Leviticus 18:22

18:22 You must not have sexual intercourse with a male as one has sexual intercourse with a woman; it is a detestable act.

Leviticus 18:26-30

18:26 You yourselves must obey my statutes and my regulations and must not do any of these abominations, both the native citizen and the resident foreigner in your midst, 18:27 for the people who were in the land before you have done all these abominations, and the land has become unclean. 18:28 So do not make the land vomit you out because you defile it just as it has vomited out the nations that were before you. 18:29 For if anyone does any of these abominations, the persons who do them will be cut off from the midst of their people. 18:30 You must obey my charge to not practice any of the abominable statutes that have been done before you, so that you do not 10  defile yourselves by them. I am the Lord your God.’”


tn Heb “And with a male you shall not lay [as the] lyings of a woman” (see B. A. Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 123). The specific reference here is to homosexual intercourse between males.

tn The Hebrew term תּוֹעֵבָה (toevah, rendered “detestable act”) refers to the repugnant practices of foreigners, whether from the viewpoint of other peoples toward the Hebrews (e.g., Gen 43:32; 46:34; Exod 8:26) or of the Lord toward other peoples (see esp. Lev 18:26-27, 29-30). It can also designate, as here, detestable acts that might be perpetrated by the native peoples (it is used again in reference to homosexuality in Lev 20:13; cf. also its use for unclean food, Deut 14:3; idol worship, Isa 41:24; remarriage to a former wife who has been married to someone else in between, Deut 24:4).

tn Heb “And you shall keep, you.” The latter emphatic personal pronoun “you” is left out of a few medieval Hebrew mss, Smr, the LXX, Syriac, and Vulgate.

tn Heb “the native and the sojourner”; NIV “The native-born and the aliens”; NAB “whether natives or resident aliens.”

tn Heb “for all these abominations the men of the land who were before you have done.”

tn Heb “And the land will not vomit you out in your defiling it.”

tc The MT reads the singular “nation” and is followed by ASV, NASB, NRSV; the LXX, Syriac, and Targum have the plural “nations” (cf. v. 24).

sn Regarding the “cut off” penalty see the note on Lev 7:20.

tn Heb “to not do from the statutes of the detestable acts.”

10 tn Heb “and you will not.” The Hebrew conjunction ו (vav, “and”) can be considered to have resultative force here.