“ ‘You shall not curse the deaf, nor put a stumbling block before the blind; but you shall fear your God. I am Yahweh.
Not to place a stumbling block before the blind (or mislead the unaware)
The cited verse
The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)
וְלִפְנֵי עִוֵּר לֹא תִתֵּן מִכְשֹׁל
In Maimonides’ words
How Maimonides defines this commandment in his Sefer HaMitzvot — his own words, shown as a primary source.
הזהיר מהכשיל קצתנו את קצתנו והוא שאם ישאלך אדם עצה בדבר נפתה בו, ובאה האזהרה מלרמותו ומהכשילו אבל תישירהו על הדבר שתחשוב שהוא טוב וישר, והוא אמרו ולפני עור לא תתן מכשול. ולשון ספרא למי שהוא סומא בדבר ונוטל עצה ממך אל תתן לו עצה שאינה הוגנת. ולאו זה כולל ג"כ מי שיעזור על עבירה או יסבב אותה, כי הוא יביא האיש ההוא לעון ובעזרתו הכשילו וחזר עור ויפתהו ויעזרהו להשלים עבירתו או יכין לו סבת העבירה, ומאלו הפנים אמרו במלוה ולוה ברבית ששניהם יחד עוברים משום ולפני עור לא תתן מכשול, כי כל אחד משניהם עזר את חבירו והכין לו להשלים העבירה, ודברים רבים מאד מזה המין יאמרו בהן עובר משום ולפני עור לא תתן מכשול, ופשטיה דקרא כמו שזכרנו תחלה. (קדושים, שם פי"ב):
He prohibited some of us from making others stumble. And that is if a person asks you for advice about something, you fool him. And this prohibition comes to prevent deceiving him and making him stumble. Rather you should set him straight about a matter that you think is [actually] good and straight. And this is [the meaning] of its stating, "you shall not place a stumbling block before the blind" (Leviticus 19:14). And the language of [Sifra] (Sifra, Kedoshim, Section 2:14) is, "To the one who is blind about a certain matter and who [hence] takes advice from you, do not give advice that is not proper." And this negative commandment also includes one who helps another [do] a sin or enables it. For he brought that person to iniquity and made him stumble with his assistance; such that the blindness came back to seduce [the sinner], and he helped him complete his sin or arranged to enable the sin. And from such angles, [the Sages] said about the lender and borrower with interest that both of them transgress, "you shall not place a stumbling block before the blind," together. For each one of them assisted his fellow and set up the other to complete his sin. And there are very many things of this sort about which they said that through them, one transgresses, "you shall not place a stumbling block before the blind." But the simple meaning of the verse is as we said at first. (See Parshat Kedoshim; Mishneh Torah, Laws of Murderer and the Preservation of Life 12.)
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.
The New Testament
- Romans 14:13 reinterpreted it Paul applies 'stumbling block' (proskomma/skandalon) to causing a weaker believer to sin
- 1 Corinthians 8:9 reinterpreted it liberty must not become a 'stumbling block' to the weak
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.
- egyptian negative confession general ethic against deceiving/exploiting others and mistreating the powerless Relationship to the parallel: parallel with divergence Spell 125, the Declaration of Innocence (the so-called '42 negative confessions') Faulkner, The Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead (rev. ed., British Museum Press, 1985; repr. 1994)
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.