“ ‘The man who commits adultery with another man’s wife, even he who commits adultery with his neighbor’s wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.
To execute capital punishment by strangulation when prescribed
The cited verse
The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)
מוֹת־יוּמַת הַנֹּאֵף וְהַנֹּאָפֶת
In Maimonides’ words
How Maimonides defines this commandment in his Sefer HaMitzvot — his own words, shown as a primary source.
היא שצונו לחנוק העוברים על קצת מצות מיוחדות. והוא אמרו יתברך מות יומת, והנה נרמוז במצות לא תעשה על המצות שחייבין עליהן חנק. וכבר התבארו משפטי מצוה זו בשביעי ממסכת סנהדרין. (קדושים תהיו, סנהדרין פי"ד וכל דיני מיתות ב"ד פרק י"ד וט"ו):
That is that He commanded us to strangle those that transgress certain commandments. And that is His, may He be blessed, saying, "he shall surely be put to death" (Exodus 21:16). And behold, in the negative commandments, we shall [indicate] those which require strangulation. 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 command
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 Rejected
- Reform Rejected
- Reconstructionist Rejected
- Karaite Not 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)
- 11QTemple (11Q19) 66:1-8 read it more strictly
Rabbinic aggadah
- Numbers Rabbah 9:1-9 expanded it homiletically
- Leviticus Rabbah 23:9-12 expanded it homiletically
Philo of Alexandria
- De Specialibus Legibus 3.52-63 affirmed it Philo affirms the capital penalty for adultery in general terms; he does not specify the rabbinic mode of strangulation
Josephus
- Antiquities 3.274-275 affirmed it
- Against Apion 2.215 affirmed it
The New Testament
- John 7:53-8:11 reinterpreted it pericope adulterae; text-critically a later interpolation absent from the earliest manuscripts; Jesus declines to authorize the prescribed execution, narratively suspending the penalty
- Matthew 5:27-28 read it more strictly extends adultery to interior intent
- Romans 13:9 reinterpreted it summarizes the Decalogue prohibition of adultery while omitting any mention of the capital sanction
The Qur'an and hadith
- Q 24:2 carried a parallel, with divergence
- Q 17:32 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 capital penalty for adultery with husband's pardon option Relationship to the parallel: parallel with divergence §129 Roth, Law Collections 2nd ed. (1997)
- middle assyrian laws adultery penalty at husband's discretion — husband may kill, mutilate, or pardon, in contrast to Israelite deprivatization requiring communal judicial execution Relationship to the parallel: polemical contrast A §§12-16 Roth, Law Collections 2nd ed. (1997)
- hittite laws adultery penalty determined by aggrieved husband rather than judicial sentence, in contrast to the Israelite removal of the punishment decision from household discretion Relationship to the parallel: polemical contrast §§197-198 Roth, Law Collections 2nd ed. (1997)
- laws of eshnunna a contractually married wife taken in another man's lap is treated as liable to death Relationship to the parallel: parallel with divergence §28 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.
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general principle
This framework classifies the relation as a direct contradiction.
Strangulation is the default capital punishment method applied to adultery, striking one's parents, kidnapping, and false prophecy — offenses for which modern penal codes impose custodial or other non-capital sanctions. Capital punishment for adultery in particular, as a non-violent consensual act, is categorically disproportionate under any modern penal framework.
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Article 6 (right to life; capital punishment restricted to most serious crimes) and Article 17 (right to privacy in family life)
This framework classifies the relation as a direct contradiction.
Capital punishment for adultery — a private consensual act — violates ICCPR Article 6's restriction of the death penalty to 'the most serious crimes' (interpreted to mean crimes involving intentional killing), and the criminalization of consensual sexual conduct between adults additionally conflicts with the right to privacy protected by Article 17.
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rabbinic tradition; Sanhedrin jurisdiction lapsed post-70 CE
This framework classifies the relation as abrogated in practice.
Capital jurisdiction by the Sanhedrin lapsed with the Temple's destruction; strangulation (*ḥeneq*) survives as a de jure halakhic norm in Maimonides (Hilkhot Sanhedrin 15:4) but has not been administered within rabbinic jurisprudence for nearly two millennia.