You shall not rule over him with harshness, but shall fear your God.
Not to work a Hebrew bondman oppressively or ruthlessly
The cited verse
The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)
לֹא־תִרְדֶּה בוֹ בְּפָרֶךְ וְיָרֵאתָ מֵאֱלֹהֶיךָ
In Maimonides’ words
How Maimonides defines this commandment in his Sefer HaMitzvot — his own words, shown as a primary source.
שהזהירנו מהעביד עבד עברי במה שאין לו צורך בו והיא הנקראת עבודת פרך. והוא אמרו יתברך לא תרדה בו בפרך. אבל נעבידהו בהכרח לעשות הפעולה ההיא שיצוה עליה. ולשון ספרי לא תרדה בו בפרך שלא תאמר לו החם לי את הכוס והוא אינו צריך לו, וכן כל מה שדומה לזה, ואמנם הביאו משל מן היותר קלה שבמלאכות והיותר נקלה מהם ועם כל זה אינה מותרת אלא בעת הצורך. (שם, שם):
That He prohibited us from working a Hebrew (Jewish) slave with something that we do not need. And that is called oppressive work (avodat perech). And that is His, may He be blessed, saying, "You shall not rule over him oppressively" (Leviticus 25:43). And the language of the Sifra (Sifra, Behar, Section 6:2) is, "'You shall not rule over him oppressively' - that [he] should not tell him, 'Heat up this cup [of water] for me,' but he does not need it," and all that is similar to this. However they brought an example from the easiest of jobs and the simplest of them - that in spite of that, it is not permissible except when it is needed. (See Parashat Behar; Mishneh Torah, Slaves 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.
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
- Conservative Kept as an ethical principle
- Reform Kept as an ethical principle
- Reconstructionist Kept as an ethical principle
- 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.
Philo of Alexandria
- De Specialibus Legibus 2.79-85 rationalized it
Josephus
- Ant. 3.282 rationalized it
The New Testament
- Ephesians 6:9 carried a thematic parallel Enjoins masters to 'forbear threatening,' a Hellenistic-Jewish-Christian analogue restraining harsh dominion.
- Colossians 4:1 carried a thematic parallel Masters to give slaves what is 'just and equal,' grounded in a heavenly master.
The Qur'an and hadith
- Q 24:33 carried a thematic parallel Addresses the mukataba (writ of manumission) and the prohibition on coercing slave-girls into prostitution; relates loosely to restraint on the master rather than to oppressive labor (perekh) specifically.
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 liability of the creditor when a distrained debt-servant (nepûtum) dies from beating/abuse in his house (§116); §115 establishes no liability for natural death Relationship to the parallel: parallel with divergence §§115–116 Roth, Law Collections 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.
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general principle
This framework classifies the relation as an incompatible method.
The commandment prescribes thirty-nine lashes as the sanction for imposing ruthlessly oppressive labor on a Hebrew bondman; post-Enlightenment criminal law prohibits judicial corporal punishment for any offense.
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Article 7
This framework classifies the relation as a direct contradiction.
ICCPR Article 7 prohibits cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment; the imposition of judicial flogging as the enforcement sanction for this commandment meets that prohibition.
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general principle
This framework classifies the relation as abrogated in practice.
Rabbinic tradition holds that authority to impose malkot lapsed with the dissolution of the ordained Sanhedrin; the flogging sanction is de jure operative but has not been enforced for approximately two millennia.