One witness shall not rise up against a man for any iniquity, or for any sin that he sins. At the mouth of two witnesses, or at the mouth of three witnesses, shall a matter be established.
Not to accept testimony from a single witness in capital or corporal cases
The cited verse
The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)
לֹא־יָקוּם עֵד אֶחָד בְּאִישׁ לְכָל־עָוֺן וּלְכָל־חַטָּאת בְּכָל־חֵטְא אֲשֶׁר יֶחֱטָא עַל־פִּי שְׁנֵי עֵדִים אוֹ עַל־פִּי שְׁלֹשָׁה־עֵדִים יָקוּם דָּבָר
In Maimonides’ words
How Maimonides defines this commandment in his Sefer HaMitzvot — his own words, shown as a primary source.
הזהיר הדיין שלא לחתוך הגדרים (*ר"ל העונשים.) או לחייב ממון בעדות עד אחד ואפילו היה בתכלית הכשרות. והוא אמרו לא יקום עד אחד באיש לכל עון, ואמרו (שבועות מ') לכל עון הוא דאינו קם אבל קם לשבועה. והתבארו משפטי מצוה זו בפ"ט מסנהדרין. (שופטים, שם פ"ה):
That He prohibited the judge to declare punishments, or to make one liable for money, with the testimony of one witness - even if he was most fit. And that is His saying, "One witness may not arise against a man about any sin" (Deuteronomy 19:15). And they said (Shevuot 40a), "He may not arise 'about any sin,' but he may arise [to obligate someone in taking] an oath." And the regulations of this commandment have been explained in Chapter 9 of Sanhedrin. (See Parashat Shoftim; Mishneh Torah, Testimony 5.)
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.
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
- 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 As the catalog records it: uncertain/under documented
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)
- CD 9:16-23 The catalog describes this reception as: reworked (single witness accumulation procedure)
- 11QTa (Temple Scroll) 61:6-11 The catalog describes this reception as: reworked/expanded
Philo of Alexandria
- De Specialibus Legibus 4.53-54 rationalized it
Josephus
- Ant. 4.219 reinterpreted it
The New Testament
- Matthew 18:16 affirmed it applied to ecclesiastical discipline
- 2 Corinthians 13:1 affirmed it
- 1 Timothy 5:19 affirmed it two-or-three rule applied to accusations against elders
- John 8:17 affirmed it forensic-rhetorical application; the Johannine narrative presents Jesus and the Father as the two corroborating witnesses to satisfy the rule
- Hebrews 10:28 The catalog describes this reception as: alluded alludes to the Deuteronomic two-/three-witness rule for capital cases, most directly echoing Deut 17:6 rather than directly citing 19:15
The Qur'an and hadith
- Q 2:282 carried a parallel
- Q 24:4 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 penalties for false/unproven testimony, including capital lex talionis for perjury in capital cases Relationship to the parallel: parallel with divergence §§3-4 Roth, Law Collections 2nd ed. (1997)
- code of hammurabi procedures requiring witnesses/oaths to establish contested ownership claims Relationship to the parallel: parallel with divergence §§9-13 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.
No tension with the catalogued modern frameworks is recorded here.