except for his relatives that are near to him: for his mother, for his father, for his son, for his daughter, for his brother, and for his virgin sister who is near to him, who has had no husband; for her he may defile himself.
A regular priest shall defile himself for his seven closest deceased relatives
The cited verse
The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)
כִּי אִם־לִשְׁאֵרוֹ הַקָּרֹב אֵלָיו לְאִמּוֹ וּלְאָבִיו וְלִבְנוֹ וּלְבִתּוֹ וּלְאָחִיו׃ וְלַאֲחֹתוֹ הַבְּתוּלָה הַקְּרוֹבָה אֵלָיו אֲשֶׁר לֹא־הָיְתָה לְאִישׁ לָהּ יִטַּמָּא׃
In Maimonides’ words
How Maimonides defines this commandment in his Sefer HaMitzvot — his own words, shown as a primary source.
היא שנצטוו הכהנים שיטמאו לקרובים הנזכרים בתורה, כי בעבור שמנעם הכתוב מלהטמא למת לכבודם והתיר להם להטמא לקרובים שמא יחשבו שהרשות בידם ואם רצו להטמא יטמאו ואם לא רצו לא יטמאו, גזר להם גזרה וחייב עליהם חיוב, והוא אמרו יתעלה ויתברך שמו לה יטמא כלומר לאחותו. ולשון ספרא לה יטמא מצוה לא רצה להטמא מטמאין אותו בעל כרחו ומעשה ביוסף הכהן שמתה אשתו בערב הפסח ולא רצה להטמא לה ודחוהו חכמים וטמאוהו בעל כרחו. וזה בעצמו הוא מצות אבל, כלומר כל איש מישראל חייב להתאבל על קרוביו כלומר ששה מתי מצוה. ולחזק חיוב זה באר אותו בכהן שהוא מוזהר על הטומאה שיטמא על כל פנים כשאר ישראל כדי שלא יתלש דין האבלות. וכבר התבאר שאבלות יום ראשון דאורייתא. ובבאור אמרו במועד קטן (דף י"ד:) אינו נוהג אבלות ברגל אי אבלות דמעיקרא היא אתי עשה דרבים ודחי עשה דיחיד. הנה כבר התבאר שחיוב אבילות הוא מצות עשה. אמנם ביום ראשון לבד והשאר דרבנן, ואפילו הכהן חייב לנהוג אבלות ביום ראשון ויטמא לקרוביו והבן זה. וכבר התבארו משפטי מצוה זו במסכת מועד קטן ובמסכת ברכות ובכתובות ובספרא פרשת אמור אל הכהנים, והחיוב בזה שנתחייב בה להטמא לקרוביו אין הנשים חייבות בה, כי מי שהוזהר מהטמא לזולת הקרובים הוא נצטוה שיטמא לקרובים, אבל הכהנות שלא הוזהרו מטומאת מת, כמו שיתבאר במקומו, כן לא צוו להטמא, אבל תנהגנה אבלות וברשותן להטמא, ודע זה. (אמור, הלכות אבל פ"א):
That is that the priests were commanded to become impure for the relatives that are mentioned in the Torah. Since, on account of Scripture preventing them from becoming impure, for their glory, yet allowing them to become impure for the relatives, they perhaps would think that the option is theirs - if they want to become impure, they become impure; and if they do not want, they do not become impure. [Hence] He made a decree upon them and made it obligatory upon them. And that is His, may He be exalted and may His name be blessed, saying, "for her he shall defile himself" (Leviticus 21:3) - that is to say, for his sister. And the language of the Sifra (Sifra, Emor, Section 2:12) is, "'For her he shall defile himself' - it is a commandment. If he does not want to become impure, we force him to become impure. And it happened with Yosef the priest, whose wife died on the eve of Pesach, and he did not wish to become impure for her, that the Sages pushed him and made him do so against his will." And this is actually the commandment of mourning - meaning that any Israelite is obligated to mourn for his relatives: That is, the six dead [relations about which he is] commanded. And to strengthen this obligation, He explained it with a priest, for whom impurity is prohibited - that he must become impure regardless - so that the law of mourning not be uprooted. And it has already been explained that the obligation of mourning is a positive commandment - however only on the first day, whereas the rest is rabbinic. And in the explanation, they said in Moed Katan (Moed Katan 14b), "He does not observe mourning on the festival. If the mourning is from before, the positive commandment of the many pushes off the positive commandment of an individual." Behold it has been made clear to you that the obligation of mourning is a positive commandment - however only on the first day, whereas the rest is rabbinic. And even a priest is obligated to observe mourning on the first day and become impure for his relatives - and understand this. And the regulations of this commandment have already been explained in Tractate Berakhot, in Ketuvot and in the Sifra, Parashat Emor. And women are not obligated in this, that one be obligated to become impure for one's relatives. For the one that is prohibited from becoming impure for others besides the relatives is also the one who is commanded to become impure for the relatives. Whereas women of the priestly order, who were not prohibited from becoming impure with a corpse - as will be explained in its place (Sefer HaMitzvot, Negative Commandments 166) - were likewise not commanded to become impure. But they do practice mourning and are permitted to become impure. And know this. (See Parashat Emor; Mishneh Torah, Mourning 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 flat, unconditional command
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
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
- Conservative Binding, with modification
- Reform Not binding
- Reconstructionist Not binding
- Karaite As the catalog records it: binding (Karaite halakhah generally privileges the biblical text; rabbinic spousal inclusion via Yevamot 22b is not authoritative for Karaites)
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)
- 11QTa (Temple Scroll) col. 48-51 (corpse-impurity and burial regulations) read it more strictly
Philo of Alexandria
- De Specialibus Legibus 1.112-116 (Philo's rationalization of the priestly mourning regime; this passage focuses on the stricter rule for the High Priest, with the ordinary priest's permitted defilement for close kin treated within the same discussion) rationalized it
Josephus
- Antiquities 3.276-277 paraphrased it
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.
- gilgamesh epic the imperative of proper burial by surviving kin is illustrated by the degraded fate of the unburied dead, providing the ANE cultural context within which the priestly obligation to bury close relatives makes sense as a non-negotiable human duty Relationship to the parallel: shared theme Tablet XII (Enkidu's report on the fate of the dead; Tablet XII is widely regarded as a secondary Akkadian appendix partially translating 'Bilgames and the Netherworld') George, The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic (Oxford, 2003)
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.