Leviticus 18:20

Summary

The verse prohibits a man from having sexual relations with the wife of his amit ("fellow citizen/companion", H5997). The Hebrew describes this act using the idiom "to give one's lying-down for seed," followed by a stated result: becoming unclean through her.

Key words

• 'eshet ("wife of", H0802H) — construct form of "wife," grammatically bound to the following noun, producing "wife of [someone]" rather than a standalone "wife."
• 'amitekha ("your fellow citizen", H5997 + H9021) — construct noun with 2nd-person masculine singular suffix, "your companion/fellow," identifying whose wife is in view.
• titten ("you will give", H5414O) — qal imperfect, 2nd person masculine singular; the imperfect aspect marks this as an ongoing or prohibited future action, negated by lo' ("not", H3808).
• shekhavtekha ("your copulation", H7903 + H9021) — construct noun with possessive suffix; an abstract noun denoting the act of lying down sexually, functioning as the direct object of titten.
• tame'ah ("be unclean", H2930A) — qal infinitive, expressing purpose or result ("to become unclean"), governed by the preposition le ("to", H9005).

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built around the verb titten ("you will give", H5414O), negated by lo' ("not", H3808), with shekhavtekha ("your copulation", H7903) as its object marked by le + zera' ("seed", H2233I) — literally "you shall not give your lying-down for seed." This is a fixed idiomatic construction in the passage rather than a literal description of "giving": the verb natan ("to give") combines with the noun for sexual act to form a technical expression for sexual intercourse. The object of the prohibited act is introduced in the opening phrase, "'el-'eshet 'amitekha" ("to the wife of your fellow citizen"), where both 'eshet and 'amitekha stand in construct chains, tightly linking wife, fellow, and the addressee ("your") into a single identified party.

The clause le-tame'ah bah ("to be unclean by her", H2930A + H9003 + H9034) uses an infinitive with the preposition le, expressing the resulting or intended state — becoming ritually unclean — tied to the pronominal suffix bah ("by her", H9034), which anchors the uncleanness specifically to contact with this woman.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders shekhavtekha le-zera' ("your copulation for seed") as koitēn spermatos sou ("bed of your seed"), preserving the idiom's structure but shifting zera' into a genitive modifying koitēn. The Vulgate uses seminis commistione ("by mixture of seed") for the same phrase, and phrases the entire clause passively ("maculaberis," "you will be defiled") rather than following the Hebrew's infinitive construction le-tame'ah ("to be unclean").