“ ‘But if he can’t afford two turtledoves or two young pigeons, then he shall bring as his offering for that in which he has sinned, one tenth of an ephah of fine flour for a sin offering. He shall put no oil on it, and he shall not put any frankincense on it, for it is a sin offering.
Not to put frankincense on the meal offering of a sinner
The cited verse
The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)
לֹא־יָשִׂים עָלֶיהָ שֶׁמֶן וְלֹא־יִתֵּן עָלֶיהָ לְבֹנָה כִּי חַטָּאת הִיא
In Maimonides’ words
How Maimonides defines this commandment in his Sefer HaMitzvot — his own words, shown as a primary source.
הזהירנו מהקריב במנחת חוטא לבונה. והוא אמרו יתעלה ולא יתן עליה לבונה. ואם שם לוקה. ולשון המשנה (מנחות נ"ט:) חייב על השמן בפני עצמו ועל הלבונה בפני עצמה, לפי שהם שני לאוין בלא ספק. וכבר התבארו משפטי מצוה זו בחמישי ממנחות. (שם, שם):
He prohibited us from offering frankincense in the offering of a sinner. And that is His, may He be exalted, saying, "neither shall he put any frankincense upon it" (Leviticus 5:11). And one who placed [it] is lashed. And the language of the Mishnah (Menachot 59b) is, "He is liable for the oil on its own, and for the frankincense on its own" - since they are two [distinct] negative commandments, without a doubt. And the regulations of this commandment have already been explained in the fifth [chapter] of Menachot. (See Parashat Vayikra; Mishneh Torah, Sacrificial Procedure 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.
- Requires a standing Temple
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 Not binding
- Reform Not binding
- Reconstructionist Not binding
- Karaite Not 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.
Philo of Alexandria
- De Specialibus Legibus 1.271-272 rationalized it
Josephus
- Ant. 3.230-232 carried a parallel
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.
-
general principle
This framework classifies the relation as a direct contradiction.
Mishnah Menachot 5:3 and Rambam (Hilkhot Maaseh HaQorbanot 12:7) prescribe lashes for adding frankincense to the poverty-level sin-offering; modern proportionality principles preclude corporal punishment for a procedural cultic error that harms no person.
-
general principle
This framework classifies the relation as an incompatible method.
Post-Enlightenment penal codes do not criminalize the inclusion of a spice in a religious grain offering, and flogging is not a permissible sanction in contemporary legal systems for any ritual-procedure violation.
-
rabbinic tradition
This framework classifies the relation as abrogated in practice.
Rabbinic tradition holds that corporal jurisdiction lapsed with the dissolution of the Sanhedrin; additionally, the commandment presupposes an operative Temple, making it doubly inoperative in the current era.