“ ‘Every creeping thing that creeps on the earth is an abomination. It shall not be eaten.
Not to eat any creature that swarms upon the earth
The cited verse
The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)
וְכָל־הַשֶּׁרֶץ הַשֹּׁרֵץ עַל־הָאָרֶץ שֶׁקֶץ הוּא לֹא יֵאָכֵל
In Maimonides’ words
How Maimonides defines this commandment in his Sefer HaMitzvot — his own words, shown as a primary source.
הזהירנו מלאכול שרץ הארץ כתולעים והחפושיות והדומה להם וזהו הנקרא שרץ הארץ. והוא אמרו וכל השרץ השורץ על הארץ וגו'. ומי שאכל לוקה. (שמיני, שם פ"ב):
He prohibited us from eating things that swarm upon the earth, such as worms, beatles and that which is similar to them. And that is what is called, things that swarm of the land. And that is His saying, "All the things that swarm upon the earth, etc." (Leviticus 11:41). And one who eats [them] is lashed. (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 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
- 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: extended dietary purity legislation
Philo of Alexandria
- De Specialibus Legibus 4.100-118 read it allegorically
The New Testament
- Mark 7:19 treated it as abrogated Markan editorial gloss declaring all foods clean (καθαρίζων πάντα τὰ βρώματα); a general dietary-law parenthesis, not specific to swarming creatures
- Acts 10:11-15 treated it as abrogated Peter's vision featuring creeping things (herpeta) on the sheet
The Church Fathers
- Epistle of Barnabas, Barnabas 10 read it allegorically
- Novatian, De Cibis Iudaicis 3 read it spiritually
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 for consuming prohibited ground-swarming creatures; inflicting corporal punishment for a dietary act is incompatible with modern norms of bodily integrity and personal autonomy.
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Article 7
This framework classifies the relation as an incompatible method.
ICCPR Article 7 bars cruel, inhuman, or degrading punishment; thirty-nine lashes for eating a prohibited swarming creature — including, per b. Makkot 16b, a single ant — constitutes a degrading physical sanction under international law.
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general principle
This framework classifies the relation as a direct contradiction.
Modern proportionality doctrine prohibits punishment grossly disproportionate to the harm caused; the possibility of incurring multiple overlapping lash-counts from consuming a single insect exemplifies disproportionality under secular penal theory.
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general principle
This framework classifies the relation as abrogated in practice.
Rabbinic tradition holds that malkot may only be administered by a properly constituted Sanhedrin, which has not functioned since the Second Temple era; the lash sanction is formally operative but practically unenforceable.