When a prophet speaks in Yahweh’s name, if the thing doesn’t follow, nor happen, that is the thing which Yahweh has not spoken. The prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You shall not be afraid of him.
Not to fear or refrain from executing a false prophet
The cited verse
The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)
לֹא תָגוּר מִמֶּנּוּ
In Maimonides’ words
How Maimonides defines this commandment in his Sefer HaMitzvot — his own words, shown as a primary source.
שהזהירנו שלא לירא מנביא השקר או להתרשל מלהרגו אחר שהתנבא בשם ה', אבל לא נפחד בזה מעון כלל, ובלבד שיתאמת לנו שקרותו. והוא אמרו יתעלה לא תגור ממנו, אל תמנע עצמך מללמד עליו חובה, כך מבואר בספרי. וכבר התבארו משפטי מצוה זו בפתיחת חבורנו לפירוש המשנה. (שופטים ושוטרים, שם):
That He prohibited us - that we not be afraid of the false prophet, nor be negligent about killing him, because he prophesied in the name of God. Rather we should not be afraid about any iniquity in this - but only when his falsehood has been confirmed to us. And that is His, may He be exalted, saying, "do not fear him" (Deuteronomy 18:22). Do not prevent yourself from arguing his guilt. So is it explained in the Sifrei (Sifrei Devarim 178:3). And the regulations of this commandment have already been explained at the beginning of our introduction of our composition of the Commentary on the Mishnah. (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
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 As the catalog records it: binding in principle (capital enforcement suspended absent a functioning Sanhedrin)
- Conservative Kept as an ethical principle
- Reform Rejected
- Reconstructionist Rejected
- Karaite Position not stated
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
The New Testament
- Matthew 7:15-16 reinterpreted it Thematic/allusive resonance with the false-prophet tradition (not direct textual dependence), framing discernment 'by their fruits' as ethical recognition rather than juridical execution.
- 1 John 4:1 reinterpreted it Exhortation to 'test the spirits' echoes the verification concern (Deut 18:21-22) without the capital sanction.
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 Esarhaddon's Succession Treaty obligates vassals to reject and report seditious or improper speech directed against the sovereign rather than conceal it out of deference; the Deuteronomic command not to fear the false prophet operates in a comparable loyalty-and-reporting register, requiring the community to act against unauthorized oracular voices regardless of their charismatic standing Relationship to the parallel: parallel with divergence SAA 2.6 §10 (duty to report) and §§57-58 (improper/seditious words against the sovereign) Parpola and Watanabe, SAA 2 (1988)
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 operationalizes the judicial system as the enforcement mechanism for requiring execution of individuals who make false prophetic claims; secular liberal democratic norms hold that the state may not employ judicial force to adjudicate theological authenticity or to punish religious speech as a capital offense.
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Article 6 (right to life)
This framework classifies the relation as a substantive tension.
This commandment, read in conjunction with #574 (the prohibition on false prophecy), operationalizes the capital sanction by removing the excuse of fear as a barrier to execution; while the commandment's own punishment_class is none, it functions as the procedural complement to a capital sentence for religious speech that ICCPR Article 6 cannot sanction.
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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 commandment to execute false prophets without allowing fear to delay enforcement therefore has no operative context in which it can be applied.