When you come into your neighbor’s vineyard, then you may eat your fill of grapes at your own pleasure; but you shall not put any in your container.
To fulfill what one has uttered with one's lips as a vow
The cited verse
The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)
מוֹצָא שְׂפָתֶיךָ תִּשְׁמֹר וְעָשִׂיתָ כַּאֲשֶׁר נָדַרְתָּ לַיהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ נְדָבָה אֲשֶׁר דִּבַּרְתָּ בְּפִיךָ
In Maimonides’ words
How Maimonides defines this commandment in his Sefer HaMitzvot — his own words, shown as a primary source.
היא שצונו לקיים כל מה שקבלנו על נפשנו בדבור משבועה ונדר וצדקה והקרבן וזולת זה, והוא אמרו יתעלה מוצא שפתיך תשמור, ואף על פי שחלקו מלות זה הפסוק ושמו כל מלה ממנו לענין אמנם הכוונה המגעת מכל מה שזכרתי לך שמצות עשה היא לקיים כל מה שהאדם מחייב על נפשו באי זה דבר שיהיה מהדברים והעובר עליו עובר על מצות לא תעשה. והנה אבאר זה בזכרי מצות לא תעשה. ובספרי מוצא שפתיך מצות עשה ואתה יודע שאין שום ענין יוצא מדבור מוצא לבד, ואמנם הכוונה מה שזכרתי לך להבין פשטיה דקרא שצוה לעשות מה שהוציא בשפתיו. והנה נכפל הצווי במצוה זו, והוא אמרו ככל היוצא מפיו יעשה. וכבר התבארו משפטי מצוה זו במקומות רבים, בשבועות ובסוף מנחות ומסכת קנים גם כן, כלומר ששם הדקדוק להזהיר האדם לעשות הדבר שחייב נפשו ואיך יפטר נפשו ועצמו כשיפול ספק במה שאמר. (כי תצא, הפלאה):
That is that we were commanded to fulfill everything that we we take upon ourselves in speech, whether in an oath, a vow, charity, a sacrifice or anything else besides them. And that is His, may He be exalted, saying, "What issues from your lips shall you observe" (Deuteronomy 23:24). And even though they have already separated the words of this verse and arranged each word of it for various content, the intention that nevertheless comes out of all that [they] said to you is that it is a positive commandment for a person to fulfill everything that he accepts upon himself, whatever it may be. And one who violates it, [also] violates a negative commandment; and behold I will explain this in my mention of the negative commandments (Sefer HaMitzvot, Negative Commandments 157). And in the Sifrei (Sifrei Devarim 265:2): "'What issues from your lips' is a positive commandment." And you know that there is no content to the statement, "what issues," alone. However the intention is that which I mentioned to you - to understand the simple meaning of the verse, that He commanded to do what one puts out with his mouth. And behold that this commandment is repeated; and that is His saying, "according to all that issues from his mouth shall he do" (Numbers 30:3). And the regulations of this commandment have already been explained in many places - in Shevuot, in the end of Menachot and in Tractate Kinnim as well. That is to say that the specifics of concerning oneself to do the thing that one has obligated oneself; and how one exempts oneself when he has a doubt about what he said, is found there. (See Parashat Ki Tetzeh; Mishneh Torah, Sefer Haflaah.)
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 flat, unconditional command
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
No court-imposed penalty is recorded.
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.
Qumran (the Dead Sea Scrolls)
- CD 16:6-12 read it more strictly
Rabbinic aggadah
- Leviticus Rabbah 37:1 expanded it homiletically
Philo of Alexandria
- De Specialibus Legibus 2.9-23 rationalized it
Josephus
- Antiquities 4.241-242 affirmed it
The New Testament
- Matthew 5:33-37 reinterpreted it Jesus contrasts the duty to fulfill vows/oaths with a counsel to avoid swearing altogether ('let your yes be yes'), radicalizing the Deuteronomic preference for restraint.
- Matthew 23:16-22 The catalog describes this reception as: polemicized Polemic against casuistic distinctions among binding and non-binding oaths; the target is the gradation of oath-validity, not the obligation to fulfill what one has uttered.
The Qur'an and hadith
- Q 5:89 carried a parallel
- Q 22:29 carried a parallel
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.
No tension with the catalogued modern frameworks is recorded here.