What grows of itself in your harvest you shall not reap, and you shall not gather the grapes of your undressed vine. It shall be a year of solemn rest for the land.
Not to harvest crops in the seventh year in the normal manner
The cited verse
The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)
אֵת סְפִיחַ קְצִירְךָ לֹא תִקְצוֹר
In Maimonides’ words
How Maimonides defines this commandment in his Sefer HaMitzvot — his own words, shown as a primary source.
הזהיר מלקצור מה שהצמיחה הארץ מעצמה בשנה שביעית כמו שנקצור בכל שנה. ובאור זה שאנחנו הוזהרנו מעבודת הארץ ומעבודת האילנות בשנת השמיטה כמו שקדם זכרו, ומה שתצמיח הארץ ממה שזרע בה בשנה ששית והוא יקרא ספיח מותר לאכלו מן התורה בשנה שביעית אבל אינו מותר לקצרו אלא בשנוי. וענינו ידוע, והוא אמרו את ספיח קצירך וגו' אינו רוצה שלא יקצור אותו כלל כי הוא כבר אמר והיתה שבת הארץ לכם לאכלה, ואולם רוצה בו שלא תקצור אותו כמו שתקצור אותו בכל שנה אלא כמו שנקצור אותו דבר שהוא הפקר, ר"ל בלי הכנה ובלי תקון כמו שנבאר. (שם, שם):
He prohibited harvesting that which the land grew on its own in the seventh year in the [same] way that we harvest [it] every year. And the explanation of this is that we have been prohibited from working the land and from doing work on trees in the sabbatical year, as we have already mentioned. But according to the Torah, we are allowed to eat what was planted on the sixth year - and that is called the aftergrowth - in the seventh year. But it is only permissible to harvest it with a modification. And its content is well-known - and that is that His saying, "The aftergrowth of your harvest, etc." (Leviticus 25:5), does not mean not to harvest it at all. For He already said, "And the resting of the land shall be for you to eat" (Leviticus 25:5). However it means that you not harvest it in the way you harvest it every year, but rather harvest it like we harvest something ownerless - meaning to say, without readiness and without preparation, as we will explain. (See Parashat Behar; Mishneh Torah, Sabbatical Year and the Jubilee 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
- Binding in the land of Israel
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 As the catalog records it: land of israel contingent
- Reform Not binding
- 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 Specialibus Legibus 2.86-109 rationalized it
Josephus
- Ant. 3.280-281 affirmed it
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 thirty-nine lashes for reaping aftergrowth (sefihim) in the normal commercial manner in the seventh year; post-Enlightenment norms treat state-administered corporal punishment as inherently incompatible with human dignity.
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Article 7
This framework classifies the relation as an incompatible method.
ICCPR Article 7 prohibits cruel, inhuman, or degrading punishment; judicial lashes for a calendrically-defined agricultural harvesting prohibition -- reaping spontaneously grown crops in a forbidden year -- constitute degrading treatment under international human-rights law.
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general principle
This framework classifies the relation as an incompatible method.
Modern penal proportionality doctrine does not countenance corporal punishment for harvesting one's own land's volunteer crops in a prohibited year, an offense without a direct victim or demonstrable harm beyond violation of a religious-economic cycle.
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general principle
This framework classifies the relation as abrogated in practice.
Rabbinic tradition holds that the Sanhedrin's corporal jurisdiction lapsed with the exile of the great court from the Temple precincts (b. Sanhedrin 41a); the de jure malkot norm survives in halakhic codes but has not been applied by any recognized Jewish court since late antiquity.