“Anyone who curses his father or his mother shall surely be put to death.
Not to curse one's father or mother
The cited verse
The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)
וּמְקַלֵּל 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 שלא לקלל אב ואם, אמנם לשון התורה בעונש הוא מבואר באמרו ומקלל אביו ואמו מות יומת. והוא מכלל הנסקלין ואפילו קלל אחד מהם בשם אחר מותו במזיד נסקל. אולם האזהרה הנה לא התבארה בכתוב כי לא אמר לא תקלל אביך אבל קדם כבר כי באה האזהרה מקללת כל איש מישראל וזה כולל האב וזולתו. ובמכילתא אמרו ומקלל אביו ואמו מות יומת עונש שמענו אזהרה מנין תלמוד לומר אלהים לא תקלל אם דיין הוא אביך הרי הוא בכלל אלהים ואם נשיא הרי הוא בכלל נשיא ואם בור הרי הוא בכלל לא תקלל חרש [לא דיין ולא נשיא ולא חרש] הרי אתה דן בנין אב משלשתן על הצד השוה שבהם שהן בעמך ואתה מוזהר על קללתם. וכתוב בספרא איש איש כי יקלל את אביו ואת אמו עונש שמענו אזהרה מנין תלמוד לומר אלהים לא תקלל כמו לשון מכילתא בשוה. והתבארו משפטי מצוה זו בשביעי מסנהדרין. (משפטים, הלכות ממרים פ"ה):
He prohibited - not to curse father and mother. Indeed, the language of the Torah is clear about its punishment, when He says, "And if one curses his father or his mother, he shall surely die" (Exodus 21:17); and he is among those that are stoned. And even if he [only] cursed one of them with [God's] name after [the parent's] death, he is stoned. However the prohibition is not explicit in Scripture. For it does not say, "You shall not curse your father." But it already preceded that a prohibition came about cursing every Israelite; and that includes a father and anyone besides him. And in the Mekhilta (Mekhilta d'Rabbi Yishmael 21:17:3), they said, "'And if one curses his father or his mother, he shall surely die' - we have heard the punishment; from where [do we know] the prohibition? [Hence] we learn to say, 'You shall not curse the powers' (Exodus 22:27). If your father is a judge, behold he is included in the powers. And if he is a nassi, behold he is included in, 'and do not maledict a nassi among your people.' And if he is a boor, behold he is included in, 'You shall not curse a deaf person' (Leviticus 19:14). [If he is not a judge, not a nassi and not a deaf person,] behold, you can argue by induction (binyan av) from the three of them, according to the common element among them: That they are, 'among your people,' and you are prohibited [from] cursing them." And it is written in the Sifra (Sifra Kedoshim, Chapter 10:7), "'If any man curses his father or his mother, he shall surely die' (Leviticus 20:9) - we have heard the punishment; from where [do we know] the prohibition? [Hence] we learn to say, 'You shall not curse the powers'" - exactly like the language of the Mekhilta. And the regulations of this commandment have already been explained in the seventh [chapter] 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.
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 stoning (sekilah)
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, with modification
- Conservative Kept as an ethical principle
- Reform Kept as an ethical principle
- Reconstructionist Kept as an ethical principle
- Karaite Binding in principle
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 2.243-248 rationalized it
Josephus
- Antiquities 4.262-264 reinterpreted it
The New Testament
- Matthew 15:4 affirmed it Jesus cites Exod 21:17 (LXX 'ho kakologōn patera ē mētera') against qorban vows that nullify filial duty
- Mark 7:10 affirmed it Parallel citation of Exod 21:17 in the same qorban controversy
The Qur'an and hadith
- Q 17:23 carried a thematic parallel
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 adopted child who repudiates adoptive parents (says 'you are not my father/mother') punished by tongue-cutting; repudiation-formula rather than cursing proper Relationship to the parallel: parallel with divergence §192 Roth, Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor, 2nd ed. (1997)
- code of hammurabi son who strikes his father has his hand cut off; parallels the striking-parent prohibition rather than cursing proper Relationship to the parallel: shared theme §195 Roth, Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor, 2nd ed. (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 stoning for cursing a parent — a verbal offense; modern penal proportionality precludes capital punishment for speech acts, however offensive, and reserves the ultimate sanction for the gravest crimes involving lethal violence.
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Article 6 (right to life)
This framework classifies the relation as a direct contradiction.
ICCPR Article 6 restricts capital punishment to the 'most serious crimes'; execution for verbal abuse of a parent — even when it involves invocation of the divine Name, per the Talmudic requirement — does not satisfy the 'most serious crimes' threshold 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); the de jure norm remains but is wholly unenforced in any Jewish legal system.