When you lend your neighbor any kind of loan, you shall not go into his house to get his pledge.
Not to take a pledge from a debtor by force
The cited verse
The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)
לֹא־תָבֹא אֶל־בֵּיתוֹ לַעֲבֹט עֲבֹטוֹ׃ בַּחוּץ תַּעֲמֹד וְהָאִישׁ אֲשֶׁר אַתָּה נֹשֶׁה בוֹ יוֹצִיא אֵלֶיךָ אֶת־הָעֲבוֹט הַחוּצָה
In Maimonides’ words
How Maimonides defines this commandment in his Sefer HaMitzvot — his own words, shown as a primary source.
הזהירנו מלמשכן הלוים בידינו אלא במצות הדיין ובידי שלוחו, לא שנבא אנחנו בבית הבעל חוב ונמשכן אותו. והוא אמרו לא תבא אל ביתו לעבוט עבוטו. ולשון משנה (מציעא קי"ג) המלוה את חבירו לא ימשכנו אלא בבית דין ולא יכנס לביתו ליטול המשכון שנאמר בחוץ תעמוד, והוא לאו הניתק לעשה והוא אמרו השב תשיב לו את העבוט, וכן התבאר בסוף גמרא מכות (דף ט"ו). ודע שאם לא השיבו ולא קיים עשה שבו חייב מלקות ומשלם דמי משכון כמו שהתבאר בסוף מכות. וכבר התבאר משפטי מצוה זו בתשיעי ממציעא. (תצא, הלכות מלוה ולוה פ"ג):
He prohibited us from taking collateral from borrowers into our hands except by the order of the judge and through his messenger; and that we not come, ourselves, into the debtor's house and take [something] as collateral. And that is His saying, "you must not enter his house to seize his pledge" (Deuteronomy 24:10). And the language of the Mishnah (Bava Metzia 113a) is, "One who lends money to another may take collateral only by means of the court. And he may not enter his house to take his collateral, as it is stated, 'You shall stand outside' (Deuteronomy 24:11)." And it is a negative commandment that is rectified by a positive commandment. And that is His saying, "You must surely return the pledge to him" (Deuteronomy 24:13). And so is it explained at the end of Tractate Makkot (Makkot 16a). And know that if he does not return it and does not fulfill the positive commandment in it, he is liable for lashes and pays the money of the collateral - as it is explained at the end of Makkot. And the regulations of this commandment have already been explained in the ninth [chapter] of [Bava] Metzia. (See Parashat Ki Teitzeh; Mishneh Torah, Creditor and Debtor 3.)
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
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
- Reform Kept as an ethical principle
- Reconstructionist Kept as an ethical principle
- 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 2.71-78 The catalog describes this reception as: affirmed (treats the broader Deuteronomic debtor protection cluster rather than this specific forced entry prohibition)
Josephus
- Ant. 4.268 affirmed it
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 distraint of persons as debt pledge (nipûtum) Relationship to the parallel: polemical contrast §§114-116 Roth, Law Collections 2nd ed. (1997)
- middle assyrian laws distraint and pledging of persons for debt Relationship to the parallel: parallel with divergence A §§39, 44 Roth, Law Collections 2nd ed. (1997)
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.
Maimonides (Hilkhot Malveh veLoveh 3:4) prescribes thirty-nine lashes for a creditor who physically enters a debtor's home to seize a pledge; modern penal proportionality precludes corporal punishment for a procedural debt-enforcement violation with no violent component.
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Article 7
This framework classifies the relation as a direct contradiction.
ICCPR Article 7 prohibits cruel, inhuman, or degrading punishment; judicially administered flogging for crossing a debtor's threshold — however inappropriate — falls within the class of punishments consistently classified as degrading by international human-rights bodies.
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abrogated_in_practice
This framework classifies the relation as abrogated in practice.
The malkot sanction has not been administered since the dissolution of the Sanhedrin; the de jure conflict with modern penal norms is not enforced in practice.