“ ‘If a man takes a wife and her mother, it is wickedness. They shall be burned with fire, both he and they, that there may be no wickedness among you.
To execute capital punishment by burning when prescribed
The cited verse
The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)
וְאִישׁ אֲשֶׁר יִקַּח אֶת־אִשָּׁה וְאֶת־אִמָּהּ זִמָּה הִוא בָּאֵשׁ יִשְׂרְפוּ אֹתוֹ וְאֶתְהֶן וְלֹא־תִהְיֶה זִמָּה בְּתוֹכְכֶם
In Maimonides’ words
How Maimonides defines this commandment in his Sefer HaMitzvot — his own words, shown as a primary source.
היא שצונו לשרוף העוברים על קצת מצות הוא אמרו יתברך באש ישרפו אותו ואתהן, והנה נרמוז במצות לא תעשה המצות שחייבין עליהן שרפה. וכבר התבארו משפטי מצוה זו במסכת סנהדרין. (קדושים תהיו, סנהדרין פי"ד וכנ"ל):
That is that He commanded us to immolate those that transgress certain commandments. And that is His, may He be blessed, saying, "they shall be burnt with fire, both he and they" (Leviticus 20:14). And behold, in the negative commandments, we shall [indicate] those which require immolation. And the regulations of this commandment have already been explained in Tractate Sanhedrin. (See Parashat Kedoshim; Mishneh Torah, The Sanhedrin and the Penalties within their Jurisdiction 14, 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 Binding, with modification
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
- Genesis Rabbah 85:10 The catalog describes this reception as: narrative thematic expansion (Tamar/Gen 38, not the Lev 20:14 statute)
Philo of Alexandria
- De Specialibus Legibus 3.12-21 affirmed it
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 judicial death by burning (looting at a fire) Relationship to the parallel: parallel with divergence §25 Roth, Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor, 2nd ed. (1997)
- code of hammurabi death by burning for a man who lies with his mother after his father's death (incest) Relationship to the parallel: parallel with divergence §157 Roth, Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor, 2nd ed. (1997)
- middle assyrian laws veiling regulation; penalties of flogging, ear-piercing, and hot pitch poured over the head for an unauthorized veiled woman (not judicial death by burning) Relationship to the parallel: shared theme A §40 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.
Death by burning is prescribed for incest involving a woman and her mother simultaneously — a sexual offense for which modern penal codes impose custodial sentences, not capital punishment. The severity of the prescribed method is categorically disproportionate by any modern penal standard.
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Article 5 (no cruel, inhuman, or degrading punishment)
This framework classifies the relation as a direct contradiction.
Execution by burning is widely recognized as among the most extreme forms of cruel and inhumane punishment; even the rabbinic reinterpretation substituting internal burning (molten lead) for external immolation does not bring the method within the bounds of Article 5's prohibition on degrading treatment.
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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.
Burning as a mode of execution violates ICCPR Article 7's categorical prohibition on cruel, inhuman, or degrading punishment, and the offense for which it is prescribed — consensual incest — does not meet the Article 6 threshold of 'most serious crimes' under which the ICCPR permits capital punishment.
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rabbinic tradition; Sanhedrin jurisdiction lapsed post-70 CE
This framework classifies the relation as abrogated in practice.
Capital jurisdiction lapsed with the Sanhedrin's dissolution; the burning penalty survives only in halakhic codification (Mishnah Sanhedrin 7:2; Maimonides, Hilkhot Sanhedrin 15:3) as a de jure norm without operative enforcement in any rabbinic legal system.