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 skins
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 שלא יאכל קליפת הענבים. והוא אמרו ועד זג וגו' ואם אכל מהם כזית לוקה. והראיה על היות אלו חמשה מינין רוצה לומר יין וענבים וצמוקים וחרצנים וזג כל אחד מהן מצוה בפני עצמה, היותו לוקה על כל אחד ואחד מהם מלקות. ולשון המשנה (נזיר ל"ד:) וחייב על היין בפני עצמו ועל הענבים בפני עצמן וחרצן בפני עצמו והזגין בפני עצמן. ובבאור אמרו בגמרא נזירות (דף ל"ח:) אכל ענבים לחים ויבשים חרצנים וזגים וסחט אשכול של ענבים ושתה לוקה חמש. וכשחשבו בו שיתקיים דבר התנא תנא ושייר ושיתחייב מפני שהוא נזיר יותר מחמש מלקיות ואמרו והא שייר לאו דלא יחל ולא אמרו והא שייר חומץ כי לא יתחייב על היין והחומץ שתים, שהחומץ אמנם נאסר כי שרש איסורו לא יסתלק ממנו בהפסדו. וממה שראוי שתדעהו שאיסורי נזיר אלו כלם מצטרפין לכזית ולוקה על כזית מכלן. (שם):
He prohibited the nazirite from eating grape skins. And that is His saying, "to the skins, etc." (Numbers 6:4). And if he ate a kazayit of them, he is lashed. And the proof about each one of these five types - meaning to say, wine, grapes, raisins, seeds and peels - being a separate commandment is that one is lashed [a separate set] of lashes for each one of them. And the language of the Mishnah (Nazir 34b) is, "And he is obligated for wine on its own, and for grapes on its own, and for grape seeds on its own, and for grape skins on its own." And in the explanation, they said in the Gemara, Nazir (Nazir 38b), "[If] he ate fresh grapes, raisins, grape seeds and grape skins, and squeezed a cluster of grapes and drank [the juice], he is lashed five [times]." But when they counted, so as to uphold the words of the teacher - such that [it turns out that] he taught and left [something] out, so that one would be obligated more than five [sets of] lashes - they said, "But behold, he left over the negative commandment of, 'he shall not desecrate [his word]' (Numbers 30:3)!" But they did not say, "But behold, he left over vinegar! For he is not liable twice for wine and vinegar. As vinegar is actually forbidden because the source of its prohibition (wine) did not recede with its decay. And what is appropriate for you to know is that all of these prohibitions of the nazirite combine for a kazayit, and that he is lashed for a kazayit from all of them [combined]. (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 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.
Rabbinic aggadah
- Numbers Rabbah 10:7-8 expanded it homiletically
Philo of Alexandria
- De Specialibus Legibus 1.247-254 read it allegorically
Josephus
- Ant. 4.72 affirmed it
The New Testament
- Acts 21:23-26 affirmed it Paul associates with men who are under a Nazirite vow and shares the purification expenses for the completion of their vows, presupposing the operative Nazirite abstentions (cf. Luke 1:15 for Nazirite-style abstention attributed to John)
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.
The malkot sanction for consuming grape skins while under a nazirite vow applies even to a substance that is inedible in ordinary contexts; modern proportionality principles preclude corporal punishment for any dietary infraction, particularly one where the forbidden substance itself carries no intrinsic harm.
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general principle
This framework classifies the relation as an incompatible method.
Post-Enlightenment penal codes do not criminalize breach of a religious dietary vow, and flogging is not a permissible sanction in contemporary secular legal systems.
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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.