All the days of his separation he shall eat nothing that is made of the grapevine, from the seeds even to the skins.
A nazirite shall not eat grape seeds
The cited verse
The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)
מֵחַרְצַנִּים וְעַד־זָג 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 חרצנים. והוא אמרו מחרצנים וגו'. ואם אכל כזית מהם לוקה. (שם, שם):
He prohibited the nazirite from eating grape seeds. And that is His saying, "from seeds, etc." (Numbers 6:4). And if he ate a kazayit 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 Binding
- Conservative Binding
- Reform Not binding
- Reconstructionist Not binding
- Karaite Disputed
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 10:7 expanded it homiletically
Philo of Alexandria
- De Specialibus Legibus 1.247-254 read it allegorically Philo treats the nazirite (the 'Great Vow') within the laws of sanctity and votive offering, giving the abstentions an ethical-allegorical sense
Josephus
- Ant. 4.72 affirmed it Josephus' treatment of the nazirite vow and its abstentions; reference flagged for verification against the Antiquities Book 4 nazirite material, as the section number may require adjustment to the precise nazirite passage
The New Testament
- Acts 21:23-26 affirmed it Paul finances four men under a nazirite vow at the Temple, presupposing the operative force of the nazirite restrictions
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.
Maimonides (Hilkhot Nezirut 5:2) codifies lashes for consuming a ke-zayit of grape seeds while under a nazirite vow; modern proportionality principles preclude corporal punishment for ingesting a substance that is neither intoxicating nor harmful, even within a voluntarily assumed framework of obligation.
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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 religious dietary vow as a criminal offense, and flogging is not a permissible 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.