But to the place which Yahweh your God shall choose out of all your tribes, to put his name there, you shall seek his habitation, and you shall come there. You shall bring your burnt offerings, your sacrifices, your tithes, the wave offering of your hand, your vows, your free will offerings, and the firstborn of your herd and of your flock there.
To bring all offerings to the chosen central sanctuary
The cited verse
The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)
כִּי אִם־אֶל־הַמָּקוֹם אֲשֶׁר־יִבְחַר יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵיכֶם מִכָּל־שִׁבְטֵיכֶם לָשׂוּם אֶת־שְׁמוֹ שָׁם לְשִׁכְנוֹ תִדְרְשׁוּ וּבָאתָ שָּׁמָּה׃ וַהֲבֵאתֶם שָׁמָּה עֹלֹתֵיכֶם וְזִבְחֵיכֶם
In Maimonides’ words
How Maimonides defines this commandment in his Sefer HaMitzvot — his own words, shown as a primary source.
היא שצונו להקריב כל הקרבנות בבית הבחירה. והוא אמרו יתעלה שם תעלה עולותיך ושם תעשה, ובעבור שרצו לקיים האזהרה מהקריב שום קרבן מכל הקרבנות בחוץ לקחו ראיה מאמרו פן תעלה עולותיך, אמרו בספרי אין לי אלא עולה שאר קדשים מנין תלמוד לומר ושם תעשה כל אשר אנכי מצוך ועדיין אני אומר עולה בעשה ולא תעשה בשאר קדשים מנין תלמוד לומר ושם תעשה כמו שאבאר במקומו כשנדבר על האזהרה, וענין אמרם עולה בעשה ולא תעשה שיהיה מי שיקריב עולה בחוץ עובר על עשה ולא תעשה. אמנם לא תעשה הוא אמרו פן תעלה עולותיך ועל מצות עשה הוא אמרו ושם תעלה ושאר קדשים לא היו אלא בעשה כלומר אמרו ושם תעשה לבד. ונתבאר שאפילו שאר קדשים עובר גם כן עליהם בלא תעשה מחובר אל עשה. וכבר התבאר בסוף זבחים (דף קי"ט:) שהקדשים כלם שהקריבם בחוץ שהם בעשה ולא תעשה וחייבין עליהם כרת. הנה התבאר מכל מה שאמרתי שאמרו ושם תעשה מצות עשה גמורה. (ראה אנכי, מעשה הקרבנות פי"ח):
That is that He commanded us to offer all of the sacrifices in the [Temple]. And that is His, may He be exalted, saying, "there you shall bring up your burnt-offerings and there you shall do" (Deuteronomy 12:14). And because they wanted to confirm the prohibition not to offer any of all the sacrifices outside [of it], they took the proof from His saying, "lest you bring up your burnt-offerings [in any place]" (Deuteronomy 12:12). And they said in the Sifrei (Sifrei Devarim 70:5-6), "This tells me only of burnt-offerings. From where [do we know the same is true for] other offerings? [Hence] we learn to say, 'and there you shall do all that I command you' (Deuteronomy 12:14). But I still would say that only burnt-offerings are subject to a positive and a negative commandment. From where [do we know the same is true for] other offerings? [Hence] we learn to say, 'and there you shall do'" - as we will explain in its place, when we speak about the prohibition (Sefer HaMitzvot, Negative Commandments 89). And the content of their saying, "burnt-offerings are subject to a positive commandment and a negative commandment," is that one who offers a burnt-offering outside would be transgressing a positive and a negative commandment. Indeed, the negative commandment is His saying, "lest you bring up your burnt-offerings"; and for the positive commandment, it is His saying, "there you shall bring up." [And their saying,] "Other offerings would only be a positive commandment," is meaning to say, His saying, "and there you shall do," by itself. But it is explained that even for other offerings, one also transgresses a negative commandment, along with a positive commandment. And it has already been explained at the end of Zevachim (Zevachim 119b) that all offerings that are sacrificed outside [are a violation of] a positive and a negative commandment, and one is liable excision on their account. Behold it has been made clear to you from all that I said that His saying, "and there you shall do," is a full-fledged positive commandment. (See Parashat Re'eh; Mishneh Torah, Sacrificial Procedure 18.)
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.
- Requires a standing Temple
- Binding in the land of Israel
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, with modification
- Conservative Kept as an ethical principle
- Reform Not binding
- Reconstructionist Not binding
- Karaite Binding, with modification
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)
- 11QTa (Temple Scroll) XXIX-XLVII read it more strictly
- 4QMMT read it more strictly
- CD XI-XII reinterpreted it
Rabbinic aggadah
- Sifre Deuteronomy 62-63 expanded it homiletically
Philo of Alexandria
- De Specialibus Legibus 1.67-70 The catalog describes this reception as: affirmed and rationalized
Josephus
- Antiquities 4.200-201 affirmed it
- Contra Apionem 2.193 rationalized it
The New Testament
- John 4:20-24 read it spiritually Samaritan vs. Jerusalem cultic-site dispute reframed as worship 'in spirit and truth,' relativizing geographic centralization
- Acts 7:48-50 rejected it polemically Stephen's speech: 'the Most High does not dwell in houses made with hands'
- Hebrews 9:11-12 read it allegorically earthly sanctuary superseded by a heavenly one
The Church Fathers
- Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho 22 rejected it polemically
- Eusebius, Demonstratio Evangelica 1 read it spiritually
The Qur'an and hadith
- Q 2:142-150 carried a parallel, with divergence
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.
- neo assyrian vassal treaties suzerain's demand for exclusive allegiance — 'you shall not go after any other king' — providing the treaty-law formulation that the Deuteronomic centralization mandate adapts: exclusive cultic allegiance to a single chosen place mirrors the vassal's exclusive political allegiance to a single sovereign Relationship to the parallel: shared formulary VTE stipulations §§4-10 (exclusive loyalty to Esarhaddon) Parpola and Watanabe, Neo-Assyrian Treaties and Loyalty Oaths (SAA 2, 1988)
- hittite vassal treaties treaty stipulations prohibiting the vassal from seeking favor at any foreign sanctuary or from other rulers, formally parallel to the Deuteronomic demand that all worship be brought to the single chosen place rather than distributed among multiple sites Relationship to the parallel: shared formulary Stipulations clause (e.g., Mursili-Duppi-Teshub treaty, §§3-7) Beckman, Hittite Diplomatic Texts, 2nd ed. (SBL, 1999)
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.