his body shall not remain all night on the tree, but you shall surely bury him the same day; for he who is hanged is accursed of God. Don’t defile your land which Yahweh your God gives you for an inheritance.
Not to leave the body of an executed person hanging overnight
The cited verse
The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)
לֹא־תָלִין נִבְלָתוֹ עַל־הָעֵץ
In Maimonides’ words
How Maimonides defines this commandment in his Sefer HaMitzvot — his own words, shown as a primary source.
שהזהירנו מעזוב תלוי על עץ ללון כדי שלא יתחדש מזה פרסום ברכת השם בהתבוננות כשנראה שאנחנו לא נתלה זולת מגדף ועובד ע"ז כמו שבא את ה' הוא מגדף, והאזהרה מלאו זה לא תלין נבלתו על העץ. ולשון ספרי לא תלין נבלתו זו מצות לא תעשה. וכבר התבארו משפטי מצוה זו בששי מסנהדרין. (כי תצא, הלכות סנהדרין פט"ו):
That He prohibited us from leaving one hung on a tree overnight; so that the 'blessing' of God not spread as a result of this, due to one's reflection when he sees it - since we only hang a blasphemer and an idol worshipper. [For about the latter too] does it [state] - "he blasphemes the Lord" (Deuteronomy 18:5). And the prohibition of this negative commandment is, "You must not let his corpse remain overnight on the tree" (Deuteronomy 21:23). And the language of the Sifrei (Sifrei Devarim 221:7) is, "'You must not let his corpse remain overnight' - that is a negative commandment." 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 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
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)
- 11QT (Temple Scroll) 64:7-13 read it more strictly
Rabbinic aggadah
- Mishnah Sanhedrin 6:4 expanded it homiletically
Josephus
- Against Apion 2.211 (Niese) affirmed it
- Jewish War 4.317 affirmed it
The New Testament
- Galatians 3:13 reinterpreted it Paul applies 'cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree' (Deut 21:23) christologically to the crucifixion
- John 19:31 affirmed it bodies removed before the Sabbath so they would not remain on the cross, reflecting the overnight prohibition
- Acts 5:30 The catalog describes this reception as: alluded idiomatic invocation of the broader Deuteronomic 'hanging on a tree' language; commonly read as polemical rather than a substantive reinterpretation of the burial law
The Church Fathers
- Jerome, Commentariorum in Epistolam ad Galatas, on Gal 3:13 reinterpreted 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 impalement as the execution method for a wife who arranges her husband's killing on account of another man; the provision prescribes impalement but contains no corpse-display-duration or burial clause Relationship to the parallel: polemical contrast §153 Roth, Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor, 2nd ed. (1997)
- middle assyrian laws impalement of a woman who procures an abortion, with a stipulation that she shall not be buried — the burial-denial element forming the point of contrast with the Deuteronomic prohibition on leaving the body overnight Relationship to the parallel: polemical contrast A §53 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 (proportionality; prohibition of corporal punishment)
This framework classifies the relation as an incompatible method.
The sanction for leaving a corpse displayed overnight is thirty-nine lashes administered by the court (*malkot*). Post-Enlightenment penal codes uniformly prohibit judicially administered flogging; even where the underlying obligation — prompt burial of the dead — is ethically uncontroversial, the prescribed enforcement method is incompatible with modern prohibitions on corporal punishment.
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Article 7 (no cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment)
This framework classifies the relation as a direct contradiction.
Judicial flogging (*malkot*) — thirty-nine strokes of a leather strap administered to a bound person's back — constitutes cruel or degrading punishment within the meaning of ICCPR Article 7 as interpreted by the Human Rights Committee, and is incompatible with this prohibition.
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rabbinic tradition; Sanhedrin jurisdiction lapsed post-70 CE
This framework classifies the relation as abrogated in practice.
Court-administered flogging (*malkot*) requires a Sanhedrin of ordained judges; that jurisdiction lapsed with the destruction of the Second Temple and the end of formal ordination. The de jure norm remains in halakhic codification but has not been enforced in rabbinic jurisprudence since late antiquity.