Leviticus 19:20
וְאִישׁ כִּֽי־יִשְׁכַּב אֶת־אִשָּׁה שִׁכְבַת־זֶרַע וְהִוא שִׁפְחָה נֶחֱרֶפֶת לְאִישׁ וְהָפְדֵּה לֹא נִפְדָּתָה אוֹ חֻפְשָׁה לֹא נִתַּן־לָהּ בִּקֹּרֶת תִּהְיֶה לֹא יוּמְתוּ כִּי־לֹא חֻפָּֽשָׁה׃
✦ Hebrew interlinear
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✦ The same verse in five languages
וְ֠אִישׁ כִּֽי־יִשְׁכַּ֨ב אֶת־אִשָּׁ֜ה שִׁכְבַת־זֶ֗רַע וְהִ֤וא שִׁפְחָה֙ נֶחֱרֶ֣פֶת לְאִ֔ישׁ וְהָפְדֵּה֙ לֹ֣א נִפְדָּ֔תָה א֥וֹ חֻפְשָׁ֖ה לֹ֣א נִתַּן־לָ֑הּ בִּקֹּ֧רֶת תִּהְיֶ֛ה לֹ֥א יוּמְת֖וּ כִּי־לֹ֥א חֻפָּֽשָׁה׃
καὶ ἐάν τις κοιμηθῇ μετὰ γυναικὸς κοίτην σπέρματος, καὶ αὕτη οἰκέτις διαπεφυλαγμένη ἀνθρώπῳ, καὶ αὕτη λύτροις οὐ λελύτρωται ἢ ἐλευθερία οὐκ ἐδόθη αὐτῇ, ἐπισκοπὴ ἔσται αὐτοῖς. οὐκ ἀποθανοῦνται, ὅτι οὐκ ἀπηλευθερώθη.
Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0
Latin (Vulgate)
Homo, si dormierit cum muliere coitu seminis, quæ sit ancilla etiam nubilis, et tamen pretio non redempta, nec libertate donata: vapulabunt ambo, et non morientur, quia non fuit libera.
“‘Si un hombre tiene relaciones sexuales con una esclava que está prometida en matrimonio a otro hombre, pero que no ha sido comprada ni liberada, ambos deberán ser castigados. Sin embargo, no se les condenará a muerte, porque ella no era libre.
Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)
Y cuando un hombre tuviere cópula con mujer, y ella fuere sierva desposada con alguno, y no estuviere rescatada, ni le hubiere sido dada libertad, ambos serán azotados: no morirán, por cuanto ella no es libre.
If a man lies carnally with a slave girl promised to another man but who has not been redeemed or given her freedom, there must be due punishment. But they are not to be put to death, because she had not been freed.
✦ What the text says
Summary
Leviticus 19:20 addresses a case where a man has sexual relations with a female slave who is nechEfet ("intended/designated") for another man but has not yet been ransomed or freed. The verse specifies that this situation requires "compensation" (biqqoret) rather than the death penalty, explicitly stating the reason: she was not free.
Key words
- nechEfet ("intended", H2778C) — niphal participle feminine singular, describing the slave's status as one "designated" or "betrothed" for a man; the passive form indicates she is the object of this designation rather than an agent.
- hafDeh ("certainly released", H6299) — hophal infinitive absolute, paired with the following finite verb to intensify the negated action ("she had not at all been released").
- nifDatah ("she had been released", H6299) — niphal perfect, completed passive action; combined with the preceding infinitive absolute and the negation lo' ("not", H3808), it emphatically denies that ransom occurred.
- biqKoret ("compensation", H1244) — feminine singular noun, appearing only here in this construction, naming the required consequence.
- chuPashah ("she had been given freedom", H2666) — pual perfect (intensive passive), closing the verse by restating in different verbal stem the condition of non-freedom already established with nittan ("it had been given", H5414G).
What the text says
The Hebrew sentence opens with ve'ish ki ("and a man, if", H9002 + H0376G + H3588A), a conditional construction typical of casuistic law. The action yishKav ("he will lie with", H7901I, qal imperfect) governs the object marked by 'et (H0853) plus 'ishah ("a woman", H0802G), followed by the construct phrase shikhvat-zera' ("a laying of seed", H7902 + H2233I), a construct chain specifying the nature of the act.
The woman's status is then detailed through a chain of passive verb forms across different stems (niphal, hophal, pual) — nechEfet, nifDatah, nittan, chuPashah — all converging on the same semantic point: she remains unransomed and unfreed. The repetition of lo' ("not", H3808) four times underscores this unresolved status as the legal hinge of the passage. The infinitive absolute construction hafDeh lo' nifDatah intensifies the negation, a grammatical feature that plain translation as "she had not been released" cannot fully convey — the doubled verbal form emphasizes the certainty of her non-release.
The consequence is stated with biqKoret tihyeh ("compensation it will be", H1244 + H1961), followed by the negated hophal imperfect lo' yumeTu ("they will not be put to death", H4191), explicitly contrasting with the death penalty that would apply in other adultery cases, with the causal clause ki lo' chuPashah ("for she had not been given freedom", H3588A + H2666) supplying the legal rationale.
Differences between versions
The LXX renders biqKoret as episkopē ("visitation/inquiry"), a term with a different semantic range than "compensation," while the Vulgate interprets the consequence concretely as vapulabunt ("they will be beaten"), specifying a corporal punishment not explicitly named in the Hebrew noun biqKoret itself. The Hebrew term's exact procedural meaning is not spelled out by the word itself, leaving the LXX and Vulgate to supply differing interpretations of what this "compensation" entailed.
This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.