This shall be the priests’ due from the people, from those who offer a sacrifice, whether it be ox or sheep, that they shall give to the priest: the shoulder, the two cheeks, and the inner parts.
To give the shoulder, cheeks, and stomach of slaughtered animals to the priest
The cited verse
The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)
וְנָתַן לַכֹּהֵן הַזְּרֹעַ וְהַלְּחָיַיִם וְהַקֵּבָה
In Maimonides’ words
How Maimonides defines this commandment in his Sefer HaMitzvot — his own words, shown as a primary source.
היא שצונו לתת לכהן הזרוע והלחיים והקבה מכל זביחה שנזבח בבהמה טהורה. והוא אמרו יתעלה וזה יהיה משפט הכהנים וגו'. וכבר התבארו דיני מצוה זו בפרק עשירי מחולין, ואין הלוים חייבין בה. (שופטים ושוטרים, הלכות בכורים פ"ט):
That is that He commanded us to give to the priest, the shoulder, the cheeks and the stomach from every sacrifice of pure animals that we slaughter. And that is His, may He be exalted, saying, "And this shall be the due of the priests" (Deuteronomy 18:3). And the regulations of this commandment have already been explained in the tenth chapter of Chullin. But Levites are not obligated in it. (See Parashat Shoftim; Mishneh Torah, Firstlings 9.)
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 ritual instruction
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
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 Binding
- Conservative Not binding
- Reform Not binding
- Reconstructionist Not binding
- Karaite Position uncertain
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.
Rabbinic aggadah
- b. Chullin 134b expanded it homiletically
Philo of Alexandria
- De Specialibus Legibus 1.147-152 rationalized it
Josephus
- Ant. 4.74 affirmed it
The New Testament
- 1 Corinthians 9:13 reinterpreted it Paul invokes the principle that those who serve at the altar share in altar offerings to justify support of apostles; analogical, not affirming the specific dues
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.
- ugaritic texts allotment of sacrificial portions to temple personnel Relationship to the parallel: parallel with divergence KTU 1.41 Pardee, Ritual and Cult at Ugarit (2002)
- ugaritic texts Ugaritic sacrificial text attesting the systematic allocation of specific animal portions to priestly and temple personnel — a structural parallel to Deuteronomy's prescription of shoulder, cheeks, and stomach as priestly dues from slaughtered animals Relationship to the parallel: parallel with divergence KTU 1.41 (Ugaritic sacrificial text) Pardee, Ritual and Cult at Ugarit (SBL, 2002)
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.
No tension with the catalogued modern frameworks is recorded here.