You shall walk after Yahweh your God, fear him, keep his commandments, and obey his voice. You shall serve him, and cling to him.
Not to listen to one who prophesies in the name of an idol
The cited verse
The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)
לֹא תִשְׁמַע אֶל־דִּבְרֵי הַנָּבִיא הַהוּא אוֹ אֶל־חוֹלֵם הַחֲלוֹם הַהוּא
In Maimonides’ words
How Maimonides defines this commandment in his Sefer HaMitzvot — his own words, shown as a primary source.
שהזהירנו משמוע למתנבא בשם ע"ז, רוצה לומר שאנחנו לא נחקרהו ולא נשאלהו ונאמר לו מה האות שלך ומה מופתך על זה המאמר כמו שנעשה למתנבא בשם ה', אבל כשנשמעהו מתנבא בשמה נזהירהו מזה במה שראוי בכל פושע ואשם, אם הוא מחזיק בדבריו נקיים בו העונש שנתחייב מדין התורה ולא נביט לאותו המופת שיתן ולא נשמע ממנו טענה. והאזהרה מזה הוא אמרו לא תשמע אל דברי הנביא ההוא. וכבר התבארו משפטי מצוה זו בי"א מסנהדרין. (ראה אנכי, שם):
That He prohibited us from listening to one who prophesies in the name of an idol. [This] means that we do not investigate him and we do not ask him and say to him, "What is your sign, and what is your wonder [confirming] your statement" - as we would do with one prophesying in the name of God. Rather, when we hear him prophesy, we warn him about it with what is fitting for any sinner and blameworthy one. And if he holds on to his words, we administer upon him the punishment for which he is liable by Torah law; and we do not observe that wonder that he gives and we do not listen to [any] argument from him. And the prohibition of this is His saying, "Do not listen to the words of that prophet" (Deuteronomy 13:4). And the regulations of this commandment have already been explained in the eleventh [chapter] of Sanhedrin. (See Parashat Re'eh; Mishneh Torah, Foreign Worship and Customs of the Nations 5.)
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
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 Kept as an ethical principle
- Reform Not binding
- Reconstructionist Not binding
- Karaite As the catalog records it: scriptural prohibition affirmed (outside rabbinic enumeration)
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.
Philo of Alexandria
- De Specialibus Legibus 1.315-318 (paragraph range to be verified) rationalized it Philo appears to treat the diviner or dream-interpreter who urges apostasy to other gods, insisting the message be rejected and the inciter punished regardless of apparent inspired credentials — a moralizing-rationalizing expansion of Deut 13; the exact paragraph range should be confirmed against a critical edition.
The New Testament
- Matthew 24:24 reinterpreted it False prophets and false messiahs perform great signs and wonders (sēmeia kai terata) to deceive even the elect — eschatological adaptation of the Deut 13 sign-producing deceiver.
- Galatians 1:8 reinterpreted it An angel from heaven preaching another gospel is to be rejected (anathema) regardless of source — structural analogue to content-over-credentials.
- Revelation 13:13-14 reinterpreted it The second beast performs great signs, even bringing fire from heaven, to lead astray — eschatological reuse of the sign-producing false prophet motif.
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.
- neo assyrian vassal treaties obligation to reject and report seditious words spoken by prophets, ecstatics, or dream-interpreters against the sovereign Relationship to the parallel: parallel with divergence clause requiring subjects to reject and report seditious or rebellious words spoken by prophets, ecstatics (raggimu/maḫḫû), or dream-interpreters against the crown prince Parpola and Watanabe, SAA 2 (1988), no. 6
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.
-
UDHR Articles 18–19
This framework classifies the relation as a direct contradiction.
The commandment prohibits giving cognitive assent to or processing information delivered by a prophet of a foreign deity, treating the act of listening as a culpable infraction; freedom of conscience encompasses the right to receive information and to engage intellectually with religious claims, and coercive legal prohibition on the mere act of listening to religious speech directly contradicts that freedom.
-
Article 18 (freedom of thought and conscience) and Article 19 (freedom to receive information)
This framework classifies the relation as a substantive tension.
ICCPR Article 19 specifically protects the freedom to seek, receive, and impart information and ideas of all kinds; the commandment's prohibition on receiving prophetic communications from non-YHWH sources suppresses the receptive dimension of religious expression that ICCPR Articles 18 and 19 jointly protect.