“If a bull gores a man or a woman to death, the bull shall surely be stoned, and its meat shall not be eaten; but the owner of the bull shall not be held responsible.
Not to eat the flesh of a stoned ox
The cited verse
The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)
וְלֹא יֵאָכֵל אֶת־בְּשָׂרוֹ
In Maimonides’ words
How Maimonides defines this commandment in his Sefer HaMitzvot — his own words, shown as a primary source.
הזהירנו מאכול בשר שור הנסקל ואפילו נשחטהו קודם שנסקל שהוא מעת שנגמר דינו נאסרה אכילתו אף על פי שנשחט שחיטה כשרה, והוא אמרו לא יאכל את בשרו. ולשון מכילתא שור שיצא ליסקל וקדמו הבעלים ושחטוהו בשרו אסור באכילה לכך נאמר לא יאכל. ומי שאכל ממנו כזית לוקה. (שם, שם):
He prohibited us from eating meat from an ox that is to be stoned. And even if it was slaughtered before it was stoned - from the time its judgement was completed - it is forbidden [to] eat it, even though it was slaughtered with a proper slaughter. And that is His saying, "its meat shall not be eaten" (Exodus 21:28). And the language of the Mekhilta (Mekhilta d'Rabbi Yishmael 21:28:3) is, "[If] the ox were taken out to be stoned, and its owners intervened and slaughtered it, its meat is forbidden to eat." Hence it is stated, "it shall not be eaten." And one who eats a kazayit of it is lashed. (See Parashat Mishpatim; Mishneh Torah, Forbidden Foods 9.)
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.
No applicability flags are recorded for this commandment.
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 Not binding
- Reform Not binding
- Reconstructionist Not binding
- Karaite Position uncertain
24 of 613 commandments have been examined in depth so far — this one is queued.
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.
- laws of eshnunna goring ox liability; monetary payment imposed on owner for death of victim (no killing of ox prescribed) Relationship to the parallel: parallel with divergence §§53-54 Roth, Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor 2nd ed. (1997)
- code of hammurabi distinction between non-habitual and forewarned (habitual) gorer; notably contains no prohibition on consuming the carcass Relationship to the parallel: parallel with divergence §§250-252 Roth, Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor 2nd ed. (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.
-
general principle
This framework classifies the relation as an incompatible method.
The commandment prescribes flogging (malkot) for eating the flesh of a judicially executed ox; post-Enlightenment norms treat corporal punishment as an incompatible method.
-
Article 7
This framework classifies the relation as an incompatible method.
Article 7 of the ICCPR prohibits torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading punishment; the imposition of thirty-nine lashes for consuming meat from an animal that was judicially executed falls within the class of physical punishments that international human-rights law designates as degrading treatment.
-
general principle
This framework classifies the relation as a direct contradiction.
Modern penal proportionality doctrine holds that punishment must be commensurate with the harm caused; corporal punishment for consuming the carcass of an already-executed animal — whose meat poses no evident harm — exceeds any proportionate response under contemporary penal theory.
-
general principle
This framework classifies the relation as abrogated in practice.
Rabbinic tradition holds that lashes may only be imposed by a Sanhedrin of twenty-three judges, an institution that has not functioned since the destruction of the Second Temple; the malkot sanction is therefore de jure but not de facto enforceable.