The children of the third generation who are born to them may enter into Yahweh’s assembly.
Not to reject a descendant of Esau who seeks to convert (after the third generation)
The cited verse
The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)
לֹא־תְתַעֵב אֲדֹמִי כִּי אָחִיךָ הוּא
In Maimonides’ words
How Maimonides defines this commandment in his Sefer HaMitzvot — his own words, shown as a primary source.
שהזהירנו מהרחיק זרע עשו אחר הכנסם בדת. רוצה לומר שאנחנו מוזהרין מלהרחיק חתנותם. והוא אמרו יתעלה לא תתעב אדומי דור שלישי וגו'. (כי תצא למלחמה, קדושה הל' איסורי ביאה שם):
That He prohibited us from distancing the descendants of Esav after they have entered the [Jewish] religion - meaning to say, we are forbidden from avoiding marriage with them. And that is His, may He be exalted, saying, "You shall not abhor an Edomite [... in] the third generation" (Deuteronomy 23:8-9). (See Parashat Ki Tetzei; Mishneh Torah, Forbidden Sexual Intercourse 12.)
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.
No applicability flags are recorded for this commandment.
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, with modification
- Conservative Not binding
- Reform Not binding
- Reconstructionist Not binding
- Karaite Position not stated
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
- Genesis Rabbah 78:9 expanded it homiletically
Josephus
- Ant. 4.290-291 affirmed it
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 26
This framework classifies the relation as a substantive tension.
Even the lenient Edomite provision imposes a three-generation waiting period for assembly admission based solely on ethnic-national origin; ICCPR Article 26 prohibits discrimination on grounds of national origin, and graded inclusion by descent is a form of origin-based differentiation incompatible with the principle of equal treatment.