Leviticus 18

1 Then the LORD said to Moses, 2 “ Speak to the Israelites and tell them: I am the LORD your God. 3 You must not follow the practices of the land of Egypt, where you used to live, and you must not follow the practices of the land of Canaan, into which I am bringing you. You must not walk in their customs. 4 You are to practice My judgments and keep My statutes by walking in them. I am the LORD your God. 5 Keep My statutes and My judgments, for the man who does these things will live by them. I am the LORD. 6 None of you are to approach any close relative to have sexual relations. I am the LORD. 7 You must not expose the nakedness of your father by having sexual relations with your mother. She is your mother; you must not have sexual relations with her. 8 You must not have sexual relations with your father’s wife; it would dishonor your father. 9 You must not have sexual relations with your sister, either your father’s daughter or your mother’s daughter, whether she was born in the same home or elsewhere. 10 You must not have sexual relations with your son ’s daughter or your daughter ’s daughter, for that would shame your family. 11 You must not have sexual relations with the daughter of your father’s wife, born to your father; she is your sister. 12 You must not have sexual relations with your father’s sister; she is your father’s close relative. 13 You must not have sexual relations with your mother’s sister, for she is your mother’s close relative. 14 You must not dishonor your father’s brother by approaching his wife to have sexual relations with her; she is your aunt. 15 You must not have sexual relations with your daughter-in-law. She is your son ’s wife; you are not to have sexual relations with her. 16 You must not have sexual relations with your brother’s wife; that would shame your brother. 17 You must not have sexual relations with both a woman and her daughter. You are not to marry her son ’s daughter or her daughter ’s daughter and have sexual relations with her. They are close relatives; it is depraved. 18 You must not take your wife ’s sister as a rival wife and have sexual relations with her while your wife is still alive. 19 You must not approach a woman to have sexual relations with her during her menstrual period. 20 You must not lie carnally with your neighbor ’s wife and thus defile yourself with her. 21 You must not give any of your children to be sacrificed to Molech, for you must not profane the name of your God. I am the LORD. 22 You must not lie with a man as with a woman; that is an abomination. 23 You must not lie carnally with any animal, thus defiling yourself with it; a woman must not stand before an animal to mate with it; that is a perversion. 24 Do not defile yourselves by any of these practices, for by all these things the nations I am driving out before you have defiled themselves. 25 Even the land has become defiled, so I am punishing it for its sin, and the land will vomit out its inhabitants. 26 But you are to keep My statutes and ordinances, and you must not commit any of these abominations — neither your native-born nor the foreigner who lives among you. 27 For the men who were in the land before you committed all these abominations, and the land has become defiled. 28 So if you defile the land, it will vomit you out as it spewed out the nations before you. 29 Therefore anyone who commits any of these abominations must be cut off from among his people. 30 You must keep My charge not to practice any of the abominable customs that were practiced before you, so that you do not defile yourselves by them. I am the LORD your God.”

✦ What the text says

## Summary Leviticus 18 records Yahweh's speech to Moses instructing the Israelites, contrasted with the practices of Egypt and Canaan, to avoid a defined list of sexual unions defined by kinship ("uncovering nakedness") and other prohibited acts, closing with a warning that the land itself becomes defiled and "vomits out" those who commit these things. ## Key words - *ervah* ("nakedness", H6172) — a feminine singular noun used in construct chains ("nakedness of your father," etc.); it is the object repeatedly paired with the verb "uncover," forming the chapter's recurring formula. - *galah* piel ("uncover", H1540I) — appears as imperfect ("you will uncover") and infinitive ("to uncover"); the piel (intensive) stem marks a deliberate, repeated action rather than an isolated event. - *toevah* ("abomination", H8441) — feminine singular noun applied to specific acts (v. 22) and, in plural, to the whole set of practices (vv. 26–30), framing them as a single moral category. - *chuqqot* / *mishpatim* ("statutes" / "judgments", H2708 / H4941) — paired plural nouns with the 1st-person suffix "my," used with verbs "do" and "keep," structuring the chapter as legal instruction rather than narrative. - *shəʾer* ("relative/flesh", H7607) — construct noun used in v. 6 and elsewhere to define the kinship boundary ("any relative of his flesh"), the organizing category for the entire list. ## What the text says The chapter opens (vv. 1–5) with Yahweh's speech formula and the repeated self-identification *ani Yahweh* ("I am Yahweh", H0589 + H3068G), which brackets the whole unit and recurs after major sections (vv. 6, 21, 30). Verses 6–23 form a list built on a fixed construct pattern: "*ervah* of X... *lo tegalleh*" ("you will not uncover"), where X is supplied by kinship terms (father, mother, sister, daughter-in-law, etc.) marked with 2nd-person masculine singular suffixes. The doubled noun *ish ish* ("a man, a man", H0376G) in v. 6 is a Hebrew idiom for distributive "any man," which single-word translations render as "none" or "ningún varón." Verses 24–30 shift from imperfect prohibitions to a rationale: the land (*ha'aretz*) itself becomes unclean and acts as a subject that "vomits" (*qi'*, H6958) its inhabitants, tying the ethical list to a described consequence rather than stating enforcement mechanism beyond "cut off"

This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.