“ ‘You shall not lie with a man as with a woman. That is detestable.
A man shall not have sexual relations with a male as with a woman
The cited verse
The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)
וְאֶת־זָכָר לֹא תִשְׁכַּב מִשְׁכְּבֵי אִשָּׁה תּוֹעֵבָה הִוא
In Maimonides’ words
How Maimonides defines this commandment in his Sefer HaMitzvot — his own words, shown as a primary source.
שהזהירנו שלא לבא על הזכר. והוא אמרו יתעלה ואת זכר לא תשכב משכבי אשה. וכבר נכפלה האזהרה בזה הענין בעצמו, והוא אמרו לא יהיה קדש מבני ישראל, וזה דרך האמת שזה הלאו הוא נכפל לחזוק לא שהוא אזהרה לנשכב. ושם אמרו לא תשכב נלמד האזהרה לשוכב ולנשכב. ובגמרא סנהדרין (דף נ"ד:) התבאר דרבי ישמעאל היא שישים לא יהיה קדש אזהרה לנשכב לפיכך הבא על הזכר והביא עליו זכר בהעלם אחת חייב שתים על דעת רבי ישמעאל ורבי עקיבא אומר אינו צריך הרי הוא אומר ואת זכר לא תשכב קרי ביה לא תִשָכֵב לפיכך הבא על הזכר והביא זכר עליו בהעלם אחת אינו חייב אלא אחת ואמרו בטעם זה לא תשכב ולא תִשָכֵב חדא היא, ואמנם בא לפי דעתי לא יהיה קדש לחזוק כמו שאמר לא תנאף והיא אזהרה לאשת איש כמו שבארנו ואח"כ אמר ואל אשת עמיתך לא תתן שכבתך לזרע וכגון זה הרבה כמו שבארנו בשרש התשיעי. והעובר על לאו זה חייב סקילה ואם לא יסקל הנה הוא בכרת אם היה מזיד, ואם היה שוגג יקריב חטאת קבועה:
He prohibited us from sexual intercourse with a male. And that is His saying, "Any you shall not lie with a male as one lies with a woman" (Leviticus 18:22). And the prohibition about this exact content has already been repeated with His saying, "and there shall not be a male prostitute from the Children of Israel" (Deuteronomy 23:18). And that is the correct approach - that this negative commandment is repeated to strengthen it; and not that it is a prohibition about the one who receives intercourse. Rather, we learn from His saying, "You shall not lie," [both] about the one who lies and the one who is lain with. And in the Gemara, Sanhedrin (Sanhedrin 54b), it is explained that it is Rabbi Yishmael that positions, "and there shall not be a male prostitute," as a prohibition for the one being lain with. Hence one who has sexual intercourse with a male and has a male have sexual intercourse with him in one forgetful spell, is liable for two [sin-offerings] according to the opinion of Rabbi Yishmael. But Rabbi Akiva says, "It is not necessary. Behold, He says, 'And you shall not lie (tishkav) with a male.' Read into it, 'You shall not be lain with (tishakhev).'" Hence one who has sexual intercourse with a male and has a male have sexual intercourse with him in one forgetful spell is only liable for one [sin-offering]. And they said about the reason for this, "You shall not lie and you shall not be lain with are the same." However, "and there shall not be a male prostitute," appears - according to my opinion - to strengthen [it]; like He said, "you shall not commit adultery" (Exodus 20:13), which is the prohibition of a married woman, as we explained, yet afterwards He said, "And to the wife of your kinsman do not give your lying for seed" (Leviticus 18:19). And there are many examples like this, as we explained in the Ninth Principle. And one who transgresses this negative commandment is liable for stoning; and if he is not stoned, he is surely [punished] with excision if he was volitional. But if he was inadvertent, he must sacrifice a fixed sin-offering.
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
- Death by stoning (sekilah)
At the hands of Heaven
- Karet — being 'cut off'
Ritual remedy
- A sin-offering (ḥatat)
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 Binding, with modification
- Reform Rejected
- Reconstructionist Rejected
- 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.
Rabbinic aggadah
- Genesis Rabbah 26:5 expanded it homiletically
- Leviticus Rabbah 23:9 expanded it homiletically
Philo of Alexandria
- De Specialibus Legibus 3.37-42 read it more strictly
- De Abrahamo 135-137 read it more strictly
Josephus
- Contra Apionem 2.199 affirmed it
The New Testament
- Romans 1:26-27 read it more strictly Paul recasts same-sex acts as 'unnatural' (para physin) within a Hellenistic-Jewish polemic against gentile idolatry; not a direct citation of Lev but draws on Holiness-Code categories
- 1 Corinthians 6:9 read it more strictly the coinage arsenokoitai is widely read as derived from the LXX rendering of Lev 18:22/20:13 (which uses arsenos ... koiten gynaikos)
- 1 Timothy 1:10 read it more strictly arsenokoitai listed among the lawless
The Church Fathers
- Clement of Alexandria, Paedagogus 2.10 read it more strictly
- John Chrysostom, Homilies on Romans 4 (on Rom 1:26-27) read it more strictly
The Qur'an and hadith
- Q 7:80-81; Q 26:165-166 carried a parallel
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.
- middle assyrian laws penalty for a man who has intercourse with a male peer (tappāʾu); the offender is to be sodomized and then castrated. Scholars commonly interpret the offense as concerning status/role and the dishonoring of a social equal rather than sexuality per se Relationship to the parallel: parallel with divergence A §20 Roth, Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor, 2nd ed. (1997)
- hittite laws provisions on incestuous unions (e.g., father with daughter, mother with son) and certain bestiality cases; illustrates that ANE legal taxonomies of forbidden sexual unions could omit a general male-male prohibition Relationship to the parallel: parallel with divergence §189 (incest); bestiality provisions in the §§187-188/199-200 cluster Hoffner, The Laws of the Hittites: A Critical Edition (Brill, 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 a direct contradiction.
The commandment criminalizes consensual same-sex conduct between adult males; post-Enlightenment bodily-autonomy frameworks hold that competent adults have the right to engage in consensual sexual activity without state or religious prohibition, regardless of the sex of the parties.
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Article 17
This framework classifies the relation as a direct contradiction.
ICCPR Article 17 protects individuals against arbitrary interference with their privacy; the United Nations Human Rights Committee has repeatedly ruled that criminalisation of consensual same-sex conduct between adults violates Article 17 (Toonen v. Australia, Communication No. 488/1992).
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general principle
This framework classifies the relation as a direct contradiction.
Leviticus 20:13 and Mishnah Sanhedrin 7:4 prescribe death by stoning for male-male intercourse; applying capital punishment to a non-violent consensual act between adults constitutes a fundamental breach of penal proportionality as understood in modern criminal law.
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Article 6
This framework classifies the relation as a direct contradiction.
ICCPR Article 6 restricts capital punishment to the most serious crimes involving intentional killing; death for same-sex intercourse falls categorically outside the permissible scope of capital punishment under international human rights standards.
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general principle
This framework classifies the relation as abrogated in practice.
Rabbinic tradition holds that capital jurisdiction lapsed with the dissolution of the Sanhedrin at the Temple's destruction; the death penalty for male-male intercourse has not been judicially enforceable within Jewish institutions for approximately two millennia, though the de jure prohibition remains.