he shall separate himself from wine and strong drink. He shall drink no vinegar of wine, or vinegar of fermented drink, neither shall he drink any juice of grapes, nor eat fresh grapes or dried.
A nazirite shall not eat dried grapes or raisins
The cited verse
The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)
וַעֲנָבִים לַחִים וִיבֵשִׁים לֹא יֹאכֵל
In Maimonides’ words
How Maimonides defines this commandment in his Sefer HaMitzvot — his own words, shown as a primary source.
הזהיר הנזיר מאכול צמוקים. והוא אמרו ויבשים לא יאכל. ואם אכל מהם לוקה. (שם, שם):
He prohibited the nazirite from eating raisins. And that is His saying, "nor shall he eat them dried" (Numbers 6:3). And if he ate of them, he is lashed. (See Parashat Nasso; Mishneh Torah, Nazariteship 1.)
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 As the catalog records it: binding conditional on vow
- Conservative As the catalog records it: binding conditional on vow
- Reform Not binding
- Reconstructionist Not binding
- Karaite As the catalog records it: non applicable enumeration
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
- Numbers Rabbah 10:4 expanded it homiletically
Philo of Alexandria
- De Specialibus Legibus 1.247-254 read it allegorically
Josephus
- Ant. 4.72 affirmed it Summarizes the nazirite abstention laws generally rather than the specific dried-grape clause
The New Testament
- Acts 21:23-26 affirmed it Paul finances four men under a nazirite vow, presupposing the abstentions; cf. Luke 1:15 on John as a perpetual abstainer
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.
- ugaritic texts Ugaritic divine-assembly feast imagery depicts wine and dried grape products (including raisin-cake equivalents) as staples of Baal/El cultic feasting; the nazirite's comprehensive ban on raisins (tzimmukim) implicitly dissociates from a viticultural symbol-system tied to Northwest Semitic fertility worship Relationship to the parallel: shared theme Baal Cycle KTU 1.3 i; KTU 1.4 iii 40-iv 45 (divine-assembly feast texts) Smith and Pitard, The Ugaritic Baal Cycle, vol. 1 (Brill, 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.
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general principle
This framework classifies the relation as a direct contradiction.
Mishnah Nazir 6:1 prescribes lashes for consuming raisins while under a nazirite vow; modern proportionality principles preclude corporal punishment for a dietary infraction causing no harm to any third party, even where the underlying restriction was voluntarily assumed.
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general principle
This framework classifies the relation as an incompatible method.
Post-Enlightenment penal codes do not recognize breach of a personal religious dietary vow as a criminal offense, and flogging is not an available sanction in contemporary secular legal systems for any dietary infraction.
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rabbinic tradition
This framework classifies the relation as abrogated in practice.
Rabbinic tradition holds that corporal jurisdiction lapsed with the dissolution of the Sanhedrin in the Second Temple era; the malkot sanction for nazirite violations is de jure but not de facto enforced.