The Nazirite shall shave the head of his separation at the door of the Tent of Meeting, take the hair of the head of his separation, and put it on the fire which is under the sacrifice of peace offerings.
A nazirite must shave his head and bring offerings upon completion of his vow
The cited verse
The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)
וְגִלַּח הַנָּזִיר פֶּתַח אֹהֶל מוֹעֵד אֶת־רֹאשׁ נִזְרוֹ וְלָקַח אֶת־שְׂעַר רֹאשׁ נִזְרוֹ וְנָתַן עַל־הָאֵשׁ אֲשֶׁר־תַּחַת זֶבַח הַשְּׁלָמִים
In Maimonides’ words
How Maimonides defines this commandment in his Sefer HaMitzvot — his own words, shown as a primary source.
היא שצונו לגלח הנזיר את ראשו ולהביא את קרבנותיו במלאת ימי נזירותו. ולשון ספרי שלשה מגלחין ושלשתן תגלחתן מצוה. הנזיר והמצורע והלוים. אמנם תגלחת הלוים היא במדבר ואינה נוהגת לדורות וגלוח מצורע ונזיר נוהג לדורות. ומבואר הוא כי לנזיר שני גלוחים גלוח טומאה וגלוח טהרה. והוא אמרו ובמלאת ימי נזרו. ואין ראוי שימנו שני גלוחים אלו שתי מצות לפי שגלוח טומאה הוא מדין מצות נזירות כי מצות עשה שלו הוא שירבה פרע בקדושה כמו שבאר ודן אותו הכתוב בזה שאם נטמא הנזירות יגלח ויביא קרבן ואז ישוב ויגדל פרע בקדושה כמתחלת מנין ימי הנזירות שחייב נפשו, כמו שיש למצורע גם כן שתי תגלחות והם מצוה אחת כמו שאבאר במקומו. והנה אבאר במה שאחר זה הסבה במנותנו תגלחת נזיר וקרבנותיו מצוה אחת ותגלחת מצורע וקרבנותיו שתי מצות. וכבר התבארו משפטי מצוה זו גם כן כלומר תגלחת נזיר במקומה במסכת נזיר. (נשא, הלכות נזירות פ"ח):
That is that He commanded us to shave the nazarite's head and to bring his sacrifices at the culmination of his nazariteship. And the language of the [Sifra] (Sifra, Metzora, Chapter 2:6) is, "Three shave, and their shaving is a commandment: The nazarite; the metsora; and the Levites." However the shaving of the Levites was in the [Sinai] desert, and not for [all] generations, whereas the shaving of the metsora and the nazarite is practiced for [all] generations. And it is explained that there are two shavings for the nazarite, a shaving of impurity and a shaving of purity. And that is His saying, "on the day that his term as nazarite is completed" (Numbers 6:13). And it is inappropriate to count the two shaving as two commandments. For the shaving of impurity is one of the laws of the commandment of nazariteship. For his commandment is to grow his hair untrimmed, in purity - as that verse explained and taught about this. So if his nazariteship becomes impure, he shaves and brings a sacrifice; and then he returns to growing it untrimmed in holiness - as at the beginning - for the number of days that he obligated himself. It is like the metsora that also has two shavings; yet that is one commandment, as I will explain in its place (Sefer HaMitzvot, Positive Commandments 111). And I will also explain the reason for our counting the shaving of the nazarite and the sacrifice, as one commandment; and the shaving of the metsora and his sacrifice, as two commandments. And the regulations of this commandment - meaning the shaving of the nazarite - have also already been explained in their place, in Tractate Nazir. (See Parashat Nasso; Mishneh Torah, Nazariteship 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 ritual instruction
Applicability
How the catalog describes where and when this commandment applies. These are independent descriptions, not a verdict on which laws still count.
- Requires a standing Temple
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
No court-imposed penalty is recorded.
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 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.
Qumran (the Dead Sea Scrolls)
- Second Temple nazirite practice attested in the period; Temple Scroll context for sacrificial regulation (no clear direct nazirite-completion citation) affirmed it
Rabbinic aggadah
- b. Nazir 4b (Simeon the Just and the handsome nazirite) expanded it homiletically
Philo of Alexandria
- De Specialibus Legibus 1.247-254 read it allegorically
Josephus
- Antiquities 4.72; Jewish War 2.313 affirmed it
The New Testament
- Acts 21:23-26 affirmed it Paul finances and joins four men completing a nazirite vow with the requisite head-shaving and Temple offerings, presented as demonstrative Torah-observance
- Acts 18:18 affirmed it Paul cuts his hair at Cenchreae 'for he had taken a vow,' commonly read as a nazirite-style vow
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 ritual text KTU 1.40 prescribes a multi-offering purification ceremony involving burnt offerings and well-being offerings (šlmm) as part of a community expiation rite; shares with the nazirite completion ceremony the structural logic of multi-offering desacralization following a period of heightened status Relationship to the parallel: shared theme KTU 1.40 (Ugaritic purification/expiation ritual) 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.
No tension with the catalogued modern frameworks is recorded here.