You shall not deprive the foreigner or the fatherless of justice, nor take a widow’s clothing in pledge;
Not to take a pledge from a widow
The cited verse
The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)
וְלֹא תַחֲבֹל בֶּגֶד אַלְמָנָה
In Maimonides’ words
How Maimonides defines this commandment in his Sefer HaMitzvot — his own words, shown as a primary source.
הזהיר ממנוע המשכון מבעליו בעת שהוא צריך אליו אבל נשיב לו כלי יום ביום וכלי לילה בלילה, כמו שבא לשון המשנה (מציעא קי"ג) מחזיר את הכר בלילה ואת המחרישה ביום, והאזהרה בזה לא תשכב בעבוטו. ולשון ספרי לא תשכב ועבוטו עמך אבל החזר לו מה שאי אפשר לו לעמוד בלעדיו מפני עניותו. והתבארו משפטי מצוה זו פ"ט ממציעא. (שם, שם):
He prohibited us from keeping the collateral item from its owners during the time that he needs it. Rather we must return it to him - a day-item during the day and a night-item during the night - as it appears in the language of the Mishnah (Bava Metzia 113a), "One must return the pillow at night, and the plow during the day." And the prohibition about it is, "you shall not sleep with his pledge" (Deuteronomy 24:12). And the language of the Sifrei (Sifrei Devarim 277:2) is, "You shall not lay down with his pledge in your possession." Rather you must return to him what he cannot stand being without on account of his poverty. And the regulations of this commandment have already been explained in Chapter 9 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 rationalized it
Josephus
- Antiquities 4.266-270 rationalized it
The New Testament
- James 1:27 expanded it homiletically Care for widows and orphans framed as 'pure religion'; thematic uptake of the Deuteronomic widow ethic rather than the pledge law per se.
- Mark 12:40 // Luke 20:47 expanded it homiletically Condemnation of those who 'devour widows' houses' echoes the prophetic-Deuteronomic concern with widow exploitation.
The Qur'an and hadith
- Q 4:2-3, 4:127 carried a thematic parallel
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 widow's maintenance and inheritance rights Relationship to the parallel: parallel with divergence §§171-177 Roth, Law Collections 2nd ed. (1997)
- middle assyrian laws widow remarriage and property regulation Relationship to the parallel: parallel with divergence A §§33-34 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 3:1) prescribes thirty-nine lashes for a creditor who takes any pledge from a widow; modern penal proportionality precludes corporal punishment for a civil creditor-protection 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 taking a pledge from a widow — however exploitative — falls within the class of punishments that international human-rights bodies consistently classify as degrading.
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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.