Only he shall not multiply horses to himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt, to the end that he may multiply horses; because Yahweh has said to you, “You shall not go back that way again.”
Not to dwell permanently in the land of Egypt
The cited verse
The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)
לֹא תֹסִפוּן לָשׁוּב בַּדֶּרֶךְ הַזֶּה עוֹד
In Maimonides’ words
How Maimonides defines this commandment in his Sefer HaMitzvot — his own words, shown as a primary source.
שהזהירנו משכון בארץ מצרים לעולם כדי שלא נלמוד ממעשיהם ולא נלך בדרכיהם המגונים והוא אמרו לא תוסיפון לשוב בדרך הזה עוד. וכבר נכפל אזהרה בזה שלש פעמים, אמרו בגמרא (*הוא במכילתא בשלח:) בשלשה מקומות הזהיר הקב"ה את ישראל שלא לשוב למצרים ובשלשה פעמים חזרו ובהם נענשו. אמנם השלשה מקומות אחד מהן אשר זכרנוהו, והשני בדרך אשר אמרתי לך לא תוסיף לראותם, והשלישי אשר ראיתם את מצרים היום לא תוסיפו לראותם עוד, אע"פ שהנראה מהדברים שהוא ספור באה הקבלה שהוא אזהרה. וכבר התבאר בגמרא סוכה (דף נ"א:) כי אלכסנדריא היא מן העיירות האסורות לשכון, ותחום אלכסנדריא מדתה אורך ארבע מאות פרסה על ארבע מאות פרסה, והיא מכלל ארץ מצרים האסורה לשבת בה אבל מותר ללכת בה בסחורה או לעבור לארץ אחרת. ובבאור אמרו בירושלמי (סנהדרין סוף פרק חלק) לישיבה אי אתה חוזר אבל אתה חוזר לפרקמטיא ולכבוש הארץ. (שופטים ושוטרים, מלכים פ"ה):
That He prohibited us from dwelling in the Land of Egypt forever, so that we not learn from their practices and not follow their disgraceful ways. And that is His saying, "You must not return that way again" (Deuteronomy 17:16). And this prohibition was already repeated three times: They said in the Gemara (Yerushalmi Sukkah 4:1), "In three places did the Holy One, blessed be He, warn Israel not to return to Egypt; and at three times did they return and get punished from them." Indeed one of the three places is that which we mentioned. The second is, "by a route which I told you, you should not see again" (Deuteronomy 28:68). And the third is, "for Egypt which you have seen this day - you will never again see them" (Exodus 14:13). Even though it appears from the words that it is narrative, the tradition comes [to teach that] it is a prohibition. And it has already been explained in the Gemara, Sukkah (Sukkah 51b), that Alexandria is from the cities in which it is forbidden to dwell. And [from the Sea of] Alexandria, the measurement of the perimeter of Egypt is four hundred parasangs by four hundred parasangs - and that is the total of the Land of Egypt in which it is forbidden to dwell. But it is permissible to travel [there] for business, or to pass through it to a different land. And in explanation, they said in the Yerushalmi (Yerushalmi Sanhedrin 10:8 at the end), "You may not return for living, but you may return for business and to conquer the land." (See Parashat Shoftim; Mishneh Torah, Kings and Wars 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.
- 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
No court-imposed penalty is recorded.
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, with modification
- Conservative Not binding
- Reform Rejected
- Reconstructionist Rejected
- Karaite As the catalog records it: undetermined (no distinct codified Karaite ruling located; general Karaite literalism would not by itself establish a binding status)
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
- Mekhilta de-Rabbi Ishmael, Beshallach 2 The catalog describes this reception as: homiletic expansion on Exod 14:13 ('you shall never see them again'), traditionally associated with the Egypt return prohibition rather than a direct gloss on Deut 17:16
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 13
This framework classifies the relation as a direct contradiction.
UDHR Article 13 guarantees every person the right to freedom of movement and residence within any state, and the right to leave and return to any country; the commandment prohibits Israelites from permanently residing in one specific country (Egypt), imposing a religiously mandated restriction on freedom of domicile that is incompatible with this universalist guarantee.
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Article 12
This framework classifies the relation as a direct contradiction.
ICCPR Article 12 protects freedom of movement and residence, permitting restrictions only where necessary to protect national security, public order, health, or the rights of others; the Deuteronomic prohibition on Egyptian settlement is grounded in collective theological memory rather than any of these permissible bases, placing it in direct tension with the Covenant's non-derogable residency protections.