“Anyone who attacks his father or his mother shall be surely put to death.
Not to strike one's father or mother
The cited verse
The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)
וּמַכֵּה אָבִיו וְאִמּוֹ מוֹת יוּמָת
In Maimonides’ words
How Maimonides defines this commandment in his Sefer HaMitzvot — his own words, shown as a primary source.
הזהיר מהכות אב ואם, ולא התבארה גם כן אזהרה מבוארת מזה אבל זכר העונש ואמר ומכה אביו ואמו מות יומת, ולמדנו אזהרה למכה אביו על דרך שלמדנו אותה למקלל אביו, וזה כי כבר התבאר במצוה ש' שאנו מוזהרין על כל איש שלא להכותו ואביו בכלל. ולשון מכילתא ומכה אביו ואמו וגו' עונש שמענו אזהרה מנין תלמוד לומר ארבעים יכנו לא יוסיף והרי דברים קל וחומר מה אם מי שמצווה להכותו הרי הוא מוזהר שלא להכותו אביו ואמו שאינו מצווה להכותו אינו דין שיהא מוזהר שלא להכותו, והעובר על לאו זה כלומר שיכה אביו או אמו במזיד ויוציא מהם דם הרי זה חייב חנק. והתבארו דיני מצוה זו בסוף סנהדרין. (שם, שם):
He prohibited hitting father and mother. And also about this is there no explicit prohibition, but He mentioned the punishment and said, "And if one strikes his father or his mother, he shall surely die" (Exodus 21:15). And we learned the prohibition about the one who strikes his father, in the way that we learned it about the one who curses his father. And that is since it has already been explained in Commandment 300 (Sefer HaMitzvot, Negative Commandments 300) that we are prohibited about hitting anyone, his father is included. And the language of the Mekhilta (Mekhilta d'Rabbi Yishmael 21:15:4) is, "'And if one strikes his father or his mother, etc.' - we have heard the punishment; from where [do we know] the prohibition? [Hence] we learn to say, 'Forty is he to strike him, he may not add' (Deuteronomy 25:3). Behold these matters are a fortiori, viz.: If one who is commanded to strike one is exhorted not to strike him; his father or mother, who he is commanded not to strike, is it not the law that he is commanded not to strike him?" And one who transgresses this negative commandment - meaning to say, he strikes his father or mother volitionally and draws blood from them - is liable for strangulation. And the laws of this commandment have already been explained at the end of Sanhedrin. (See Parashat Mishpatim; Mishneh Torah, Rebels 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 flat, unconditional command
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
- 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 Binding
- Reform Kept as an ethical principle
- Reconstructionist Kept as an ethical principle
- Karaite As the catalog records it: scripturally affirmed
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 2.232-248 rationalized it
Josephus
- Antiquities 4.262-264 reinterpreted it
The New Testament
- 1 Timothy 1:9 carried a parallel Lists 'strikers of fathers and mothers' (patralōiais kai mētralōiais) among the lawless for whom the law is laid down; commonly read as drawing on the Decalogue/Covenant Code valuation of parental honor
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.
- code of hammurabi mutilation for striking a father (severing the hand) Relationship to the parallel: parallel with divergence §195 Roth, Law Collections 2nd ed. (1997)
- code of hammurabi a son who strikes his father has his hand cut off — talionic mutilation targeting the offending limb; the biblical law intensifies this to capital punishment (death by strangulation), elevating parental authority to the same sacred register as human life Relationship to the parallel: polemical contrast §195 Roth, Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor, 2nd ed. (Scholars Press, 1997)
- middle assyrian laws corporal punishment of a wife by her husband (pulling out hair, mutilating/striking ears); illustrates the broader ANE acceptance of graduated corporal sanctions within the household rather than a direct parental-assault parallel Relationship to the parallel: shared theme Tablet A §59 Roth, Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor, 2nd ed. (Scholars Press, 1997)
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 direct contradiction.
The commandment prescribes death by strangulation for striking a parent — a non-lethal act of violence; modern penal proportionality precludes capital punishment for offenses that do not result in death and reserves the ultimate sanction for the gravest crimes.
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Article 6 (right to life)
This framework classifies the relation as a direct contradiction.
ICCPR Article 6 requires that states apply capital punishment, where permitted, only for the most serious crimes; execution for non-fatal assault on a family member does not meet the 'most serious crimes' threshold established under international human rights law.
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rabbinic tradition
This framework classifies the relation as abrogated in practice.
Capital jurisdiction over this offense lapsed with the dissolution of the Sanhedrin following the destruction of the Second Temple (70 CE); rabbinic tradition holds that no court presently possesses authority to impose the death penalty, rendering the sanction de jure rather than operative.