He shall not make himself unclean for his father, or for his mother, for his brother, or for his sister, when they die, because his separation to God is on his head.
A nazirite shall not become ritually impure by contact with a corpse
The cited verse
The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)
לְאָבִיו וּלְאִמּוֹ לְאָחִיו וּלְאַחֹתוֹ לֹא־יִטַּמָּא לָהֶם בְּמֹתָם כִּי נֵזֶר אֱלֹהָיו עַל־רֹאשׁוֹ
In Maimonides’ words
How Maimonides defines this commandment in his Sefer HaMitzvot — his own words, shown as a primary source.
הזהיר הנזיר מלהטמא למת. והוא אמרו לאביו ולאמו לא יטמא, וכשנטמא בין בטומאה שמגלח עליה בין שאינו מגלח עליה לוקה. (נשא את ראש, הפלאה הלכות נזירות פרק א'):
He prohibited the nazirite from becoming impure with a corpse. And that is His saying, "He shall not make himself impure for his father, or for his mother" (Numbers 6:7). And if he became impure - whether with an impurity for which he must shave or whether [with one] for which he must not shave - 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
- A sin-offering (ḥatat)
- A burnt-offering (olah)
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 Not binding
- Reform Not binding
- Reconstructionist Not binding
- Karaite Theoretical
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
Josephus
- Ant. 4.72 affirmed it
- War 2.313 carried a parallel
The New Testament
- Acts 21:23-26 affirmed it Paul finances four men under a nazirite vow undergoing purification; corpse-impurity restart logic presupposed
- Acts 18:18 carried a parallel Paul's vow and head-shaving, possibly nazirite
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 texts describe the rp'um (Rephaim) as deified royal ancestors summoned to a funerary feast, attesting an active ancestor-veneration cult at Ugarit; the nazirite's categorical corpse-avoidance — even for close family — polemically dissociates maximum Yahwistic holiness from any engagement with the dead Relationship to the parallel: polemical contrast Rephaim texts KTU 1.20-22 (Ugaritic funerary feast / rp'um cycle) Pardee, Ritual and Cult at Ugarit, WAW 10 (SBL, 2002)
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.
Rambam (Hilkhot Nezirut 5:15–17) prescribes lashes for deliberate corpse-contact by a nazirite; modern proportionality principles preclude corporal punishment for proximity to the dead, even where the nazirite voluntarily assumed the heightened purity obligation.
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general principle
This framework classifies the relation as an incompatible method.
Post-Enlightenment penal codes do not criminalize contact with a corpse by persons who have undertaken religious purity vows, and flogging is not a permissible sanction in contemporary legal systems for any ritual-purity violation.
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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 corpse-defilement is de jure but not de facto enforced.