You shall not profane my holy name, but I will be made holy among the children of Israel. I am Yahweh who makes you holy,
Not to profane or desecrate the name of God
The cited verse
The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)
וְלֹא תְחַלְּלוּ אֶת־שֵׁם קׇדְשִׁי
In Maimonides’ words
How Maimonides defines this commandment in his Sefer HaMitzvot — his own words, shown as a primary source.
שהזהירנו מחלול השם והוא הפך קדוש השם שנצטוינו בו שקדם באורו בתשיעית ממצות עשה, והוא אמרו יתברך ולא תחללו את שם קדשי, והעון הזה יחלק לשלשה חלקים שנים כוללים והאחד מיוחד. ואולם החלק האחד הכולל כל מי שבקשו ממנו לעבור על דבר ממצות בשעת השמד והיה האונס מתכוין להעביר בין מצות קלות בין חמורות, או מי שיבוקש ממנו שיעבור על ע"ז וגילוי עריות ושפיכות דמים ואפילו שלא בשעת השמד, הנה הוא חייב להתיר נפשו ויהרג ואל יעבור כמו שבארנו בט' ממצות עשה. ואם עבר ולא נהרג כבר חלל את השם ועבר על לאו זה. ואם היה העובר במקום הרבים כלומר בעשרה מישראל כבר חלל את השם ברבים ועובר על לאו ולא תחללו את שם קדשי וחטאו גדול מאד אבל אינו לוקה בעבור שהוא אנוס, כי אין לבית דין לקיים גדר מלקות או מיתה אלא במזיד ברצון ועדים והתראה. ולשון ספרא בנותן מזרעו למולך ונתתי את פני באיש ההוא ואמרו ההוא ולא אנוס ולא שוגג ולא מוטעה. הנה כבר התבאר לך שעובד ע"ז באונס אינו חייב כרת וכל שכן מיתת בית דין אבל עבר על חלול השם. והחלק השני הכולל גם כן כשיעשה האדם עבירה אין תאוה בה ולא הנאה אבל כיוון בפעולתו המרד ופריקת עול מלכות שמים, הנה זה מחלל גם כן ולוקה, ולפיכך אמר וחללת את שם אלהיך, כי זה מכוין להכעיס בזה הענין ואין הנאה גשמית בזה, והחלק המיוחד הוא שיעשה אדם ידוע במעלה ובטוב מעשה פעולה אחת נראה בעיני ההמון שהוא עבירה ואין ראוי לנכבד לעשות דמיון הפועל ההוא אע"פ שהפועל מותר, הנה הוא חלל את השם. והוא אמרם (יומא פ"ו) ה"ד חלול השם כגון אנא דשקילנא בשרא מבי טבחא ולא יהיבנא דמי לאלתר, רבי יוחנן אמר כגון אנא דמסגינא ארבע אמות בלא תורה ובלא תפילין. וכבר נכפל זה הצווי ואמר לא תחלל את שם ה'. וכבר התבארו משפטי מצוה זו בפסחים וסוכה ויומא. (אמור אל הכהנים, מדע הלכות יסודי התורה):
That He prohibited us from desecrating [God's] name. And that is the opposite of the sanctification of [God's] name, the explanation of which preceded in the ninth of the Positive Commandments. And that is His, may He be blessed, saying, "And you shall not desecrate My holy name" (Leviticus 22:32). And this sin is divided into three parts - two that are general (for all) and one which is specific. Indeed the first of the general ones is anyone who it was demanded of him that he transgress one of the commandments at the time of a religious persecution (shemad) - and the persecutor had in mind to make him sin - whether one of the light commandment or [one] of the weighty commandments; or one who it was demanded of him that he transgress with regards to idolatry, sexual immorality or murder, even if it was not at the time of a religious persecution. Behold [such a one] is obligated to release himself and be killed, and not to transgress - as we explained in the ninth of the Positive Commandments. But if he transgressed and was not killed, he has already desecrated [God's] name and violated this negative commandment. And if the transgressor was in a public place - meaning [in front of] ten Israelites - he has already desecrated [God's] name in public. And he has violated the negative commandment of, "And you shall not desecrate My holy name," and his sin is very great. However he is not lashed, as he was under duress. For a court may only administer the punishment of lashes or a death penalty when volitional - willingly, with witnesses and a warning. And the language of the [Sifra] (Sifra, Kedoshim, Section 4:5) about the one who gives of his offspring to Molekh - "And I will set My face against that man" (Leviticus 20:3): They said, "'That [man],' and not one under duress, and not one inadvertent and not one mistaken." Behold it has already been made clear to you that one who worships an idol under duress is not liable for excision nor - all the more so - a death penalty of the court. But he has transgressed [the prohibition of] desecration of [God's] name. And the second part that is also general is when a man does a sin for which he has no desire and no benefit, but rather intends [to show] rebellion or the removal of the yoke of the kingdom of Heaven with his action. Behold this one also desecrates [God's name] and is lashed. And hence He said, "[You shall not swear falsely by My name,] and desecrate the name of your God" (Leviticus 19:12). For this one intends to anger [God] with this matter, and he has no physical benefit with it. And the specific part is when a man known for his virtue and goodness does a certain action that appears like a transgression in the eyes of the masses; such that it is not appropriate for someone esteemed to do this type of action, even though the action is permissible. And that is their saying (Yoma 86a), "What are the circumstances of the desecration of [God’s]name? [Rav said,] 'For example, [someone like] me, if I take meat from a butcher and do not give him money immediately.' [...] Rabbi Yochanan said, 'For example, [someone like] me, if I would walk four cubits without Torah and without tefillin.'" And this command was already repeated, when He said, "and do not desecrate the name of the Lord." And the regulations of this commandment have already been explained in Pesachim, in Sukkah and in Yoma. (See Parashat Emor; Mishneh Torah, Foundations of the Torah.)
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.
- 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
- Lashes (malkot)
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
Two readings, side by side
24 of 613 commandments have been examined in depth so far — this is one of them.
In the traditional Jewish reading How the Jewish legal (halakhic) tradition reads and defends this commandment, in its own developed voice — the classical reasons given for the commandments (ta’amei ha-mitzvot).
The tradition reads this as the prohibition on profaning God’s name — from an overt sacrilege to any conduct by a Jew that leads others to think less of God or the Torah.
Maimonides treats the desecration of the Name as the counterpart of its sanctification and defines it broadly: beyond an overt sacrilege, it reaches conduct by a person known for piety that leads onlookers to speak ill of him and of the teaching he represents. He counts it among the negative commandments.
Maimonides (Rambam), Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Yesodei HaTorah 5:10–11; Sefer HaMitzvot (12th c.)
The Talmud measures the desecration through cases of scholars whose ordinary dealings, were they to fall short, would lead people to think poorly of the Torah they represented — locating the offense in the impression a public figure leaves.
Babylonian Talmud, Yoma 86a (rabbinic period)Source text: Babylonian Talmud, Yoma 86a — opens the source text at Sefaria in a new tab
Linked rather than reproduced — Babylonian Talmud, Yoma 86a: No public-domain or CC0 English translation of this passage is available.
The Sefer HaChinuch gives the reason that, since the honor of God’s name is the foundation of the covenant, conduct that lowers that name in the eyes of others reaches the root the other commandments are meant to uphold.
Sefer HaChinuch (13th c.)
Rabbinic citations here link to the source text at Sefaria, a free online library of Jewish texts. Where a public-domain or CC0 English translation — one anyone may reuse — of the exact passage cited has been verified and is short enough to set out in full, the passage is also reproduced here in the source’s own words; where it is not, the citation says which of those conditions it missed. Which passages are reproduced is a matter of licensing, length and verification — never of how much a source matters.
The developed public-domain rationale gathered here concerns the classical scope and gravity of the prohibition; a traditional treatment engaging the court penalty and the reach over public expression that the on-page conflict summaries raise is not yet gathered.
Modern critical scholarship How modern academic biblical scholarship reads this text — the source-critical and form-critical school. Its hedges are shown as it states them; nothing here is presented as settled fact.
Modern source-critical scholarship assigns this text to the Holiness Code (H).
Scholarly confidence in this reading: scholarly consensus.
The catalog reads this law as plausibly aimed against Careless or improper cultic praxis (blemished offerings, mistimed sacrifices) that diminishes YHWH's reputation; secondarily, on an inferential reading of the H redactor's wider program, resistance to the assimilation of Israelite worship to surrounding cults — though the verse itself names no specific rival deity.
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
- Genesis Rabbah 49:9 expanded it homiletically
- Leviticus Rabbah 32:1 expanded it homiletically
Philo of Alexandria
- De Specialibus Legibus 2.2-38 rationalized it within Philo's discussion of oaths and reverence for the divine name; appears to treat profanation of God's name as a rational concern for piety rather than as cultic blemish — an inferential rather than direct connection to the Levitical prohibition
Josephus
- Contra Apionem 2.237 The catalog describes this reception as: thematic echo addresses Josephus's appeal to the LXX rendering 'thou shalt not revile gods' (Exod 22:27/MT 22:28) concerning derision of divine honor; the resonance with Lev 22:32 is indirect and conceptual, not a reception or development of the Levitical prohibition
The New Testament
- Romans 2:24 reinterpreted it Paul cites Ezek 36-style logic: 'the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you,' applying the profanation motif polemically against Jewish conduct
- Matthew 6:9 reinterpreted it 'Hallowed be thy name' inverts the prohibition into a petition for sanctification
- Philippians 2:9-11 The catalog describes this reception as: thematic echo the bestowal of 'the name above every name' on Christ touches the divine-honor motif only obliquely; included solely as a non-developmental thematic echo, not as a reception of the Levitical prohibition
The Qur'an and hadith
- Q 7:180 The catalog describes this reception as: thematic echo concerns the 'beautiful names' of God (al-asma al-husna) and warns against those who 'deviate' regarding His names; a conceptual echo of name-sanctity rather than a direct parallel to the cultic profanation prohibition
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.
- middle assyrian laws regulation treating theft of consecrated/temple property as a grave offense within the sphere of the sacred; offered cautiously as a loose ANE analogue to the Holiness Code's premise that violation of the sacred is categorically more serious than ordinary infraction — the parallel is conceptual only, as MAL A §1 concerns property sacrilege rather than profanation of a divine name Relationship to the parallel: parallel with divergence Tablet A §1 Roth, Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor, 2nd ed. (Scholars Press, 1997)
- neo assyrian vassal treaties the treaty curses invoke named deities as enforcers; any action that diminishes the authority or reputation of the named divine witnesses effectively desecrates the treaty oath — an ANE conceptual analogue to chillul hashem as reputational damage to the invoked deity Relationship to the parallel: shared theme curse formulary §§56-106, SAA 2 no. 6 Parpola and Watanabe, Neo-Assyrian Treaties and Loyalty Oaths (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 direct contradiction.
Rambam rules that intentional chillul hashem involving an overt act is punishable by lashes (malkot); modern penal proportionality holds that corporal punishment is an impermissible method of criminal sanction, and the prescription of 39 lashes is disproportionate to a speech-act or behavioral infraction that causes no direct physical harm.
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general principle
This framework classifies the relation as an incompatible method.
The prescribed sanction of malkot (corporal punishment) for publicly desecrating the divine name is incompatible in method with post-Enlightenment penal codes, which have universally abandoned judicial flogging as a criminal penalty.
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general principle
This framework classifies the relation as a substantive tension.
The expansion of chillul hashem to cover any public behavior by a Jew that would cause observers to think poorly of God or Torah (b. Yoma 86a; Maimonides, MT Yesodei HaTorah 5:11) places a legally enforceable religious-reputation interest above individual expressive freedom — a category of obligation that secular liberal democracies, which permit criticism and disrespect of religious institutions, do not recognize as a proper basis for sanction.
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general principle
This framework classifies the relation as abrogated in practice.
Rabbinic tradition holds that court-imposed corporal punishment (malkot) lapsed with the destruction of the Sanhedrin's jurisdiction; the de jure norm of lashes for chillul hashem therefore remains on the books but has not been applied since the Second Temple period.
Leviticus 22:32a states, "You shall not profane my holy name" (וְלֹא תְחַלְּלוּ אֶת־שֵׁם קׇדְשִׁי). The verb חלל in the Piel stem means 'to profane, to make common, to desecrate' — it is the precise opposite of קדש ('to sanctify'). In the Priestly and Holiness Code framework, 'profaning the name' (חילול השם, chillul hashem) means acting in a way that diminishes YHWH's holy reputation or treats sacred things as ordinary. This commandment, drawn from the same verse as #6, represents the negative counterpart: if #6 is the obligation to actively sanctify, #7 is the prohibition against actively desecrating. The pairing illustrates a characteristic feature of the traditional mitzvot enumeration — many commandments come in positive-negative pairs derived from the same verse or passage.
In its immediate literary context, Leviticus 22 is concerned with priestly conduct regarding sacrificial offerings. The preceding verses (22:17–31) deal with blemished animals, the timing of offerings, and the proper treatment of thank-offerings. 'Profaning God's name' in this setting means offering defective sacrifices, performing rituals improperly, or otherwise treating the cult carelessly. This is a very concrete, institutional concern — not yet the broad ethical principle it would become. Milgrom (Leviticus 17–22, Anchor Yale Bible, pp. 1881–84) emphasizes that for the Holiness School, God's 'name' is not an abstraction but is closely tied to the sanctuary, the cult, and the visible markers of Israel's covenant relationship. Improper priestly behavior doesn't just break a rule; it damages the sacred infrastructure that makes YHWH's presence among Israel possible.
Ancient Near Eastern temple cultures shared the concern that improper cultic behavior could offend or drive away the gods. Mesopotamian texts describe elaborate ritual procedures for purifying temples after contamination, and the consequences of priestly error could be dire — not for the priest's career but for the city's cosmic safety. The 'Mouth Washing' and 'Mouth Opening' rituals for divine statues in Babylonia involved careful protocols whose violation was believed to render the statue — and thus the god's presence — ineffective. The Israelite concern with profaning God's name operates in a similar conceptual space, though without the statue theology: YHWH's 'name' functions where Mesopotamian religion used physical images.
The rabbinic concept of chillul hashem expanded enormously beyond the cultic context. In the Talmud (b. Yoma 86a), desecrating God's name includes any behavior by a publicly identified Jew that would cause onlookers — Jewish or gentile — to think poorly of God, Torah, or the Jewish people. Rabbi Yochanan said that if he walked four cubits without Torah and tefillin, that would be a chillul hashem. This ethical-reputational reading is a dramatic reinterpretation of a verse originally about blemished sacrificial animals. Maimonides (Mishneh Torah, Yesodei HaTorah 5:11) identifies chillul hashem as the gravest of all sins, one for which even Yom Kippur and suffering cannot fully atone — only death completes the atonement. The asymmetry between the verse's modest original scope and the enormity of its later legal weight is a powerful illustration of how rabbinic Judaism built comprehensive ethical systems on narrow textual foundations.