When you come into your neighbor’s standing grain, then you may pluck the ears with your hand; but you shall not use a sickle on your neighbor’s standing grain.
A hired worker shall not take more produce than he can eat while working
The cited verse
The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)
וְאֶל־כֶּלְיְךָ לֹא תִתֵּן
In Maimonides’ words
How Maimonides defines this commandment in his Sefer HaMitzvot — his own words, shown as a primary source.
הזהיר השכיר מאכול בשעת עבודתו (*עי' ביד החזקה הל' שכירות פי"ב ה"ג ובהה"מ שם:) מן הדבר שיעבוד בו כשיעבוד במחובר לקרקע. והוא אמרו וחרמש לא תניף על קמת רעך, אמרו וחרמש לרבות כל בעלי חרמש ובשעת חרמש כלומר בשעת הקציר לא תקצור לעצמך, וכבר נודע כי זה הכתוב בא בשכיר ואמר כי תבא ירצה בו כשנכנסת שכיר כמו שאמר התרגום ארי תתגר. וכן במציעא (דף פ"ז) אמרו אלו אוכלין מן התורה העושה במחובר לקרקע בשעת גמר מלאכה. ושם התבארו משפטי מצוה זו. (תצא, הלכות שכירות פי"ב):
He prohibited the worker from eating from something that he is working on, during the time of his work (see Mishneh Torah, Laws of Hiring 12:3 and Hagahot Maimoniyot there), when it is attached to the ground. And that is His saying, "but do not lift a sickle over your fellow’s standing grainstalks" (Deuteronomy 23:26). They said, "'But a sickle,' is to include anyone with a sickle, at the time of the sickling." Meaning, at the time of the harvest, do not harvest for yourself. And it is already known that this verse is speaking about a worker. So when it says, "When you enter," it means to say with it, "When you, the worker, entered" - like the Targum (Onkelos Deuteronomy 23:26) said, "when you are hired." And likewise in Metzia (Bava Metzia 87a), they said, "These eat according to the Torah - one involved with the attached [produce] at the time of the work's end." And the regulations of this commandment have already been explained there. (See Parashat Ki Tetzei; Mishneh Torah, Hiring 12.)
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 Kept as an ethical principle
- Reform Kept as an ethical principle
- Reconstructionist Kept as an ethical principle
- Karaite As the catalog records it: binding (literalist reading)
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. 4.234 The catalog describes this reception as: paraphrase Josephus paraphrases the Deuteronomic field-eating allowance, permitting those passing through (travelers/laborers) to eat of standing produce but not to carry any away.
The New Testament
- Matthew 12:1 carried a parallel Disciples plucking heads of grain by hand on the Sabbath presupposes the Deuteronomic plucking-with-the-hand allowance; the dispute concerns Sabbath observance rather than the container limit.
- Mark 2:23 carried a parallel Synoptic parallel reflecting the same hand-plucking practice.
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 Sekhirut 12:2–3) prescribes thirty-nine lashes for a harvest worker who puts produce into a container for removal; modern penal proportionality precludes corporal punishment for a workplace-benefit-limit infraction in which no injury beyond minor economic loss is involved.
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Article 7
This framework classifies the relation as a direct contradiction.
ICCPR Article 7 prohibits cruel, inhuman, or degrading punishment; judicial flogging for placing harvested produce in a container 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.