“ ‘You shall not give any of your children as a sacrifice to Molech. You shall not profane the name of your God. I am Yahweh.
Not to sacrifice one's children to Molech
The cited verse
The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)
וּמִזַּרְעֲךָ לֹא־תִתֵּן לְהַעֲבִיר לַמֹּלֶךְ
In Maimonides’ words
How Maimonides defines this commandment in his Sefer HaMitzvot — his own words, shown as a primary source.
שהזהירנו מתת קצת מבנינו אל הנעבד המפורסם בזמן נתינת התורה שהיה שמו מולך. והוא אמרו יתעלה ומזרעך לא תתן להעביר למולך. והיתה עבודתו כמו שהתבאר בפרק שביעי מסנהדרין (שם) והיא שהיו מבעירין אש גדולה לפני הצלם ויקח אחד מבניו ויתנהו לגזבר מתעסק לאותו הנעבד ויעבירהו הגזבר על האש מצד אל צד. וכבר נכפלה האזהרה מהמעשה הזה באמרו לא ימצא בך מעביר בנו ובתו באש. ומי שעבר על לאו זה במזיד חייב סקילה וכרת אם לא יסקל ובשוגג חייב חטאת קבועה. וכבר התבארו משפטי מצוה זו בפ"ז מסנהדרין. (אחרי מות, שם פ"ו):
That He prohibited us from giving over some of our children to that object of worship that was famous at the time of the giving of the Torah, the name of which was Molekh. And that is His, may He be exalted, saying, "You shall not give over any of your children to be passed through to Molekh" (Leviticus 18:21). And its worship was like that which is explained in the seventh chapter of Sanhedrin (Sanhedrin 64b). And that is that they would kindle a great fire in front of the statue and [one would] take one of his children and give him to the functionary that deals with this worshipped thing, and the functionary would pass him through the fire, from one side to the other. And the prohibition of this act has already been repeated by His saying, "Let no one be found among you who passes his son or daughter through the fire" (Deuteronomy 18:10). And one who transgressed this negative commandment volitionally is liable for stoning, and excision if he is not stoned; and he is liable for a fixed sin-offering, if inadvertent. And the regulations of this commandment have already been explained in Chapter 7 of Sanhedrin. (See Parashat Achrei Mot; Mishneh Torah, Foreign Worship and Customs of the Nations 6.)
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
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
- 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.
Rabbinic aggadah
- Sifra Kedoshim/Aharei Mot on Lev 18:21 expanded it homiletically
Philo of Alexandria
- De Specialibus Legibus 1.312-318 The catalog describes this reception as: ethical allegorical Philo treats the prohibition within his discussion of idolatry and apostasy, framing it as an ethical-allegorical condemnation rather than a precise rationalization of the Molech rite
Josephus
- Antiquities Book 9 (Ahaz/Manasseh child-offering narratives) The catalog describes this reception as: narrated Josephus recounts idolatrous child-offering abominations (e.g., Ahaz passing his son through fire) as historical narrative rather than doctrinally affirming the Mosaic prohibition; precise section reference cannot be confirmed and is given at book level
The New Testament
- Acts 7:43 The catalog describes this reception as: cited Stephen's speech cites Amos 5:26 LXX referencing Moloch/Molech as emblem of Israel's idolatrous wandering
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.
- west semitic inscriptions the Punic molk sacrificial institution is linguistically cognate with biblical Molech (mōlekh) and represents the class of West Semitic child-dedication or child-sacrifice practice that Leviticus 18:21 prohibits Relationship to the parallel: polemical contrast Carthaginian tophet stelae bearing the term molk; no standardized section-numbering system exists for this epigraphic corpus, so reference is to the molk-formula votive stelae attested in North African Punic inscriptions generally Eissfeldt, Molk als Opferbegriff im Punischen und Hebräischen (1935); cf. discussion in Heider, The Cult of Molek (1985) and Day, Molech (1989)
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.
Stoning as a method of execution is categorically incompatible with modern penal standards, even for the serious underlying act of child killing; contemporary legal systems impose judicial incarceration under due-process protections rather than death by stoning.
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Article 6
This framework classifies the relation as a substantive tension.
ICCPR Article 6 protects the right to life and limits capital punishment to the most serious crimes; in abolitionist interpretations, the mandatory death sanction prescribed by Leviticus 20:2–5 for this offense conflicts with the article's trajectory toward abolition.
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rabbinic tradition
This framework classifies the relation as abrogated in practice.
Rabbinic tradition holds that capital jurisdiction lapsed with the dissolution of the Sanhedrin in the Second Temple era; the stoning sanction is de jure but not de facto enforced.