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The negative confession: the 42 denials of the Book of the Dead

18 October 2026

The negative confession is the part of spell 125 of the Book of the Dead in which a dead person, standing in the Hall of the Two Truths, lists the wrongs they did not commit. Each denial goes to a different judge: “I have not robbed”, “I have not lied”, “I have not killed men”. There are 42 judges and 42 denials.

It is a spell, written on papyrus and buried with the dead from the New Kingdom on, around 1550 BC. The denials were meant to be spoken in the next world, before Osiris.

Two lists in the Hall of the Two Truths

Spell 125 has two lists of denials. In the first, the dead person greets the great god of the hall, says they know his name and the names of the Forty-Two who sit with him, and runs through a string of wrongs. In E. A. Wallis Budge’s translation: “I have not let any man hunger”, “I have not added to the weights of the scales”, “I have not taken milk from the mouths of children”.

The second list is the one usually called the negative confession. The dead person faces the 42 judges one at a time, calls each by name and by the place he comes from, and denies one wrong to each. The names are fearsome epithets: Budge renders Usekh-nemmit as “He of the long strides” and Set-qesu as “Breaker of bones”.

The number is usually explained by the nomes, the provinces of Egypt, one judge for each. Budge gave that explanation, but not every judge comes from a province: Neba is a “comer forth in retreating”. The name “negative confession” is modern, a “somewhat inexact title” from early Egyptologists in Budge’s words. So is the label “42 laws of Maat” found online. The wrongs are real Egyptian values, but the papyri never number them as rules for the living.

The Fitzwilliam papyrus names each judge's home

A papyrus of the Third Intermediate Period in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, made for Inpehufnakht, has the list. Three of its denials in the museum’s translation: “O, Far-strider, who came forth from Heliopolis, I have done no falsehood.” “O, Fire-Embracer, who came forth from Kheraha, I have not robbed.” “O, Dangerous One, who came forth from Rosetjau, I have not killed men.”

Budge’s version adds: “I have not plundered the property of God”, “I have not cursed the king”. Translations differ in wording, and copies differ in which judge receives which denial.

Eight signs say “I have not done wrong”

Take the denial “I have not done wrong”. In transliteration it is n jr.j jzft, said roughly “en ir-i isfet”. In a usual hieroglyphic spelling the arms spread in a gesture of negation D35 write n, “not”. The eye D4 writes jr, “to do”. The seated man A1 is the suffix .j, “I”.

Then comes jzft, “wrong”, the opposite of maat: the reed M17 for j, the door bolt O34 for z, the horned viper I9 for f and the bread loaf X1 for t. The sparrow G37 closes the word, silent, as the sign for bad and small things. Copies vary: some leave the suffix unwritten, some write the negation differently.

Arms spread in a gesture of negation Eye Seated man Flowering reed Door bolt Horned viper Bread loaf Sparrow

Draw the sparrow and see which sign the pad finds

The heart is weighed against the feather of Maat

The denials go with the best-known scene of the Book of the Dead: the heart weighed against the feather of Maat. In the Papyrus of Ani, Anubis checks the balance, Thoth writes the verdict, and the monster Ammit waits to eat a heart that fails. Ani passes, is called “true of voice”, and Horus leads him to Osiris.

During the weighing Ani speaks to his own heart with the words of spell 30B, in Budge’s translation “Make no stand against me when testifying.” The same spell was carved on heart scarabs laid on the mummy. Scholars read the pairing two ways: proof that a good life mattered, or a safety net for a life that was not entirely pure.

Heart Feather Goddess Maat

Read the feather of Maat

The Papyrus of Ani is in the British Museum

The Papyrus of Ani, British Museum EA 10470, was found in Ani’s tomb at Thebes and dates from around 1250 BC, in the Nineteenth Dynasty. It is now 37 separate sheets, and fragile papyri go back into storage between showings, so check what is on display before you go.

Spell 125 was copied for many centuries after, on papyri and on mummy wrappings, so large Egyptian collections often hold a copy. The Fitzwilliam papyrus of Inpehufnakht is one.

Reading the British Museum

Five denials match the Ten Commandments

Several denials say the same thing as a commandment. Budge’s translation of spell 125 against the King James Version of Exodus 20:

“I have not killed men”: “Thou shalt not kill”
“I have not robbed”: “Thou shalt not steal”
“I have not defiled any man’s wife”: “Thou shalt not commit adultery”
“I have not lied”: “Thou shalt not bear false witness”
“I have not blasphemed the God”: “Thou shalt not take the name… in vain”

Scholars divide over Egyptian influence

The Egyptian text is older. Copies of spell 125 run from about 1550 BC, and its ideas go back further: more than 600 years earlier, in the Sixth Dynasty, the official Harkhuf had carved on his tomb at Aswan “I gave bread to the hungry, clothing to the naked, I ferried him who had no boat” (James Henry Breasted’s translation), words the end of spell 125 closely echoes.

The forms differ. The biblical scholar David L. Baker finds Egyptian clauses similar in content to the third and the sixth to tenth commandments, “but the form is quite different”. One is a dead person’s denials to 42 judges, the other commands given to a people. The Egyptian list has temple wrongs, such as stealing offerings. The commandments have one god, no images and the sabbath.

Scholars are divided on direct influence. Raymond Faulkner read an unspoken “thou shalt not” behind the Egyptian lines. John Taylor of the British Museum sees the gods enforcing everyday morality, unlike rules revealed by God. Others point to ethics shared across the ancient Near East: Baker notes a Babylonian ritual formula that parallels the commandments against killing, adultery and theft. Elsewhere the Hebrew Bible did draw on Egypt: most scholars hold that part of Proverbs 22–23 depends on the Egyptian Instruction of Amenemope.

Questions

Why are there exactly 42 judges?

The usual answer is that Egypt had 42 nomes, or provinces, for most of its history, and each judge stands for one. The spell itself does not say so, and the number of nomes changed over time, so treat it as the likeliest explanation.

What does “true of voice” mean after a dead person’s name?

It translates mꜣꜥ-ḫrw, said “maa-kheru”, and marks someone who has passed the judgement. Book of the Dead papyri write it after their owner’s name in advance, since the spell was meant to make that outcome certain.

Where can I read the whole negative confession?

Budge’s translation of the Papyrus of Ani is old and free to read. Raymond Faulkner’s translation and Stephen Quirke’s Going Out in Daylight are modern ones, Quirke’s with the Egyptian in transliteration.

What is the Hall of the Two Truths?

The hall of judgement where Osiris sits with the 42 judges. Its Egyptian name uses maat in a doubled form, and Budge pictured two goddesses of truth standing beside Osiris. What the two truths were is not certain.

Glossary

Book of the Dead: A collection of spells written on papyrus and placed in burials from the New Kingdom on, to guide the dead through the afterlife. Egyptians called it the Spells for Coming Forth by Day.
dynasty: A line of kings counted together, usually one family. Egyptologists number Egypt's kings in about 30 dynasties, following the priest Manetho.
epithet: A title or phrase added to a name, such as "beloved of Amun" after a king's name or "true of voice" after the name of someone who has died.
hieroglyphs: The picture signs of ancient Egyptian writing, used from about 3200 BC to AD 394. A sign can stand for sounds, for a whole word, or for the kind of thing a word means.
Maat: Truth, justice and the right order of the world, shown as a goddess with an ostrich feather on her head. Kings claimed to uphold it.
mummy: A body dried and wrapped in linen so that it would last. Egyptians believed the spirit needed it in the afterlife.
New Kingdom: Egypt's age of empire, about 1550 to 1069 BC, the time of Hatshepsut, Akhenaten, Tutankhamun and Ramesses II.
nome: One of the 42 provinces of ancient Egypt, each with its own capital, gods and governor.
papyrus: A writing sheet made from strips of the papyrus reed laid in two crossing layers and pressed. Sheets were glued into long rolls.
scarab: The dung beetle, sign of the rising sun and of the word ḫpr, "to come into being". Carved scarabs were used as seals and amulets.
tomb: A burial place: a pit, a mastaba, a pyramid or rooms cut into rock. Its chapel was where the family brought offerings.
transliteration: Writing Egyptian in Latin letters, one letter for each sound sign, such as ꜥnḫ for ankh. Egyptologists say the words with an e between consonants.

Where to see it

British Museum, London museum