then you shall bring them both out to the gate of that city, and you shall stone them to death with stones; the lady, because she didn’t cry, being in the city; and the man, because he has humbled his neighbor’s wife. So you shall remove the evil from among you.
To execute capital punishment by stoning when prescribed
The cited verse
The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)
וּסְקַלְתֶּם אֹתָם בָּאֲבָנִים וָמֵתוּ
In Maimonides’ words
How Maimonides defines this commandment in his Sefer HaMitzvot — his own words, shown as a primary source.
היא שצונו לסקול העוברים על קצת מצות. והוא אמרו יתברך וסקלתם אותם באבנים ומתו. והנה נרמוז על המצות שחייבין עליהן סקילה כשנזכיר מצות לא תעשה. וכבר התבארו משפטי מצוה זו בפרק ששי מסנהדרין. (תצא, הלכות סנהדרין פט"ו):
That is that He commanded us to stone those that transgress certain commandments. And that is His, may He be blessed, saying, "and you shall stone them with stones that they die" (Deuteronomy 22:24). And behold, in the negative commandments, we shall [indicate] those which require stoning. And the regulations of this commandment have already been explained in the sixth chapter of Sanhedrin. (See Parashat Ki Tetzei; Mishneh Torah, The Sanhedrin and the Penalties within their Jurisdiction 15.)
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 case law — "if X, then Y"
Applicability
How the catalog describes where and when this commandment applies. These are independent descriptions, not a verdict on which laws still count.
No applicability flags are recorded for this commandment.
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, with modification
- Conservative Not binding
- Reform Rejected
- Reconstructionist Rejected
- Karaite As the catalog records it: binding in principle non operative
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)
- 11QT (Temple Scroll) 66:4-6 affirmed it
Philo of Alexandria
- De Specialibus Legibus 3.52-78 rationalized it Philo treats the adultery and seduction laws and their penalties; his discussion rationalizes the severity rather than specifying lapidation procedure in every case
Josephus
- Antiquities 4.248 rationalized it addresses the betrothed/married-woman sexual-offense regulations generally rather than the stoning procedure specifically
The New Testament
- John 8:3-11 reinterpreted it the woman-caught-in-adultery pericope (textually disputed, not in earliest mss) engages the stoning penalty and the witness framework of biblical adultery law
- Acts 7:58-59 carried a parallel narrative attestation of stoning procedure (witnesses laying down garments), not a normative engagement with the betrothed-adultery law itself
The Qur'an and hadith
- Sahih al-Bukhari, rajm (stoning) traditions within Kitab al-Hudud (thematic parallel; no single fixed canonical number) 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.
- hittite laws capital liability for sexual transgression (bestiality); mode of execution varies and is not stoning — weak/tangential parallel to the betrothed-adultery law Relationship to the parallel: parallel with divergence §187, §199 Roth, Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor, 2nd ed. (1997)
- code of hammurabi execution of adulterous wife and paramour by drowning at the husband's option — contrasting with Israelite communal stoning by judicial sentence without husband's veto Relationship to the parallel: polemical contrast §129 Roth, Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor, 2nd ed. (1997)
- middle assyrian laws husband's discretion over the disposition of an adulterous wife and her paramour, with the paramour's fate tied to the wife's — contrasting with the Deuteronomic communal judicial sentence Relationship to the parallel: parallel with divergence A §§14-16 Roth, Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor, 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.
Stoning is prescribed for sabbath violation (Num 15:35–36), blasphemy, idolatry, adultery, and the rebellious son — non-violent offenses for which capital punishment is categorically disproportionate under modern penal theory, which reserves the most severe sanctions for the gravest violent crimes.
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Article 5 (no cruel, inhuman, or degrading punishment)
This framework classifies the relation as a direct contradiction.
Death by communal stoning — repeated impact of stones until death — is classified as cruel and inhumane punishment under international human-rights interpretation; the method is incompatible with Article 5.
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Article 6 (right to life; capital punishment restricted to most serious crimes) and Article 7 (prohibition of cruel or inhumane treatment)
This framework classifies the relation as a direct contradiction.
ICCPR Article 6 permits capital punishment only for 'the most serious crimes' and reflects a normative trajectory toward abolition; Article 7 prohibits cruel or inhumane punishment. Stoning for non-violent offenses such as sabbath violation and blasphemy violates both provisions.
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rabbinic tradition; Sanhedrin jurisdiction lapsed post-70 CE
This framework classifies the relation as abrogated in practice.
Rabbinic tradition holds that capital jurisdiction lapsed with the destruction of the Sanhedrin and the end of ordained judicial authority in the Second Temple period; the four court-imposed death penalties remain de jure norms in halakhic codification but have not been enforced within rabbinic jurisprudence for nearly two millennia.