to make a distinction between the unclean and the clean, and between the living thing that may be eaten and the living thing that may not be eaten.’ ”
To eat food in a state of ritual purity when required
The cited verse
The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)
לְהַבְדִּיל בֵּין הַטָּמֵא וּבֵין הַטָּהֹר וּבֵין הַחַיָּה הַנֶּאֱכֶלֶת וּבֵין הַחַיָּה אֲשֶׁר לֹא תֵאָכֵל
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.
- Requires a standing Temple
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
- Karet — being 'cut off'
Ritual remedy
- A sin-offering (ḥatat)
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, with modification
- Conservative Kept as an ethical principle
- Reform Not binding
- Reconstructionist Not binding
- Karaite Not 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)
- 4QMMT B (halakhic section, 4Q394-399) read it more strictly
- CD 12:11-15 read it more strictly
Rabbinic aggadah
- Leviticus Rabbah 13:3 expanded it homiletically
Philo of Alexandria
- De Specialibus Legibus 4.100-118 read it allegorically
Josephus
- Antiquities 3.259-260 rationalized it
The New Testament
- Mark 7:1-23 treated it as abrogated Jesus' dispute over handwashing and the editorial declaration that 'all foods clean' (v. 19) directly engages and annuls the purity-eating nexus
- Acts 10:9-16 treated it as abrogated Peter's vision abrogating the clean/unclean distinction for food
- Matthew 23:25-26 reinterpreted it polemic against Pharisaic outer purity of cup and dish
The Church Fathers
- Epistle of Barnabas, Barnabas 10 read it allegorically
- Novatian, De Cibis Iudaicis read it allegorically
The Qur'an and hadith
- Q 5:4-5 carried a parallel
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 (malkot) for eating sacred food without the requisite ritual purity status; post-Enlightenment norms treat corporal punishment as an incompatible method.
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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 Temple food in a state of ritual impurity falls within the class of physical punishments that international human-rights law designates as degrading treatment.
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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 the ritual-status condition of the person eating sacred food exceeds any proportionate response under contemporary penal theory.
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general principle
This framework classifies the relation as abrogated in practice.
This commandment is doubly inoperative: both the Temple context on which the purity-eating framework depends and the Sanhedrin's corporal jurisdiction have lapsed since 70 CE; the conflict is de jure, but no enforcement mechanism has existed since then.