Leviticus 18:11

Summary

Leviticus 18:11 prohibits sexual relations with the daughter of one's father's wife, when that daughter was born to the father — that is, a paternal half-sister. The verse states her identity explicitly ("she is your sister") before pronouncing the prohibition.

Key words

• 'ervat ("nakedness of", H6172) — construct form beginning a chain of relational nouns; here it denotes the state of exposure/intimacy that must not be "uncovered."
• moledet ("one born of", H4138) — construct noun specifying that the daughter in question is one begotten by the father, distinguishing her from a stepdaughter unrelated by blood to him.
• 'achotekha ("your sister", H0269 + suffix) — construct noun with 2ms suffix, functioning here as predicate: it names the relationship rather than repeating the prohibition formula.
• hi' ("she", H1931) — independent personal pronoun serving as the copula in a nominal (verbless) clause, "she [is] your sister."
• tegalleh ("you will uncover", H1540) — Piel imperfect 2ms, the standard prohibitive verb of this chapter, expressing forbidden intimate exposure, negated by lo' ("not", H3808).

What the text says

The verse opens with a long construct chain: 'ervat + bat ("daughter of", H1323) + 'eshet ("wife of", H0802) + 'avikha ("your father") + moledet + 'avikha. This chain identifies the woman by successive genitive relations — "the nakedness of the daughter of the wife of your father, one born of your father" — before the sentence breaks into a separate nominal clause: 'achotekha hi', "she is your sister." This clause has no verb; the pronoun hi' links subject and predicate directly, a common construction in Biblical Hebrew for identification statements. Only after this identification does the prohibition proper appear: lo' tegalleh 'ervatah, "you will not uncover her nakedness," repeating the verb-object pattern used throughout Leviticus 18 for other forbidden unions. The grammatical separation between the identifying clause and the prohibition clause allows the text to state the relationship as a fact before applying the rule to it.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the identification with ὁμοπατρία ("of the same father") for the Hebrew moledet 'avikha, making explicit in a single adjective what the Hebrew expresses through a construct phrase. The Vulgate uses a relative clause, quam peperit patri tuo ("whom she bore to your father"), also converting the construct chain into a subordinate clause. The BSB replaces the literal "uncover the nakedness of" with "have sexual relations with," a translational choice not reflected in the Hebrew verb tegalleh itself.