“ ‘You shall not cut the hair on the sides of your head or clip off the edge of your beard.
Not to destroy the edges of one's beard
The cited verse
The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)
וְלֹא תַשְׁחִית אֵת פְּאַת זְקָנֶךָ
In Maimonides’ words
How Maimonides defines this commandment in his Sefer HaMitzvot — his own words, shown as a primary source.
שהזהירנו מלגלח הזקן. והוא חמשה חלקים הלחי העליון מצד ימין והלחי התחתון מצד ימין, הלחי העליון מצד שמאל והלחי התחתון מצד שמאל, והזקן, ובא האזהרה בהם בזאת המלה לא תשחית את פאת זקנך וזה שזקן יקרא הכל. ולא אמר לא תשחית זקנך אבל אמרו לא תשחית פאת רוצה לומר שלא תגלח אפילו פאה אחת מכלל הזקן, ובא הפירוש שהוא חמש פאות כמו שחלקנו אותם, והוא חייב חמש מלקיות כשיגלח הכל אפילו גלחו בבת אחת. ולשון משנה (מכות כ"ו) ועל הזקן חמש שתים מכאן ושתים מכאן ואחת למטה, רבי אליעזר אומר אם נטלן כולן כאחת אינו חייב אלא אחת. ואמר אלמא קסבר רבי אליעזר לאו אחד הוא, הנה זה ראיה מבוארת דסבר תנא קמא שהן חמשה לאוין וכן היא ההלכה. וזה גם כן היה קשוט כמו שהוא היום מפורסם בקשוט הגלחים שהם יגלחו זקנם. ואשר חייב שלא ימנו חמש מצות בהיות האזהרה מהן במלה אחת כמו שבארנו במצוה שלפני זאת. וכבר התבארו משפטי מצוה זו בסוף מכות. וזו אין הנשים חייבות בה. (שם, שם):
That He prohibited us from shaving the beard - and that is [specifically] five parts [of it]: The upper jaw on the right side; the lower jaw on the right side; the upper jaw on the left side; the lower jaw on the left side; and the [chin]. And the prohibition about them comes with this expression - "nor shall you destroy the side of your beard" (Leviticus 19:27); and that is because it is all called, beard. And He did not say, "nor shall you destroy your beard," but "nor shall you destroy the corner" - meaning to say not to shave even one corner of the entire beard. And it appears in the explanation that it is five corners, as we allotted them. And he is liable for five [sets of] lashes, even if he shaved them at one time. And the language of the Mishnah (Makkot 20a), "For the beard, there are [five], two from here, two from there and one from below. Rabbi Eliezer says, 'If he removed all of them together, he is liable to receive only one.'" And it said (Makkot 21a), "Hence, Rabbi Eliezer holds it is one negative commandment." Behold, this is a clear proof that the first teacher [in the Mishnah] holds they are five negative commandments; and that is the law. And this was also an adornment - as is famous today, it being an adornment of the priests who shave their beards. But it is obligatory that we [nevertheless] not list [it as] five [separate] commandments, since their prohibition is with one expression, as we explained in the previous commandment. And the regulations of this commandment have already been explained at the end of Makkot. However women are not obligated in this. (See Parashat Kedoshim; Mishneh Torah, Foreign Worship and Customs of the Nations 12.)
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 Binding, with modification
- Reform Not binding
- Reconstructionist Not binding
- Karaite As the catalog records it: binding peshat interpretation
24 of 613 commandments have been examined in depth so far — this one is queued.
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 Upon news of Baal's death El performs mourning rites — descending from his throne, sitting in the dust, donning sackcloth, and gashing his skin (cheeks and chin) with a stone; self-laceration mourning-disfigurement is embedded in the Canaanite mythological tradition that parallels the practices Lev 19:27-28 targets, though the text describes skin-cutting rather than beard-shaving per se Relationship to the parallel: polemical contrast KTU 1.5 VI 11-25 (Baal Cycle, El's mourning for Baal) Smith and Pitard, The Ugaritic Baal Cycle, 2 vols (Brill, 1994, 2009); Pardee, Ritual and Cult at Ugarit (SBL, 2002)
- middle assyrian laws beard-shaving (removal of half the beard) prescribed as a punitive humiliation in MAL — demonstrating that beard shaving carried profound social stigma in Mesopotamian culture, parallel to its role as mourning-disfigurement in the Levant Relationship to the parallel: shared theme Tablet A §20 Roth, Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor, 2nd ed. (SBL/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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general principle
This framework classifies the relation as a substantive tension.
The commandment prohibits a grooming practice (shaving the beard edges) applied to men's bodies under threat of corporal punishment, constraining personal appearance choices that cause no harm to others — a constraint that conflicts with post-Enlightenment norms of bodily self-determination.
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general principle
This framework classifies the relation as an incompatible method.
The commandment prescribes 39 lashes for a personal grooming decision; no modern criminal code recognizes individual shaving choices as offenses warranting corporal punishment, making the prescribed method categorically incompatible with contemporary penal frameworks.
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Article 7
This framework classifies the relation as a direct contradiction.
ICCPR Article 7 prohibits cruel, inhuman, or degrading punishment; the imposition of lashes for shaving the edge of one's beard constitutes corporal punishment that is categorically barred by this provision.
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general principle
This framework classifies the relation as abrogated in practice.
Rabbinic tradition holds that the authority to impose lashes lapsed with the dissolution of ordained Sanhedrin courts after 70 CE; the de jure sanction for this prohibition is textually operative but effectively suspended.