Leviticus 18:7

18:7 You must not ¹  expose your father’s nakedness by having sexual intercourse with your mother. ²  She is your mother; you must not have intercourse with her.

Leviticus 20:9

Family Life and Sexual Prohibitions ³ 

20:9 “‘If anyone ⁴  curses his father and mother ⁵  he must be put to death. He has cursed his father and mother; his blood guilt is on himself. ⁶ 

Leviticus 19:3

19:3 Each of you must respect his mother and his father, ⁷  and you must keep my Sabbaths. I am the Lord your God.

Leviticus 21:2

21:2 except for his close relative who is near to him: ⁸  his mother, his father, his son, his daughter, his brother,

Leviticus 21:11

21:11 He must not go where there is any dead person; ⁹  he must not defile himself even for his father and his mother.

Leviticus 18:13

18:13 You must not have sexual intercourse with your mother’s sister, because she is your mother’s flesh.

Leviticus 20:14

20:14 If a man has sexual intercourse with both a woman and her mother, ¹⁰  it is lewdness. ¹¹  Both he and they must be burned to death, ¹²  so there is no lewdness in your midst.

Leviticus 22:27

22:27 “When an ox, lamb, or goat is born, it must be under the care of ¹³  its mother seven days, but from the eighth day onward it will be acceptable as an offering gift ¹⁴  to the Lord.

Leviticus 18:9

18:9 You must not have sexual intercourse with your sister, whether she is your father’s daughter or your mother’s daughter, ¹⁵  whether she is born in the same household or born outside it; ¹⁶  you must not have sexual intercourse with either of them. ¹⁷ 

Leviticus 20:17

20:17 “‘If a man has sexual intercourse with ¹⁸  his sister, whether the daughter of his father or his mother, so that he sees her nakedness and she sees his nakedness, it is a disgrace. They must be cut off in the sight of the children of their people. ¹⁹  He has exposed his sister’s nakedness; he will bear his punishment for iniquity. ²⁰ 

Leviticus 20:19

20:19 You must not expose the nakedness of your mother’s sister and your father’s sister, for such a person has laid bare his own close relative. ²¹  They must bear their punishment for iniquity. ²² 

Leviticus 24:11

24:11 The Israelite woman’s son misused the Name and cursed, ²³  so they brought him to Moses. (Now his mother’s name was Shelomith daughter of Dibri, of the tribe of Dan.)

Leviticus 22:28

22:28 You must not slaughter an ox or a sheep and its young ²⁴  on the same day. ²⁵ 

Leviticus 24:10

A Case of Blaspheming the Name

24:10 Now ²⁶  an Israelite woman’s son whose father was an Egyptian went out among the Israelites, and the Israelite woman’s son and an Israelite man ²⁷  had a fight in the camp.

[18:7]  ¹ tn The verbal negative here is the same as that used in the Ten Commandments (Exod 20:4-5, 7, 13-17). It suggests permanent prohibition rather than a simple negative command and could, therefore, be rendered “must not” here and throughout the following section as it is in vv. 3-4 above.

[18:7]  ² tn Heb “The nakedness of your father and [i.e., even] the nakedness of your mother you shall not uncover.”

[20:9]  ³ sn Compare the regulations in Lev 18:6-23.

[20:9]  ⁴ tn Heb “If a man a man who.”

[20:9]  ⁵ tn Heb “makes light of his father and his mother.” Almost all English versions render this as some variation of “curses his father or mother.”

[20:9]  ⁶ tn Heb “his blood [plural] is in him.” Cf. NAB “he has forfeited his life”; TEV “is responsible for his own death.”

[19:3]  ⁵ tn Heb “A man his mother and his father you [plural] shall fear.” The LXX, Syriac, Vulgate, and certain Targum mss reverse the order, “his father and his mother.” The term “fear” is subject to misunderstanding by the modern reader, so “respect” has been used in the translation. Cf. NAB, NRSV “revere”; NASB “reverence.”

[21:2]  ⁷ tn Heb “except for his flesh, the one near to him.”

[21:11]  ⁹ tc Although the MT has “persons” (plural), the LXX and Syriac have the singular “person” corresponding to the singular adjectival participle “dead” (cf. also Num 6:6).

[20:14]  ¹¹ tn Heb “And a man who takes a woman and her mother.” The Hebrew verb “to take” in this context means “to engage in sexual intercourse.”

[20:14]  ¹² tn Regarding “lewdness,” see the note on Lev 18:17 above.

[20:14]  ¹³ tn Heb “in fire they shall burn him and them.” The active plural verb sometimes requires a passive translation (GKC 460 §144.f, g), esp. when no active plural subject has been expressed in the context. The present translation specifies “burned to death” because the traditional rendering “burnt with fire” (KJV, ASV; NASB “burned with fire”) could be understood to mean “branded” or otherwise burned, but not fatally.

[22:27]  ¹³ tn The words “the care of” are not in the Hebrew text, but are implied. Although many modern English versions render “with its mother” (e.g., NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT), the literal phrase “under its mother” refers to the young animal nursing from its mother. Cf. KJV, ASV “it shall be seven days under the dam,” which would probably be misunderstood.

[22:27]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “for an offering of a gift.”

[18:9]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “the daughter of your father or the daughter of your mother.”

[18:9]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “born of house or born of outside.” CEV interprets as “whether you grew up together or not” (cf. also TEV, NLT).

[18:9]  ¹⁷ tc Several medieval Hebrew mss, Smr, LXX, and Syriac have “her nakedness” rather than “their nakedness,” thus agreeing with singular “sister” at the beginning of the verse.

[20:17]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “takes.” The verb “to take” in this context means “to engage in sexual intercourse,” though some English versions translate it as “marry” (e.g., NIV, NCV, TEV, CEV).

[20:17]  ¹⁸ tn Regarding the “cut off” penalty, see the note on Lev 7:20.

[20:17]  ¹⁹ tn See the note on Lev 17:16 above.

[20:19]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “his flesh.”

[20:19]  ²⁰ tn See the note on Lev 17:16 above.

[24:11]  ²¹ tn The verb rendered “misused” means literally “to bore through, to pierce” (HALOT 719 s.v. נקב qal); it is from נָקַב (naqav), not קָבַב (qavav; see the participial form in v. 16a). Its exact meaning here is uncertain. The two verbs together may form a hendiadys, “he pronounced by cursing blasphemously” (B. A. Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 166), the idea being one of the following: (1) he pronounced the name “Yahweh” in a way or with words that amounted to “some sort of verbal aggression against Yahweh himself” (E. S. Gerstenberger, Leviticus [OTL], 362), (2) he pronounced a curse against the man using the name “Yahweh” (N. H. Snaith, Leviticus and Numbers [NCBC], 110; G. J. Wenham, Leviticus [NICOT], 311), or (3) he pronounced the name “Yahweh” and thereby blasphemed, since the “Name” was never to be pronounced (a standard Jewish explanation). In one way or another, the offense surely violated Exod 20:7, one of the ten commandments, and the same verb for cursing is used explicitly in Exod 22:28 (27 HT) prohibition against “cursing” God. For a full discussion of these and related options for interpreting this verse see P. J. Budd, Leviticus (NCBC), 335-36; J. E. Hartley, Leviticus (WBC), 408-9; and Levine, 166.

[22:28]  ²³ tn Heb “And an ox or a sheep, it and its son, you shall not slaughter.”

[22:28]  ²⁴ tn Heb “in one day.”

[24:10]  ²⁵ tn Heb “And.”

[24:10]  ²⁶ tn Heb “the Israelite man,” but Smr has no article, and the point is that there was a conflict between the man of mixed background and a man of full Israelite descent.