Leviticus 20

Translator Notes

1. The standard prophetic speech formula vayedabber YHWH el-Mosheh lemor introduces a new divine address. Chapter 20 functions as the enforcement code for the prohibitions listed in chapter 18 — where chapter 18 stated what was forbidden, chapter 20 prescribes the penalties.

Translator Notes

1. The doubled ish ish ('any person whatsoever') is an emphatic Hebrew construction ensuring universal application. The phrase mizaro ('from his seed/offspring') combined with natan laMolekh ('gives to Molech') refers to child sacrifice — the practice of passing children through fire as offerings to the Ammonite deity. Both Israelites and the ger haGar ('the foreigner who resides') are subject to this law, indicating that Molech worship defiles the land itself, not just the individual. The penalty mot yumat ('he must certainly die') uses the Hophal infinitive absolute for emphasis, and am ha'aretz ('people of the land') denotes the community's collective judicial responsibility.

Translator Notes

1. The phrase etten et panay ('I will set My face against') signals direct divine opposition — God personally acts as prosecutor. The verb v'hikrati ('I will cut off') refers to karet, divine excision from the covenant community, which may operate beyond human judicial punishment. Two consequences of Molech worship are named: defiling the miqdash ('sanctuary') and profaning the shem qodshi ('My holy name'). Child sacrifice is not merely a social crime but a direct assault on God's holiness and sacred space.

Translator Notes

1. The Hiphil infinitive absolute ha'lem ya'alimu ('hiding they hide') intensifies the verb — this is not accidental oversight but deliberate refusal to act. The community bears judicial responsibility; looking away from child sacrifice makes the entire community complicit. The construction l'vilti hamit ('so as not to put to death') frames their inaction as a willful decision to spare the guilty.

Translator Notes

1. When the community fails to enforce justice, God Himself intervenes. The penalty expands from the individual to his mishpachto ('his family/clan'), then to kol-hazonim acharav ('all who prostitute themselves after him'). The verb zanah ('to prostitute') is used metaphorically: following Molech is spiritual adultery against YHWH. The phrase liznot acharei haMolekh ('to prostitute after Molech') frames idolatrous worship as covenant betrayal — the same marriage metaphor the prophets will later develop extensively.

Translator Notes

1. The ovot ('mediums,' literally 'spirit-bottles' — hollow vessels through which the dead supposedly speak) and yid'onim ('spiritists,' from yada, 'to know' — those who claim hidden knowledge from the spirit world) represent attempts to access supernatural knowledge outside of YHWH. The same prostitution language (liznot achareihem) used for Molech worship is applied here: consulting the dead is spiritual infidelity. The penalty is karet — divine excision from the people.

Key Terms

Translator Notes

1. The Hitpael v'hitqadishtem ('set yourselves apart') calls for active self-consecration, while vihyitem qedoshim ('and be holy') states the resulting identity. The grounding clause ki ani YHWH Eloheikhem ('for I am the LORD your God') makes holiness derivative — Israel is holy because YHWH is holy and they belong to Him. This verse marks the transition from specific penalties (vv 1-6) to the theological foundation: holiness is the reason behind every prohibition.

Translator Notes

1. The verb pair ushmartem... va'asitem ('keep... and do') demands both guarding the commandments and actively performing them. The closing declaration ani YHWH meqadishkhem ('I am the LORD who makes you holy') uses the Piel participle — God is the active agent of Israel's sanctification. Obedience is the human response, but the power to be holy comes from YHWH Himself.

Translator Notes

1. The verb yeqallel (Piel of qalal, 'to make light, to curse') means to treat with contempt or to revile — the opposite of the honor (kavod, 'weight, heaviness') commanded in the Decalogue (Exod 20:12). The phrase damav bo ('his blood is on him') is a judicial formula placing responsibility for the death on the offender himself: the community executes justice, but the guilt belongs to the one who violated the command.

Translator Notes

1. The verb yin'af ('commits adultery') appears twice for emphasis: first identifying the general act, then specifying it as eshet re'ehu ('his neighbor's wife'). The penalty falls on both parties — hano'ef v'hano'afet ('the adulterer and the adulteress') — indicating shared culpability. Adultery in the ancient Near East was primarily an offense against the husband's household rights, but the Torah's inclusion of the woman's penalty reflects her moral agency.

Translator Notes

1. The phrase ervat aviv gillah ('he has uncovered his father's nakedness') means he has violated his father's exclusive sexual domain. In Hebrew legal thought, a man's wife is an extension of his ervah ('nakedness/sexual rights'); to sleep with her is to transgress against the father, not merely against the woman. The plural d'meihem bam ('their blood is on them') holds both parties responsible.

Translator Notes

1. The term tevel ('perversion, confusion') occurs only here and in Lev 18:23 (bestiality). It denotes a violation so severe that it confounds the created order — a mixing of categories that God established as distinct. The father-in-law/daughter-in-law relationship carries the same generational boundary as the parent-child relationship; violating it is a fundamental transgression of family structure.

Key Terms

Translator Notes

1. The phrase mishk'vei ishah ('as the lyings of a woman') specifies the sexual act itself. The term to'evah ('abhorrent act, abomination') is a strong term of revulsion used in Leviticus for acts that violate the created order and defile the land (see 18:22, 26-27). In the Holiness Code, to'evah marks violations serious enough to cause the land itself to 'vomit out' its inhabitants (18:25, 28). The penalty is capital — mot yumatu with the blood-guilt formula d'meihem bam.

Translator Notes

1. The term zimmah ('depravity, deliberate wickedness, scheme') denotes calculated sexual transgression — not impulsive error but willful perversion. Burning (ba'esh yisrefu) is a more severe form of execution than stoning, reserved for extreme violations (cf. Gen 38:24, Lev 21:9). The purpose clause v'lo tihyeh zimmah b'tokhkhem ('so there will be no depravity among you') shows the penalty is purgative: removing corruption to protect the community's holiness.

Translator Notes

1. The phrase yitten sh'khavto ('gives his emission') is an explicit anatomical description of the act. The animal is also killed (taharogu, 'you shall slay') — not because it bears moral guilt, but because it has been implicated in a violation of the created order that must be completely eradicated. The animal's death serves to remove every trace of the transgression.

Translator Notes

1. The verb tiqrav ('approaches') with the purpose infinitive l'riv'ah ('to mate with') describes the woman as the initiator. The law addresses female agency in bestiality separately from the male case (v 15), with the same severity. The blood-guilt formula d'meihem bam extends to both the woman and the animal, consistent with the principle that the violation must be entirely purged.

Translator Notes

1. The word chesed here is not the common chesed meaning 'loyal love' or 'covenant faithfulness.' This is a homonym meaning 'shame, disgrace' — a shocking and deliberate word choice that highlights the perversion of family bonds. The mutual 'seeing' (v'ra'ah... v'hi tireh) implies consensual participation. The penalty is karet ('cutting off') rather than death, and is performed l'einei b'nei amam ('in the sight of their people') — a public sentence. The phrase avono yisa ('he shall bear his punishment') indicates the guilt remains with him.

Translator Notes

1. The term davah ('menstrual sickness, impurity') refers to a woman during her menstrual period. The phrase et-meqorah he'erah ('he exposed her source/fountain') uses the metaphor of a spring or fountain (maqor) for the menstrual flow — he has laid bare what should remain covered. Her shared guilt (v'hi giltah, 'and she revealed') indicates consensual participation. The penalty is karet for both, lesser than the death penalties above but still severe: this violation transgresses the blood-holiness boundary central to Levitical theology.

Translator Notes

1. The term she'ero ('his flesh, his close relative') emphasizes the blood-kinship violation: an aunt is one's own flesh, and sexual contact with her violates the integrity of the family body. The phrase avonam yisa'u ('they shall bear their guilt') indicates divine punishment without specifying the form — the absence of a specific death penalty or karet suggests the punishment is left to God's direct action. This verse shifts from case-law (ish asher, 'a man who') to direct address (lo tegalleh, 'you shall not uncover'), varying the legal style.

Translator Notes

1. The term dodato ('his aunt,' literally 'his uncle's wife') and ervat dodo ('his uncle's nakedness') frame this as a violation against the uncle's marital domain. The penalty aririm yamutu ('they shall die childless') introduces a distinctive punishment: not execution but divinely imposed barrenness. The word aririm ('childless, stripped bare') is devastating in an ancient context where children were one's legacy, security, and continuation — dying without offspring meant the complete termination of one's line.

Translator Notes

1. The term niddah ('impurity, menstrual separation') applied to this act is striking — it is not merely forbidden but ritually contaminating. This prohibition appears to conflict with the levirate marriage law (Deut 25:5-10), which requires a man to marry his deceased brother's childless wife. The resolution is that Leviticus 20:21 addresses taking a living brother's wife, while Deuteronomy addresses the obligation to a deceased brother's widow. The penalty aririm yihyu ('they shall be childless') again uses divinely imposed barrenness rather than human execution.

Translator Notes

1. The verb taqi ('vomit out') personifies the land as a living entity with a moral constitution — it cannot stomach the presence of those who violate God's commands. This graphic image (used also in 18:25, 28) presents the land of Canaan as sacred space that actively expels its defilers. The pair chuqotay... mishpatay ('My statutes... My ordinances') encompasses the full range of divine legislation: chuqqot are inscribed decrees and mishpatim are judicial rulings.

Translator Notes

1. The verb va'aqutz ('I was disgusted, I loathed') expresses visceral divine revulsion — stronger than mere disapproval. The singular hagoy ('the nation') may refer collectively to the Canaanite peoples. The verb meshalleach ('am sending away, am driving out') presents the dispossession as an ongoing divine action. The logic is explicit: the Canaanites practiced these violations, God expelled them; Israel must not repeat those practices or face the same fate.

Translator Notes

1. The promise of land possession (tirshu et-admatam, 'you will inherit their ground') is conditioned on covenant faithfulness — the same land that vomited out the Canaanites will welcome obedient Israel. The phrase eretz zavat chalav ud'vash ('a land flowing with milk and honey') is the classic description of abundance and fertility. The verb hivdalti ('I have separated/distinguished') from badal introduces the separation theme that dominates the chapter's conclusion: God's act of setting Israel apart from the peoples is the foundation for their distinct way of life.

Translator Notes

1. The verb hivdaltem ('you shall distinguish/separate') echoes God's own act of separation (hivdalti, v 24). Israel's daily practice of distinguishing clean from unclean mirrors God's act of distinguishing Israel from the nations. The dietary laws are not arbitrary but pedagogical: every meal reinforces the identity of a people set apart. The verb teshaqtzu ('make detestable') from sheqetz (the term for unclean swarming creatures in Lev 11) warns that consuming what God has classified as unclean contaminates the person's own nefesh ('self, being').

Key Terms

Translator Notes

1. This verse forms an inclusio with verse 7 — the chapter's theological bookends. The phrase lihyot li ('to be Mine') reveals the ultimate purpose of holiness: belonging. Israel is not holy for the sake of moral achievement but for the sake of divine possession. The verb va'avdil ('I have separated') uses the same root (badal) as verses 24-25, creating a threefold separation chain: God separates Israel from the nations (v 24), Israel separates clean from unclean (v 25), and both acts flow from God's own holiness (v 26). Holiness, separation, and belonging are inseparable in the Holiness Code.

Translator Notes

1. This closing verse returns to the theme of verse 6 (consulting mediums and spiritists), forming a bracket around the chapter's sexual prohibitions. While verse 6 addressed the person who consults mediums (penalty: karet), verse 27 addresses the practitioners themselves (penalty: stoning). The terms ov ('medium') and yid'oni ('spiritist') are the same as in verse 6 — but now the practitioners themselves are condemned rather than their clients. The placement after the holiness conclusion (vv 22-26) reinforces that occult practice is fundamentally incompatible with belonging to YHWH. The parashah marker (pe) at the end signals a major textual division.