“ ‘You shall do no injustice in judgment. You shall not be partial to the poor, nor show favoritism to the great; but you shall judge your neighbor in righteousness.
Not to show partiality to a great or powerful person in judgment
The cited verse
The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)
וְלֹא תֶהְדַּר פְּנֵי גָדוֹל
In Maimonides’ words
How Maimonides defines this commandment in his Sefer HaMitzvot — his own words, shown as a primary source.
שהזהיר הדיין מחמול על עני בדין אבל ישוה בין עשיר לעני להכריחו לפרוע מה שהוא חייב לפרוע, והוא אמרו יתעלה ודל לא תהדר בריבו. וכבר נכפלה זאת האזהרה בזה הענין בלשון אחר. והוא אמרו יתברך לא תשא פני דל. ולשון ספרא לא תשא פני דל שלא תאמר עני הוא והואיל ואני והעשיר חייבין לפרנסו אזכנו ונמצא מתפרנס בנקיות תלמוד לומר לא תשא פני דל. (ואלה המשפטים, הלכות סנהדרין פ"ב):
That He prohibited the judge from having compassion on the poor person in a case. Rather he should make the rich and poor the same, and force him to repay what he is obligated to repay. And that is His, may He be exalted, saying, "Do not favor the poor in his dispute" (Exodus 23:3). And the prohibition of this content was repeated with a different language; and that is His, may He be blessed, saying, "you shall not raise the face of the indigent one" (Leviticus 19:15). And the language of the Sifra (Sifra, Kedoshim, Chapter 4:3) is "'You shall not raise the face of the indigent one' - that you not say, 'He is a poor man; and since I and this rich man are obligated to sustain him, I shall vindicate him in judgment, so that he can support himself honorably.' [Hence] we learn to say, 'you shall not raise the face of the indigent one.'" (See Parashat Mishpatim; Mishneh Torah, The Sanhedrin and the Penalties within their Jurisdiction 2.)
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.
Philo of Alexandria
- De Specialibus Legibus 4.72-77 affirmed it
Josephus
- Antiquities 4.219 affirmed it
The New Testament
- James 2:1-9 affirmed it Prohibition of partiality (prosōpolēmpsia) to the rich in assembly/judgment, thematically aligned with Lev 19:15; the pericope also cites Lev 19:18 ('love your neighbor') as the royal law.
- Acts 10:34 affirmed it God 'shows no partiality' generalized as a theological principle, affirming the impartiality norm.
The Qur'an and hadith
- Q 4:135 carried a parallel
- Q 5:8 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 talion and assault penalties graduated by the social status (awīlum/muškēnum/wardum) of victim and perpetrator Relationship to the parallel: polemical contrast §§196-214 Roth, Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor, 2nd ed. (1997)
- hittite laws penalties for assault graduated by free vs. slave status of the victim Relationship to the parallel: polemical contrast §§7-8 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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Article 5
This framework classifies the relation as an incompatible method.
The prohibition against judicial deference to the powerful aligns fully with modern equal-protection and due-process norms, but its prescribed sanction of thirty-nine lashes (malkot) constitutes judicially imposed corporal punishment that UDHR Article 5 classifies as cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment.
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general principle
This framework classifies the relation as an incompatible method.
Modern proportionality doctrine categorically prohibits corporal punishment as a penal instrument; the lash sanction for judicial favoritism toward the powerful conflicts with this principle independent of the underlying commandment's normative content, which itself aligns with modern equal-treatment standards.
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general principle
This framework classifies the relation as abrogated in practice.
Rabbinic tradition holds that the power to impose Torah-prescribed lashes lapsed with the dissolution of the ordained Sanhedrin; the malkot sanction for judicial deference to the powerful is de jure operative in Orthodox enumeration but has been effectively suspended for approximately two millennia.