“ ‘You shall not steal. “ ‘You shall not lie. “ ‘You shall not deceive one another.
Not to swear falsely regarding another person's property
The cited verse
The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)
וְלֹא־תְשַׁקְּרוּ אִישׁ בַּעֲמִיתוֹ
In Maimonides’ words
How Maimonides defines this commandment in his Sefer HaMitzvot — his own words, shown as a primary source.
הזהירנו מהשבע על כפירת ממון המוטל עליו. והוא אמרו ולא תשקרו איש בעמיתו, המשל בזה כי כשכפר בפקדון עבר על לא תכחשו וכשנשבע לשקר על כפירתו עבר על לא תשקרו. ובספרא לא תשקרו מה תלמוד לומר לפי שנאמר ונשבע על שקר למדנו עונש אזהרה מנין תלמוד לומר ולא תשקרו. וכבר התבארו משפטי מצוה זו בחמישי משבועות. ושם התבאר שמי שנשבע לשקר על כפירת ממון עובר בשני לאוין משום לא תשבעו בשמי לשקר ומשום לא תשקרו. (שם, שם):
He prohibited us from swearing [falsely] about the denial of money that is incumbent upon us [to pay]. And that is His saying, "and do not lie to your kinsman" (Leviticus 19:11). The example about this is that when he denies the deposit, he transgresses, "you shall not deny"; and when he swears falsely about his denial, he transgresses, "do not lie." And in the Sifra: "'And do not lie ' - what do we learn to say [from it]? Since it states, 'and swears falsely about it' (Leviticus 5:22), we have learned the punishment. From where [do we know] the prohibition? [Hence] we learn to say, 'and do not lie.'" And the regulations of this commandment have already been explained in the fifth [chapter] of Shevuot. And there (Shevuot 20b), it is explained that one who swore falsely about the denial of money, transgresses two negative commandments - on account of, "You shall not swear falsely by My name" (Leviticus 19:12); and on account of, "do not lie." (See Parashat Kedoshim; Mishneh Torah, Oaths 1.)
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
- A guilt-offering (asham)
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 9:8-12 The catalog describes this reception as: halakhic regulation of oaths regarding restitution of property
Rabbinic aggadah
- Leviticus Rabbah on Lev 19 expanded it homiletically
Philo of Alexandria
- De Specialibus Legibus 2 (on oaths and the third commandment, approx. 2.2-38) rationalized it
Josephus
- Antiquities 3.91-92 rationalized it
The New Testament
- Matthew 5:33-37 The catalog describes this reception as: intensified Jesus' antithesis enjoining against oaths altogether; addresses oath-taking generally rather than specifically false swearing about another's property, so the connection to this commandment is indirect
- James 5:12 The catalog describes this reception as: intensified let your yes be yes and your no be no; an injunction against oath-taking generally, paralleling the Matthean tradition, not specific to the property-oath prohibition
The Qur'an and hadith
- Q 3:77 carried a parallel
- Q 2:225 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 decisory oath before Shamash resolving contested property claims (deposit, theft, loss); §131 and §266 concern other exculpatory/liability oaths and are not property-oath parallels Relationship to the parallel: parallel with divergence §§9, 23, 103, 120, 126 Roth, Law Collections 2nd ed. (1997)
- code of hammurabi penalties for unproven/false accusation and false testimony in litigation (not specific to property oaths) Relationship to the parallel: parallel with divergence §§1, 3-4 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.
No tension with the catalogued modern frameworks is recorded here.