Commandment #99 · Positive · Agricultural Laws
Send Away the Mother Bird Before Taking the Young
שִׁלּוּחַ הַקֵּן
Source: Deuteronomy 22:7 · Maimonides, Sefer HaMitzvot, Positive #99
Of all 613 commandments, only two carry the same promised reward — “that thy days may be long.” One is the weightiest of the Ten Commandments. The other is a moment’s mercy toward a bird who will never know your name — and Scripture seems determined not to let anyone guess which is which by size alone.
שַׁלֵּחַ תְּשַׁלַּח אֶת הָאֵם וְאֶת הַבָּנִים תִּקַּח לָךְ לְמַעַן יִיטַב לָךְ וְהַאֲרַכְתָּ יָמִים
"But thou shalt in any wise let the dam go, and take the young to thee; that it may be well with thee, and that thou mayest prolong thy days."
An Errand Made of Almost Nothing
The scene this commandment imagines could hardly be more ordinary: someone walking “in the way” notices a bird’s nest in a tree or on the ground, with the mother sitting over her eggs or her young (Deuteronomy 22:6). The Torah does not forbid taking the young — it simply requires one small, deliberate act first: “thou shalt in any wise let the dam go, and take the young to thee” (Deuteronomy 22:7). No sanctuary, no offering, no audience of any kind — just a traveler, a nest, and a choice about how to treat a creature who would never know the difference between being sent away gently and simply being seized along with her young.
The Promise Shared by Only Two Commandments
Jewish tradition has long paused over a striking detail buried inside this small law: the promise that follows it — “that it may be well with thee, and that thou mayest prolong thy days” — appears in only one other place in the entire Torah, attached to one other commandment:
כַּבֵּד אֶת אָבִיךָ וְאֶת אִמֶּךָ לְמַעַן יַאֲרִכוּן יָמֶיךָ עַל הָאֲדָמָה אֲשֶׁר יְהֹוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ נֹתֵן לָךְ
"Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee."
The Talmud names the pairing directly and lets its strangeness stand: of all 613 commandments, the very same reward is promised for what looks like the weightiest — honoring the parents who gave you life — and for what looks like one of the lightest — a moment’s mercy toward a bird who will never know your name. The pairing seems almost designed to unsettle any confidence that a person can rank God’s commandments by how large or small they appear from the outside.
Where Small Mercies Are Said to Lead
The last words of Israel’s prophets close, fittingly, on exactly this note. The book of Malachi — and with it the entire prophetic library of the Hebrew Bible — ends not with a final indictment but with a promise:
וְהֵשִׁיב לֵב אָבוֹת עַל בָּנִים וְלֵב בָּנִים עַל אֲבוֹתָם פֶּן אָבוֹא וְהִכֵּיתִי אֶת הָאָרֶץ חֵרֶם
"And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse."
A commandment practiced alone on an empty road, with no one to see it and no reward beyond the quiet shaping of a person’s own heart, turns out to stand in the same current as Scripture’s own closing hope — that hearts, across every generation, would learn to turn toward one another. Centuries of small, unwitnessed mercies, the prophets seem to say, are exactly the kind of thing that prepares a people for what is still to come.
Study Questions
For reflection and group study
This commandment governs a moment that no one else is likely to witness — a traveler, alone, deciding how to treat a bird who will never know the difference. What does it mean for a law to reach into a moment this private, with no enforcement and no audience possible?
See Deut 22:6–7
The promise attached to this commandment — “that thou mayest prolong thy days” — appears in the Torah in only one other place: attached to honoring one’s father and mother. What does it suggest that the same reward is promised for what looks like one of the weightiest commandments and one of the lightest?
See Deut 22:7; Ex 20:12
Maimonides and other commentators debated for centuries why this small act matters — whether it shapes the bird’s experience, the person’s character, or something else entirely. Why might the Torah leave that question open rather than spelling out exactly what the commandment is meant to accomplish?
See Deut 22:6–7
The Hebrew Bible’s prophetic books close with a promise that the hearts of parents and children will turn toward one another. How might a lifetime of small, private acts of mercy — the kind no one applauds or even notices — be connected to a promise that large?
See Mal 4:5–6; Deut 22:7
This commandment could easily have been left out of the Torah altogether — it governs a moment so brief and so easily missed that most people would never think to legislate it. What does its presence suggest about what the Torah considers worth shaping in a person, even at the smallest possible scale?
See Deut 22:6–7; Prov 12:10
