“Speak to the children of Israel: ‘When a man or woman commits any sin that men commit, so as to trespass against Yahweh, and that soul is guilty, then he shall confess his sin which he has done; and he shall make restitution for his guilt in full, add to it the fifth part of it, and give it to him in respect of whom he has been guilty.
To confess sins before God and repent of wrongdoing
The cited verse
The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)
וְהִתְוַדּוּ אֶת־חַטָּאתָם אֲשֶׁר עָשׂוּ וְהֵשִׁיב אֶת־אֲשָׁמוֹ בְּרֹאשׁוֹ וַחֲמִישִׁתוֹ יֹסֵף עָלָיו
In Maimonides’ words
How Maimonides defines this commandment in his Sefer HaMitzvot — his own words, shown as a primary source.
היא שצונו להתודות על העונות והחטאים שחטאנו לפני האל ולאמר אותם עם התשובה. וזהו הודוי וכונתו שיאמר אנא השם חטאתי עויתי ופשעתי ועשיתי כך וכך. ויאריך המאמר ויבקש המחילה בזה הענין לפי צחות לשונו. ודע שאפילו החטאים שחייבין עליהן אלו המינים מהקרבנות הנזכרים שאמר שיקריבם ויתכפר לו לא יספיק עם הקרבתם בלתי הודוי. והוא אמרו דבר אל בני ישראל איש או אשה כי יעשו מכל חטאת האדם והתודו את חטאתם אשר עשו. ולשון מכילתא לפי שנאמר והתודה אשר חטא עליה על החטאת כשהיתה קיימת לא אחר שנשחטה אין במשמע שיתודה היחיד אלא בביאת המקדש שזה הכתוב כלומר והתודה אשר חטא עליה אמנם בא בפרשת ויקרא במטמא מקדש וקדשיו, ומה שנזכר עמו ממה שבארנו ונראה שם במכילתא שאנחנו לא נלמוד מן הכתוב אלא חיוב הודוי למטמא מקדש מנין אתה מרבה כל שאר המצות תלמוד לומר דבר אל בני ישראל והתודו, ומנין אף כריתות ומיתות בית דין אמר חטאתם לרבות מצות לא תעשה יעשה לרבות מצוה עשה, ושם נאמר מכל חטאת האדם מצות שבינו לבין חבירו על הגגבות ועל הגזלות ועל לשון הרע, למעול מעל לרבות הנשבע לשקר והמקלל, ואשמה לרבות כל חייבי מיתות, יכול אף הנהרגין על פי זוממין לא אמרתי אלא ואשמה הנפש ההיא, רצה לומר שלא יתחייב לו הוידוי כשידע שאין לו חטא אבל הועד עליו שקר. הנה נתבאר לך שכל מיני העונות הגדולים והקטנים ואפילו מצות עשה חייבין להתודות עליהן, ובעבור שבא זה הצווי שהוא והתודו עם חיוב הקרבן היה עולה במחשבה שאין הודוי לבדו מצוה בפני עצמו אבל הוא מדברים הנגררים אחר הקרבן, הוצרכו שבארו זה במכילתא בזה הלשון יכול בזמן שהם מביאים הם מתודין ובזמן שאין מביאין אין מתודין, תלמוד לומר דבר אל בני ישראל והתודו, ועדיין אין משמע ודוי אלא בארץ מנין אף בגלות, תלמוד לומר והתודו את עונם ואת עון אבותם, וכן דניאל אמר לך ה' הצדקה ונו'. הנה נתבאר לך מה שזכרנוהו כי הודוי חובה בפני עצמה וחובה לחוטא על כל חטא שחטא בין בארץ בין בחוצה לארץ בין הביא קרבן בין לא הביא קרבן חייב להתודות כמו שאמר והתודו את חטאתם. ולשון ספרי והתודה זה ודוי דברים. וכבר התבארו משפטי מצוה זו במסכת יומא. (נשא, מדע הלכות תשובה פ"א):
And that is that He commanded us to confess the transgressions and sins that we have done before God and to say them together with [our] repentance. And that is confession. And its intent is that one say, "Please, Lord, I have sinned, I have transgressed, I have rebelled and I have done such and such." And he should prolong the statement and request forgiveness about this matter according to the polish of his speech. And you should know that even the sins for which one is liable for the types of sacrifices that are mentioned - that He said that one offer them and it atones for him - do not suffice with the sacrifice when it is without confession. And that is His saying, "Speak to the children of Israel [saying], a man or woman who commits from any of the sins of man [...]. And they shall confess the sins that they did" (Numbers 5:6-7). And the language of the Mekhilta is, "Since it is stated (Leviticus 5:5), 'and he shall confess that which he has sinned upon it' - it is to be upon the sin-offering when it is in existence, not after it has been slaughtered. It is only understood that an individual confesses for entering the Temple [impure]" - for this verse appears in Parashat Vayikra about one who renders the Temple and its sanctified objects impure, and that which is mentioned with it, as we explained; and so the Mekhilta there raises the possibility that we would only learn the obligation for confession from Scripture about one who renders the Temple impure. "From where are you to include all the other commandments? [Hence] we learn to say, 'Speak to the children of Israel [...]. And they shall confess.' And from where [do we know] even [sins that bring punishments of] excision and death penalties of the court? It states, 'the sins,' to include negative commandments; 'that they did,' to include positive commandments." And there it says, "'From any of the sins of man' - for theft, for robbery, for evil speech; 'to commit a trespass' - to include one who swears falsely and a blasphemer; 'and be guilty' - to include all those guilty of death penalties. It might be even those who are killed according to the testimony of colluding ones. I only said, 'and that man be guilty.'" That means to say that he is not obligated to confess when he knows that he has not sinned, but rather what was testified against him was false. Behold it has been made clear to you that we are obligated to confess for all types of transgressions, big and small - and even [for] positive commandments. But because this command - that is, "And they shall confess" - appeared with an obligation for a sacrifice, it could have entered our mind that confession is not a commandment by itself, but is rather from those things that are an extension of the sacrifice. [Hence] they needed to clarify this in the Mekhilta with this language - "It might be that when they bring their sacrifices, they confess; when they do not bring their sacrifices, they do not confess. [Hence] we learn to say, 'Speak to the children of Israel [...]. And they shall confess.' But still, the understanding of confession is only in the Land [of Israel]. From where [do we know], also in the diaspora? [Hence] we learn to say, 'their iniquities [...] and the iniquities of their fathers' (Leviticus 26:40)." And likewise did Daniel say, "To You, Lord, is justice, etc." (Daniel 9:7). Behold that which we have mentioned has been made clear to you - that confession is a separate obligation; and that it is an obligation for the sinner for every sin that he did. Whether in the Land or outside of the Land; whether he brought a sacrifice or did not bring a sacrifice - he is obligated to confess, as it is stated, "And they shall confess for their iniquities." And the language of the [Sifra] is, "'And he shall confess' - that is confession of words." And the regulations of this commandment have already been explained in Tractate Yoma. (See Parashat Nasso; Mishneh Torah, Repentance 1).
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 case law — "if X, then Y"
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 Binding
- Reform Kept as an ethical principle
- Reconstructionist Kept as an ethical principle
- Karaite Binding
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.
Qumran (the Dead Sea Scrolls)
- 1QS 1:24-2:1 reinterpreted it
- CD 9:13-14 reinterpreted it
Rabbinic aggadah
- Vayikra Rabbah 3:3 expanded it homiletically
- Pesikta de-Rav Kahana 24 expanded it homiletically
Philo of Alexandria
- De Specialibus Legibus 1.235-238 rationalized it
Josephus
- Ant. 3.221-222 carried a parallel
The New Testament
- 1 John 1:9 affirmed it confession of sins as mechanism of divine forgiveness
- James 5:16 reinterpreted it mutual/communal confession
- Matthew 5:23-24 reinterpreted it reconciliation with the human victim prior to offering, thematic echo of the restitution-before-sacrifice principle rather than direct citation
The Qur'an and hadith
- Q 3:135 carried a parallel
- Q 4:17-18 carried a 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.
- egyptian negative confession the deceased declares innocence before the divine tribunal using a list of negated offenses ('I have not done X'), the structural inverse of the Israelite requirement of specific verbal admission of guilt with material restitution to the human victim Relationship to the parallel: polemical contrast Book of the Dead, Spell 125 (Declaration of Innocence) Allen, The Egyptian Book of the Dead: Documents in the Oriental Institute Museum (OIP 82, 1960); Faulkner, The Egyptian Book of the Dead (rev. ed. 1972)
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.