He shall dwell with you, among you, in the place which he shall choose within one of your gates, where it pleases him best. You shall not oppress him.
Not to return an escaped slave to his master who has fled to the land of Israel
The cited verse
The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)
לֹא־תַסְגִּיר עֶבֶד אֶל־אֲדֹנָיו אֲשֶׁר־יִנָּצֵל אֵלֶיךָ מֵעִם אֲדֹנָיו
In Maimonides’ words
How Maimonides defines this commandment in his Sefer HaMitzvot — his own words, shown as a primary source.
הזהירנו מלהשיב עבד שברח מחוץ לארץ לארץ ישראל לאדוניו ואע"פ שאדוניו ישראל אחר שברח מחוץ לארץ לא יושב לו, אבל ישחרר אותו ויכתוב עליו דמיו בחוב, והוא אמרו יתעלה לא תסגיר עבד אל אדוניו. והתבאר בגיטין (דף מ"ה) שבעבד שברח מחו"ל לא"י הכתוב מדבר שיהיה הדין בו שיכתוב שטר חוב בדמיו עליו ויכתוב לו גט חירות ולא ישוב לעבדותו בשום פנים להסתופפו במקום טהור הנבחר בקבוץ הנכבד, ושם התבארו משפטי מצוה זו. (תצא, הלכות עבדים פ"ח):
He prohibited us from returning, a slave who ran away from outside of the Land to the Land of Israel, to his master. And even though his master is an Israelite - since he ran away from outside of the Land - he is not returned to him. Rather, he should free him and write his value against him as a debt [to his master]. And that is His, may He be exalted, saying, "You shall not turn over a slave to his master" (Deuteronomy 23:16). And it is explained in Gittin (Gittin 45a) that the verse is speaking about a slave that is running away from outside of the Land to the Land of Israel, such that the law about him is that [the Israelite who found him] should write a deed of obligation for his value against him, and write him a bill of emancipation. But under no circumstances should he be made to go back to being a slave, [so as to allow] him to reside in the place of purity chosen for the glorious assembly. And the regulations of this commandment have been explained there. (See Parashat Ki Tetzei; Mishneh Torah, Slaves 8.)
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.
- Binding in the land of Israel
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 Kept as an ethical principle
- Reform Kept as an ethical principle
- Reconstructionist Kept as an ethical principle
- Karaite Binding, with modification
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.
Philo of Alexandria
- De Virtutibus 124 The catalog describes this reception as: uncertain The attribution of an affirmation of the fugitive-slave non-return law to this section is not securely verifiable and should be treated as tentative pending collation against the critical edition
Josephus
- Ant. 4.276 The catalog describes this reception as: uncertain Josephus's paraphrase of the fugitive-slave non-return law is not securely located at this passage; attribution should be treated as tentative
The New Testament
- Philemon 1:10-18 reinterpreted it Paul returns the fugitive Onesimus to Philemon while urging manumission — frequently read against the Deuteronomic non-return principle
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.
- code of hammurabi death penalty for harboring/failing to return a fugitive slave Relationship to the parallel: polemical contrast §§15-20 Roth, Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor, 2nd ed. (1997)
- hittite laws graduated payments to one who returns a runaway slave, scaled by the distance of recovery Relationship to the parallel: polemical contrast §§22-24 Roth, Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor, 2nd ed. (1997)
- laws of eshnunna regulation of fugitive/stolen slaves and their return to owners Relationship to the parallel: polemical contrast §§49-51 Roth, Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor, 2nd ed. (1997)
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.
No tension with the catalogued modern frameworks is recorded here.