11). And one who eats a kazayit of them is lashed. (See Parashat Shemini; Mishneh Torah, Forbidden Foods 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.
- 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
- 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
- Conservative Binding in principle
- 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.
Philo of Alexandria
- De Spec. Leg. 4.110-112 read it allegorically
Josephus
- Ant. 3.259 affirmed it
The New Testament
- Acts 10:9-16 treated it as abrogated Peter's vision, whose primary referent is land animals (clean/unclean), interpreted in early Christianity as nullifying the broader distinction between clean and unclean creatures, including aquatic ones
- Mark 7:19 treated it as abrogated Markan editorial gloss 'thus he declared all foods clean'
The Church Fathers
- Epistle of Barnabas, Barn. 10.1-5 read it allegorically
- Novatian, De Cibis Judaicis 3 read it allegorically
The Qur'an and hadith
- Q 5:96 set it in contrast
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.
-
general principle
This framework classifies the relation as an incompatible method.
The commandment prescribes flogging for eating shellfish, catfish, or other scaleless aquatic creatures; the use of corporal punishment to enforce a dietary classification is incompatible with post-Enlightenment norms of bodily integrity.
-
Article 7
This framework classifies the relation as an incompatible method.
ICCPR Article 7 prohibits cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment; thirty-nine lashes for consuming a prohibited aquatic species falls within the class of physical punishments proscribed by this article.
-
general principle
This framework classifies the relation as a direct contradiction.
Modern penal proportionality holds that sanctions must correspond to the gravity of harm; corporal punishment for eating shrimp or lobster exceeds any defensible proportionate response under secular criminal law.
-
general principle
This framework classifies the relation as abrogated in practice.
Malkot may only be imposed by a Sanhedrin of twenty-three judges, an institution defunct since the Second Temple period; the sanction is de jure but has been de facto inoperative for nearly two millennia.