Commandments · Negative commandments

Not to eat the second tithe of wine outside Jerusalem

#306 Negative commandment Deuteronomy 12:17

The cited verse

The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)

לֹא־תוּכַל לֶאֱכֹל בִּשְׁעָרֶיךָ ... וְתִירֹשְׁךָ

In Maimonides’ words

How Maimonides defines this commandment in his Sefer HaMitzvot — his own words, shown as a primary source.

שהזהירנו מאכול מעשר שני של תירוש חוץ לירושלים. והוא אמרו יתעלה לא תוכל לאכול מעשר דגנך תירושך. ומי שאכלו בלא פדיון חייב מלקות, ובתנאי הקודם במעשר דגן. (שם, שם):

That He prohibited us from consuming the second tithe from wine, outside of Jerusalem. And that is His, may He be exalted, saying, "You may not eat in your cities the tithe of your grain and your wine" (Deuteronomy 12:17). And one who eats it without redemption is liable for lashes - but [only] with the previous condition regarding the [second] tithe of grain. (See Parashat Re'eh; Mishneh Torah, Second Tithe 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.

  • 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, with modification
  • Conservative Not binding
  • Reform Not binding
  • Reconstructionist Not binding
  • Karaite Binding, with modification

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.

Josephus

  • Ant. 4.205 paraphrased 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.

  • general principle

    This framework classifies the relation as a direct contradiction.

    The commandment prescribes thirty-nine lashes for consuming one's own wine outside a designated city — a non-violent personal consumption infraction for which corporal punishment is entirely disproportionate under modern penal theory.

  • Article 7

    This framework classifies the relation as a direct contradiction.

    ICCPR Article 7 prohibits cruel, inhuman, or degrading punishment; international human-rights bodies classify judicial flogging for dietary or consumption infractions as inhuman or degrading treatment.

  • general principle

    This framework classifies the relation as abrogated in practice.

    Rabbinic tradition holds that Sanhedrin corporal jurisdiction lapsed with the loss of ordained judicial authority at the destruction of the Second Temple; the lash sanction is de jure but not currently enforced.

Source & licence

The commentary, cross-references, reception, and modern-conflict analysis in this section are drawn from a public compilation of the 613 commandments, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. The cited biblical text is rendered from GEBible’s own public-domain reading corpus. CC BY-SA 4.0 (opens in a new tab). GEBible’s presentation of this material is offered under the same CC BY-SA 4.0 terms.