Neither shall you set yourself up a sacred stone which Yahweh your God hates.
Not to erect a sacred pillar (matzevah) for worship
The cited verse
The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)
וְלֹא־תָקִים לְךָ מַצֵּבָה אֲשֶׁר שָׂנֵא יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ
In Maimonides’ words
How Maimonides defines this commandment in his Sefer HaMitzvot — his own words, shown as a primary source.
שהזהירנו מעשות מצבה יתחברו אליה ויכבדוה אפילו הושמה לעבוד האל עליה, וזה כי יתדמה בע"ז, כי כן היו עושין הבונין מצבה ומשימין עליה ע"ז. והוא אמרו יתעלה באזהרה מזה לא תקים לך מצבה. ומי שעבר על לאו זה חייב מלקות. (שופטים ושוטרים, שם פ"ו):
That He prohibited us from making a pillar to which we attach ourselves and honor, even if it positioned to serve God upon it. And this is because it appears like idolatry, since this is what they would do - build a pillar and place an idol on it. And that is His, may He be exalted, saying, "You shall not set up a pillar for yourself" (Deuteronomy 16:22). And one who transgressed this negative commandment is liable for lashes. (See Parashat Shoftim; 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
- 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
- Reform Kept as an ethical principle
- Reconstructionist Not binding
- 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
- b. Avodah Zarah 45a The catalog describes this reception as: exegetical resolution
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.
- hittite vassal treaties Hittite treaties employ stone stelae as durable monuments and divine-witness markers of covenants; the matzevah's broader West-Semitic function as a sacred marker of divine presence or covenant is part of the cultural background against which Deuteronomy 16:22 legislates Relationship to the parallel: shared theme Treaty of Suppiluliuma I with Huqqana of Hayasa (CTH 42) Beckman, Hittite Diplomatic Texts, 2nd ed. (SBL, 1999)
- ugaritic texts Ugaritic and broader Canaanite religion attest standing stones and cult installations in sacred space; while the Baal Cycle itself does not describe matzevot per se, the wider Levantine norm of standing-stone cult is the cultural context the Deuteronomic prohibition reacts against Relationship to the parallel: polemical contrast Baal Cycle and related Ugaritic cult/ritual material (general) Smith and Pitard, The Ugaritic Baal Cycle, 2 vols (Brill, 1994, 2009); Pardee, Ritual and Cult at Ugarit (SBL, 2002)
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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UDHR Articles 18–19
This framework classifies the relation as a substantive tension.
The commandment prohibits a specific form of religious expression — erecting a standing stone as a cultic marker — under threat of corporal punishment; freedom-of-conscience norms protect individuals' right to manifest their beliefs through religious objects and practices, including forms that other traditions classify as idolatrous.
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Article 18
This framework classifies the relation as a substantive tension.
ICCPR Article 18 protects the freedom to manifest religion or belief in worship, observance, practice, and teaching; the prohibition on erecting a *matzevah* — even for YHWH-worship, as rabbinic interpretation extends the ban — imposes a restriction on religious observance backed by corporal sanction that conflicts with Article 18's protection of worshippers' freedom to choose the form of their practice.
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general principle
This framework classifies the relation as an incompatible method.
The commandment prescribes 39 lashes for erecting a standing stone for cultic purposes; no modern legal system treats the installation of a religious monument as a criminal offense warranting corporal punishment, making the prescribed sanction incompatible with contemporary penal frameworks.
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Article 7
This framework classifies the relation as a direct contradiction.
ICCPR Article 7 bars cruel, inhuman, or degrading punishment; the imposition of lashes for erecting a standing stone constitutes corporal punishment categorically prohibited by this provision.
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general principle
This framework classifies the relation as abrogated in practice.
Rabbinic tradition holds that lash-jurisdiction lapsed with the dissolution of ordained Sanhedrin courts after 70 CE; the de jure sanction for this prohibition is textually operative but has not been enforced for nearly two millennia.