They shall tell the elders of his city, “This our son is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey our voice. He is a glutton and a drunkard.”
Not to be a glutton or drunkard
The cited verse
The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)
אֵינֶנּוּ שֹׁמֵעַ בְּקֹלֵנוּ זוֹלֵל וְסֹבֵא
In Maimonides’ words
How Maimonides defines this commandment in his Sefer HaMitzvot — his own words, shown as a primary source.
הזהירנו מהיות זולל וסובא במאכל ובמשתה בימי הנערות ובתנאים מתוארים בדין סורר ומורה. והוא אמרו לא תאכלו על הדם. ובאור זה שבן סורר ומורה מכלל חייבי מיתת בית דין, ולשון התורה בו בסקילה. וכבר התבאר בהקדמת זה המאמר שכל מי שחייב כרת או מיתת בית דין הוא מצות לא תעשה זולת הפסח ומילה כמו שבארנו, אם כן אחר שנדון בן זולל וסובא על התנאים הנזכרים בסקילה, ידענו זה המעשה שהוא מוזהר ממנו בהכרח ונתבאר העונש. אם כן צריך שנחקור על האזהרה לפי שלא ענש הכתוב אלא אם כן הזהיר. ולשון גמרת סנהדרין (דף ס"ג) אזהרה לבן סורר ומורה מנין תלמוד לומר לא תאכלו על הדם רוצה לומר לא תאכל אכילה שהיא מביאה לשפוך דם, והיא אכילת סורר ומורה שחייב עליה מיתה. וכשאכל האכילה ההיא הרעה על הדרכים ההם אשר לא טובים כבר עבר על לאו אע"פ שזה הלאו שבכללות כמו שבארנו בשרש תשיעי. כי זה אינו רחוק שאחר שהעונש מפורש אין לחוש על האזהרה אם היא מן הדין או מלאו שבכללות. וכבר התבארו דיני מצוה זו בפרק ח' מסנהדרין. (קדושים תהיו, הלכות ממרים פ"ז):
He prohibited us from being gluttonous and drunk with food and drink in the days of youth and under the conditions of the law of the stubborn and rebellious [son]. And that is His saying, "'You shall not eat with the blood" (Leviticus 19:26). And the explanation of this is that a stubborn and rebellious son is included in [those things] that are liable for a death penalty of the court; and the language of the Torah about it (Deuteronomy 21:21) is that it is [punished] with stoning. And it has already been explained at the introduction of this essay (Sefer HaMitzvot Shoreshim 14) that anything for which one is liable for excision or a death penalty of the court is a negative commandment, except for the Pesach-sacrifice and circumcision - as we explained. If so, since the gluttonous and drunk son under the specified conditions is sentenced to stoning, we know that the act is perforce prohibited to him - since the punishment was explicit. Hence we must search for the prohibition, since Scripture did not punish [for something] unless it prohibited [it]. And the language of the Gemara, Sanhedrin (Sanhedrin 63a), is, "From where [do we know] the prohibition of a stubborn and rebellious son? [Hence] we learn to say, 'You shall not eat with the blood'" - meaning to say, do not eat an eating that brings about the spilling of blood; and that is the eating of a stubborn and rebellious son, as he is liable for death because of it. And when he eats this bad eating in those not good ways, he has already transgressed the negative commandment - even though this is a general negative commandment, as we explained in the ninth principle (Sefer HaMitzvot, Shorashim 9). For this is not difficult: Since the punishment is explicit, we do not concern ourselves with whether the prohibition is bona fide or whether it is from a general negative commandment. And the regulations of this commandment have already been explained in Chapter 8 of Sanhedrin. (See Parashat Kedoshim; Mishneh Torah, Rebels 7.)
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.
- 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 Kept as an ethical principle
- Reform Kept as an ethical principle
- Reconstructionist Kept as an ethical principle
- Karaite Kept as an ethical principle
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.
Rabbinic aggadah
- Sifre Deuteronomy §218-220 expanded it homiletically
Philo of Alexandria
- De Specialibus Legibus 4.96-104 rationalized it
- De Plantatione 140-177 read it allegorically
Josephus
- Antiquities 4.260-265 reinterpreted it
The New Testament
- Matthew 11:19 // Luke 7:34 The catalog describes this reception as: thematic echo Jesus accused of being a 'glutton and drunkard' (φάγος καὶ οἰνοπότης), an allusive echo of the zolel ve-sove charge rather than exegesis of the ben sorer law
- Galatians 5:21 The catalog describes this reception as: thematic echo drunkenness (μέθαι) listed among works of the flesh excluded from the kingdom; general moral-tradition overlap rather than direct reception of the ben sorer law
- Ephesians 5:18 The catalog describes this reception as: thematic echo 'be not drunk with wine'; paraenetic echo of the broader anti-drunkenness tradition
The Qur'an and hadith
- Q 5:90-91 The catalog describes this reception as: thematic echo Qur'anic prohibition of khamr (intoxicants); thematic overlap on drunkenness only, not a direct parallel to the ben sorer law
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.
- code of hammurabi paternal disinheritance procedure requiring judicial review for a son's grave offense Relationship to the parallel: parallel with divergence §168-169 Roth, Law Collections 2nd ed. (1997)
- code of hammurabi a father who wishes to disinherit his son must bring the case before judges, who can only authorize disinheritance for a second confirmed grave offense; the Deuteronomic ben sorer u-moreh law similarly requires both parents to make a judicial presentation before elders before the son can be executed, reflecting a shared ANE pattern of judicial oversight before severe family-law consequences Relationship to the parallel: parallel with divergence §§168-169 Roth, Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor, 2nd ed. (Scholars Press, 1997)
- instruction of amenemope the sage counsels restraint at the table and warns against coveting or overindulging in food, presenting moderation in food and drink as a mark of wisdom and self-control, a sapiential theme thematically parallel to the biblical condemnation of the zolel ve-sove Relationship to the parallel: shared theme Chapters 11 and 23 (dining restraint / eating with an official) Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature, vol. II (UC Press, 1976), pp. 146-163
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.