Leviticus 18:7

Summary

Leviticus 18:7 prohibits uncovering the 'ervah ("nakedness", H6172) of one's father and mother. The verse structures this as a single prohibition, then repeats the ban with added emphasis, explicitly identifying the mother as the subject of the second clause.

Key words

• 'ervat ("nakedness of", H6172) — feminine singular construct noun; appears three times in the verse, always in construct state ("nakedness of X"), meaning it cannot stand alone but must be bound to the following noun or suffix.
• 'aviykha ("your father", H0001G + H9021) — construct noun with 2nd person masculine singular suffix, forming "father-of-you."
• tegalleh ("you will uncover", H1540I) — piel imperfect, 2nd masculine singular. The piel stem is intensive/factitive, and the imperfect aspect conveys future or habitual/ongoing prohibition (rendered here as negative command via lo' + imperfect).
• hiv' ("she", H1931) — independent personal pronoun, used for emphasis since Hebrew verbs already encode subject; its presence here underlines "she [specifically] is your mother."
• lo' ("not", H3808) — negation particle; combined with the imperfect verb form (lo' tegalleh) this construction functions as a formal legal prohibition in Hebrew.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence joins two construct phrases — 'ervat 'aviykha ("nakedness of your father") and 'ervat 'immekha ("nakedness of your mother") — under a single verb, lo' tegalleh ("you will not uncover"). This grammatical pairing treats the father's and mother's 'ervah as one combined object of the prohibition, connected by the conjunction ve ("and", H9002).

The verse then repeats the prohibition in a second clause, but restructures it: instead of continuing with construct chains, it uses the independent pronoun hiv' ("she") plus the noun 'immekha ("your mother") as a nominal clause — "she [is] your mother" — before repeating lo' tegalleh, now paired with 'ervatah ("her nakedness", H6172 + H9024). This repetition with pronominal restatement gives explicit emphasis to the mother's identity as the referent of the second prohibition, a feature of Hebrew legal style that reinforces the specific relationship named.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders 'ervat 'aviykha ("nakedness of your father") not as a separate object but folds it into the explanation of the mother's ἀσχημοσύνη ("nakedness"), adding γάρ ("for") — "for she is your mother" — where the Hebrew has no causal particle, only the pronoun hiv'. The Vulgate follows the Hebrew structure more closely with "mater tua est" ("she is your mother") but similarly does not preserve a separate clause for the father's 'ervah in the second half. The BSB gloss interprets the father's nakedness as uncovered "by having sexual relations with your mother," a paraphrastic addition not present as separate wording in the Hebrew construct chain itself.