An Ammonite or a Moabite shall not enter into Yahweh’s assembly; even to the tenth generation shall no one belonging to them enter into Yahweh’s assembly forever,
A mamzer (offspring of a forbidden union) shall not marry into the congregation of Israel
The cited verse
The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)
לֹא־יָבֹא מַמְזֵר בִּקְהַל יְהוָה גַּם דּוֹר עֲשִׂירִי לֹא־יָבֹא לוֹ בִּקְהַל יְהוָה
In Maimonides’ words
How Maimonides defines this commandment in his Sefer HaMitzvot — his own words, shown as a primary source.
הזהיר שלא יבא ממזר על בת ישראל. והוא אמרו לא יבא ממזר בקהל ה', והעובר על לאו זה לוקה. וכבר התבארו משפטי מצוה זו בשמיני מיבמות וסוף קדושין. (כי תצא, שם):
He prohibited - that a mamzer (one born from certain forbidden unions - see the end of the previous commandment) not have sexual intercourse with an Israelite. And that is His saying, "A mamzer shall not come into the congregation of the Lord" (Deuteronomy 23:3). And one who transgresses this negative commandment is lashed; and the regulations of this commandment have already been explained in the eighth [chapter] of Yevamot and at the end of Kiddushin. (See Parashat Ki Tetzeh; Mishneh Torah, Forbidden Intercourse.)
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
- 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 As the catalog records it: effectively suspended
- 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.
Qumran (the Dead Sea Scrolls)
- 4QMMT B 39-49 The catalog describes this reception as: halakhic application to qahal exclusion (debated)
Rabbinic aggadah
- Leviticus Rabbah 32:5 expanded it homiletically
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 legitimacy and inheritance rights of children by primary wife versus slave woman; Mesopotamian law addresses offspring status for inheritance purposes without imposing the multigenerational exclusion from the assembly that characterizes the Israelite mamzer Relationship to the parallel: polemical contrast §§170-171 Roth, Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor, 2nd ed. (Scholars Press, 1997)
- laws of lipit ishtar differential status of children born to free wife versus slave concubine for inheritance purposes; addresses inheritance shares rather than cultic exclusion, contrasting with the Israelite multigenerational qahal-exclusion of the mamzer Relationship to the parallel: polemical contrast §§27-29 Roth, Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor, 2nd ed. (Scholars Press, 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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Article 7
This framework classifies the relation as a direct contradiction.
UDHR Article 7 guarantees equality before the law without discrimination; the mamzer status imposes a permanent, hereditary civil disability — exclusion from the marital community — on individuals solely because of the circumstances of their birth, making the child bear legal consequences for the parents' conduct.
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Article 26
This framework classifies the relation as a direct contradiction.
ICCPR Article 26 prohibits discrimination on any grounds; the perpetual hereditary restriction on the mamzer's marriage rights constitutes discrimination on the basis of birth status, a characteristic entirely outside the individual's control.
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Article 2
This framework classifies the relation as a direct contradiction.
CRC Article 2 requires states to ensure children's rights without discrimination, including on the basis of birth; the mamzer status transmits a legal disability from parent to child across generations, violating the principle that children may not be penalised for their parents' conduct.
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general principle
This framework classifies the relation as an incompatible method.
The prescribed penalty of thirty-nine lashes for violating the mamzer marriage restriction employs corporal punishment, which modern criminal law uniformly prohibits as cruel and degrading.
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Article 7
This framework classifies the relation as an incompatible method.
ICCPR Article 7 prohibits cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment; flogging as the enforcement mechanism for the mamzer marriage ban constitutes degrading 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 the flogging sanction requires a functioning Sanhedrin, which lapsed with the Temple's destruction; active enforcement of the lashes penalty is suspended in practice, though the marriage restriction itself remains formally operative in Orthodox halakhah.