But the prophet who speaks a word presumptuously in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that same prophet shall die.”
Not to prophesy falsely in the name of God
The cited verse
The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)
אֲשֶׁר יָזִיד לְדַבֵּר דָּבָר בִּשְׁמִי אֵת אֲשֶׁר לֹא־צִוִּיתִיו לְדַבֵּר
In Maimonides’ words
How Maimonides defines this commandment in his Sefer HaMitzvot — his own words, shown as a primary source.
שהזהירנו מהתנבא לשקר, והוא שיתנבא בשם ה' אבל יאמר מה שלא אמר האל יתעלה לו, אבל אמר זולתו וידרוש הוא בו ויאמר כי האל אמר לו הדבר הזה והוא לא אמר אותו אליו. ולשון האזהרה בזה אמרו אך הנביא אשר יזיד לדבר דבר בשמי אשר לא צויתיו, והעובר על לאו זה דינו גם כן בחנק, וכשמנו הנחנקין אמרו ונביא השקר. ושם (סנהדרין פ"ט) אמרו שלשה מיתתן בידי אדם, אשר יזיד לדבר דבר בשמי זה המתנבא מה שלא שמע, את אשר לא צויתיו הא לחבירו צויתיו זה המתנבא מה שלא נאמר לו, ואשר ידבר בשם אלהים אחרים זה המתנבא בשם ע"ז. ובכללן נאמר ומת הנביא ההוא, וכל מיתה האמורה בתורה סתם אינה אלא חנק. והתבארו משפטי נביא שקר בי"ד מסנהדרין. (שופטים ושוטרים, מדע הלכות ע"ז וחקות העכו"ם פ"ה):
That He prohibited us from prophesying falsely. And that is that one prophesied in the name of God, but he says that which, God, may He be exalted, did not say to him; [or that God] said [it] to someone besides him, but he teaches it and says that God said the thing to him, whereas He did not say the thing to him. And the language of the prohibition about this is His saying, "But the prophet, who shall presume to speak a word in my name, which I have not commanded him," (Deuteronomy 18:20). And the law of one who transgresses this negative commandment is also strangulation. And when they listed those strangled, they said (Sanhedrin 89a), "and the false prophet." And there, they said, "There are three the death of which is by the hands of [the court]: 'Who shall presume to speak a word in my name' - that is one who prophesies what he did not hear; 'which I have not commanded him' - behold I commanded his fellow - that is one who prophesies that which was not said to him; 'or that shall speak in the name of other gods' - that is one who prophecies in the name of an idol. And about all of them does it say, 'and that prophet shall be killed.' And any undifferentiated death penalty stated in the Torah is nothing other than strangulation." And the regulations of a false prophet have already been explained in the fourteenth [chapter] of Sanhedrin. (See Parashat Shoftim; 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.
No applicability flags are recorded for this commandment.
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 strangulation (ḥenek)
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 Kept as an ethical principle
- Reconstructionist Kept as an ethical principle
- Karaite As the catalog records it: binding in principle (scriptural prohibition retained; capital enforcement not operative)
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 rationalized it treats false prophecy within the broader Deuteronomic frame (incl. the enticer/Deut 13 material) rather than narrowly the Deut 18:20 prohibition
The New Testament
- Matthew 7:15-23 reinterpreted it thematic warning against false prophets recognizable 'by their fruits,' echoing the authentication concern of Deut 18 without direct citation
- 2 Peter 2:1 reinterpreted it false prophets and false teachers within the community; thematic development of the false-prophet motif
- 1 John 4:1 reinterpreted it 'test the spirits' to discern true from false prophecy; thematic echo of the discernment problem
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 The Esarhaddon Succession Treaty requires subjects neither to heed nor to conceal seditious or prophetic speech (including from a raggimu/maḫḫû) directed against loyalty to the suzerain; this institutional concern with controlling and disclosing unauthorized oracular speech parallels the Deuteronomic concern with prophetic utterance claiming YHWH's name Relationship to the parallel: parallel with divergence §10 (lines 108–122; SAA 2.6, Esarhaddon Succession Treaty); cf. related prophet/oracle-speech provisions elsewhere in the oath Parpola and Watanabe, SAA 2 (1988)
- ugaritic texts Ugaritic mythological texts attest the prominence of Baal and Asherah cult, the broader West Semitic religious milieu against which the Deuteronomic law's insistence that YHWH alone authorizes valid oracular speech operates; note that no organized Baal/Asherah prophetic institution is directly attested at Ugarit, and the 1 Kings 18 'prophets of Baal and Asherah' are a biblical polemical depiction rather than an Ugaritic datum Relationship to the parallel: polemical contrast Baal Cycle (KTU 1.1–1.6) Smith and Pitard, The Ugaritic Baal Cycle, 2 vols (Brill, 1994, 2009)
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 Article 19
This framework classifies the relation as a direct contradiction.
The commandment imposes capital punishment for the sincere public claim to have received divine revelation, even if the claimant genuinely believes the message — a category the Talmud explicitly includes in false prophecy; criminalizing sincere religious speech with a capital sanction directly contradicts the freedom of expression and religious manifestation protected under UDHR Article 19 and Article 18.
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general principle
This framework classifies the relation as a direct contradiction.
Strangulation for making a false prophetic claim — however sincerely believed and however verifiable only retrospectively — is categorically disproportionate under modern penal theory, which precludes capital punishment for religious speech acts.
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Article 6 (right to life)
This framework classifies the relation as a direct contradiction.
ICCPR Article 6 limits capital punishment to the most serious crimes; making a prophetic claim in YHWH's name that proves inaccurate or unsanctioned is not a crime at all under modern law, let alone one that could meet the Article 6 threshold.
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general abrogation note
This framework classifies the relation as abrogated in practice.
Rabbinic tradition holds that capital jurisdiction lapsed with the dissolution of the Great Sanhedrin; the de jure norm prescribing strangulation for false prophecy remains textually authoritative but is not de facto enforced.