When you reap your harvest in your field, and have forgotten a sheaf in the field, you shall not go again to get it. It shall be for the foreigner, for the fatherless, and for the widow, that Yahweh your God may bless you in all the work of your hands.
Not to return for a forgotten sheaf in the field
The cited verse
The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)
כִּי תִקְצֹר קְצִירְךָ בְשָׂדֶךָ וְשָׁכַחְתָּ עֹמֶר בַּשָּׂדֶה לֹא תָשׁוּב לְקַחְתּוֹ
In Maimonides’ words
How Maimonides defines this commandment in his Sefer HaMitzvot — his own words, shown as a primary source.
הזהירנו מקחת עומר השכחה. והוא אמרו ושכחת עומר בשדה לא תשוב לקחתו והשכחה נוהגת בין בתבואה בין באילן. וזה ניתק לעשה שאם עבר ולקחה חייב להשיבה לעניים. והוא אמרו לגר ליתום ולאלמנה יהיה. וכבר התבארו משפטי מצוה זו במסכת פאה. ודע כי השרש אצלנו שכל מצות לא תעשה שיש בה קום עשה כשקיים עשה שבה אינו לוקה, ואם לא יקיימהו לוקה, דמיון זה הפאה אם קצר אותה אינו חייב מלקות מיד שקצר אבל יש לו להשיב השבלים, וכן אם דש אותם וטחן החטים ולש הקמח יתן מהבצק מה שראוי עליו מן הפאה, ואם קרה שנאבדה אותה החטה בכללה או נשרפה לוקה, כי לא קיים עשה שבה, וכל שכן כשבטלו בידים כמו שאכל את החטה כלה. ולא תחשוב שאמרם בגמרא מכות (דף ט"ז) אנו אין לנו אלא זאת ועוד אחרת והתבאר שאותה האחרת היא הפאה יחייב עליה דין זה אמנם בפאה לבד. אבל כי ענין האחרת רוצה בו הפאה וכל מי שדינו דין פאה הפרט והשכחה והלקט והעוללות כל אחד מהם לאו שיש בו קום עשה, ואפשר בו מה שאפשר בפאה מן קיימו ולא קיימו בטלו ולא בטלו, כי הכתוב שממנו למדנו שהפאה יש בה קום עשה הוא אמרו יתעלה לעני ולגר תעזוב אותם וזה בא על הפאה והלקט והעוללות אמר לא תכלה פאת שדך ולקט קצירך וכרמך לא תעולל ופרט כרמך, ואמרו גם כן בעומר השכחה לא תשוב לקחתה, ואחר שמצאנו לשון בגמרא שהפאה הוא לאו הניתק לעשה והביאו ראיה על עשה שבה מאמרו לעני ולגר וכו', הוא ראיה שאלו החמשה לאוין הן לאו הניתק לעשה וכל זמן שמקיים עשה שבה כמו שזכרנו אינו לוקה, וכשהיה בלתי אפשר קיום עשה שבה לוקה, וכל זמן שיהיה אפשר לקיימו ואף על פי שאינו מקיימו עדיין אינו לוקה אבל נצוה אותו לקיימו לבד עד שנדע שכבר עבר האזהרה ולא השאיר לו דרך אפשרות לקיים עשה שבה ואז הוא לוקה, ושמע זה הענין והבן אותו. (כי תצא, שם):
He prohibited us from taking the forgotten sheaves. And that is His saying, "and you forget a sheaf in the field, you may not return to take it" (Deuteronomy 24:19). And [the commandment of leaving what is forgotten] is practiced both with produce and with [fruit] trees; and is rectified by a positive commandment. For if one transgressed and took it, he is obligated to return it to the poor. And that is His saying, "it shall be for the stranger, the orphan and the widow." And the regulations of this commandment have already been explained in Tractate Peah. And know that the principle with us is that any negative commandment that has a positive commandment [attached to it] - if he fulfills the positive commandment in it, he is not lashed; but if he does not fulfill it, he is lashed. An example of this is that if he harvested the corner, he is not liable for lashes immediately when he harvested. Rather he must return the sheaves. And likewise if he threshed them, ground the wheat and kneaded the dough, he must give what was fit for him for [his obligation of] the corner, from the dough. But if it happened that the wheat got totally lost or it was burnt, he is lashed - as he did not fulfill the positive commandment in it. And all the more so if he negated [the positive commandment] actively - as when he ate all of the wheat. But do not think that that which they said, in the Gemara, Makkot (Makkot 16a) - "For us, we only have this and one other one," and it is explained that this other one is the corner - requires that this law is in fact only exclusively regarding the corner. Rather the matter of the "other one," is meaning to say, the corner and everything, the law of which is like the law of the corner - the single grapes, what was forgotten, the gleanings and the ollalot. Each one of them is a negative commandment that is rectified by a positive commandment and has the possibility within it - that is possible with the corner - of 'he fulfilled it or he did not fulfill it,' and 'he nullified it or did not nullify it.' For the verse from which we learned that there is a positive commandment with the corner is His, may He be exalted, saying, "you shall leave them for the poor and the stranger" (Leviticus 19:9-10); and that appears about the corner, the gleanings, [the single grapes,] and the ollalot. He said [there], "you shall not completely cut the corner of your field, [you shall not gather] the gleaning of your harvest. You shall not pick your vineyard bare; neither shall you gather the single grapes of your vineyard." And He likewise said about the forgotten sheave, "you may not return to take it." And once we have found the language in the Gemara, that the corner is a negative commandment rectified by a positive commandment and they brought a proof about the positive commandment in it from His saying, "you shall leave them for the poor and the stranger, etc." - it is a proof that these five commandments are [all] negative commandments that are rectified by a positive commandment. So - as we mentioned - as long as he fulfills the positive commandment in it, he is not lashed; but if the fulfillment of the positive commandment is no longer possible, he is lashed. However so long as it is possible to fulfill it - even though he has not fulfilled it - he is not yet lashed. Rather we only command him to fulfill it, until we know that he has already transgressed the negative commandment and there is no possible way for him to fulfill the positive commandment in it. Then he is lashed. And heed this content and understand it. (See Parashat Ki Tetzei; Mishneh Torah, Gifts to the Poor 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 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
- 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 Binding, with modification
- Reform Kept as an ethical principle
- Reconstructionist Kept as an ethical principle
- Karaite Binding in 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
- Sifrei Deuteronomy 283 expanded it homiletically
Philo of Alexandria
- De Virtutibus 90-98 affirmed it Philo treats the gleaning cluster (corners, gleanings, forgotten sheaf) generally as exemplifying philanthropia rather than isolating the forgotten-sheaf provision
Josephus
- Ant. 4.231 affirmed it Josephus paraphrases the agricultural gifts to the poor, including leaving sheaves/gleanings, within his rewriting of Deuteronomic law
The New Testament
- Matthew 12:1 The catalog describes this reception as: loose parallel Disciples plucking grain presupposes general field-access norms (cf. Deut 23:25); the connection to the forgotten-sheaf law specifically is indirect
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.
- instruction of amenemope general moral exhortation to protect and not defraud the poor, widow, and weak; framed as wisdom virtue rather than enforceable agricultural-welfare entitlement Relationship to the parallel: shared theme Chapters 6 and 28 (boundary-stone and protection-of-the-poor sayings) 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.
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general principle
This framework classifies the relation as a direct contradiction.
Mishnah Makkot 3:2 assigns thirty-nine lashes for actively retrieving a forgotten sheaf; modern penal proportionality precludes corporal punishment for an agricultural welfare infraction of this kind.
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Article 7
This framework classifies the relation as a direct contradiction.
ICCPR Article 7 prohibits cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment; court-administered flogging for returning a forgotten agricultural sheaf falls within the class of punishments that international human-rights bodies have consistently treated as violating this article.
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abrogated_in_practice
This framework classifies the relation as abrogated in practice.
Capital jurisdiction for this offense lapsed with the dissolution of the Sanhedrin; the malkot sanction exists de jure but has not been administered since the Second Temple period.