You shall not have in your bag diverse weights, one heavy and one light.
Not to possess inaccurate weights or measures
The cited verse
The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)
לֹא־יִהְיֶ֥ה לְךָ֛ בְּכִֽיסְךָ֖ אֶ֣בֶן וָאָ֑בֶן גְּדוֹלָ֖ה וּקְטַנָּֽה
In Maimonides’ words
How Maimonides defines this commandment in his Sefer HaMitzvot — his own words, shown as a primary source.
שהזהירנו מהיות המשקולות והמדות חסרות אצלנו בבתינו אע"פ שלא יעשה בהם מקח וממכר, והוא אמרו יתעלה לא יהיה בכיסך אבן ואבן גדולה וקטנה וכן איפה ואיפה. ולשון גמרא בתרא (דף פ"ט:) אסור לאדם שישהה מדה חסרה או יתירה בתוך ביתו ואפילו הוא עביט של מימי רגלים. ולא תחשוב שאמרו לא יהיה לך איפה ואיפה ולא יהיה לך אבן ואבן שהן שני לאוין. אמנם בא להשלים דיני המצוה עד שיפורשו מיני השיעור והם המשקל והמדה כאילו יאמר לא יהיה אצלך שני שיעורין לא במדידה ולא במשקל כמו שבארנו במצות עשה, ואמרו לא יהיה לך אבן ואבן לא יהיה לך איפה ואיפה הוא כמו אמרו לא תשיך לאחיך נשך כסף נשך אוכל נשך כל דבר אשר ישך שהוא לאו אחד כולל מינים הרבה אשר בהם כולם ענין אחד בעצמו, ולא בהכפל הלשונות ירבו המצות כשיהיה ענין אחד כמו שהקדמנו בשרש תשיעי, וכבר קדם לנו כגון זה במצות לא תעשה, והוא אמרו לא יראה לך חמץ ולא יראה לך שאור. (תצא, שם פ"ז):
That He prohibited us from having weights and measures that are deficient, with us in our homes - even though one does not buy and sell with them. And that is His, may He be exalted, saying, "You are not to have for yourself in your pouch varying weight-stones, large and small" (Deuteronomy 25:13); and likewise, "varying ephah measurements" (Deuteronomy 25:14). And the language of the Gemara, Batra (Bava Batra 89b), is, "It is prohibited for a person to keep in his house a measure that is deficient or inflated, even if [he only uses it as] a chamber pot for urine." And you should not think that His saying, "You are not to have for yourself [...] "varying ephah measurements"; and "You are not to have for yourself [...] varying weight-stones" - [signifies] that they are two [distinct] negative commandments. Indeed, it is coming to round out the laws of the commandment, so that the types of measures are explained - and they are weight and measurement. It is as if He would say, "You should not have two measures with you - not for measuring, and not for weighing," as we explained in the Positive Commandments (Sefer HaMitzvot, Positive Commandments 208). And His saying, "You are not to have for yourself [...] varying weight-stones"; and "You are not to have for yourself [...] varying ephah measurements" - is like His saying, "You shall not charge interest to your brother; interest of money, interest of food, interest of anything upon which interest can be charged" (Deuteronomy 23:20) - which is one negative commandment that includes many types, all of which have the very same content. And it is not from the repetition of language that there is an expansion of commandments, as we discussed earlier in Principle 9. And something like this negative commandment already came before us; and that is His saying, ""no chametz may be seen [...], and no leaven may be seen" (Exodus 13:7). (See Parashat Ki Tetzei; Mishneh Torah, Theft 7.)
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.
Rabbinic aggadah
- Sifre Deuteronomy §294 The catalog describes this reception as: halakhic exegetical expansion
Philo of Alexandria
- De Specialibus Legibus 4.193-194 rationalized it
The Qur'an and hadith
- Q 83:1-3 (al-Mutaffifin) carried a 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 female tavern-keeper accepting payment by a heavy (silver) weight while diminishing the value of grain/ale — fraudulent measurement Relationship to the parallel: parallel with divergence §108 Roth, Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor, 2nd ed. (1997)
- egyptian negative confession denial of falsifying the balance / diminishing the measure Relationship to the parallel: parallel with divergence Confession B (declarations of innocence) Allen, The Book of the Dead (1974) / Faulkner trans.
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 Genevah 7:3) prescribes thirty-nine lashes for merely possessing inaccurate weights — even without engaging in any fraudulent transaction; modern penal proportionality precludes corporal punishment for a possession offense where no fraud has yet occurred and no victim is identifiable.
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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 possessing dual weight-sets — a prophylactic offense predicated on potential rather than actual fraud — 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.