Leviticus 20:10

Summary

Leviticus 20:10 addresses the case of a man who commits adultery with the wife of another man, identified as "his neighbor." The verse states that both the adulterer and the adulteress are to be put to death, using an intensified verbal construction to underscore the certainty of the penalty.

Key words

• yin'Af ("he will commit adultery", H5003) — qal imperfect, appearing twice in the verse, describing the ongoing/hypothetical act on which the law is conditioned.
• 'Eshet ("wife of", H0802H) — feminine singular construct, appearing twice, each time linking to the man whose wife is involved ("wife of a man," "wife of his neighbor").
• mot ("certainly ", H4191) — infinitive absolute, paired with the following verb to intensify the action rather than to stand as an independent verb.
• yuMat ("he will be put to death", H4191) — hophal imperfect (causative passive) of the same root as mot, forming the intensive construction "he will surely be put to death."
• ha-no'Ef / ha-no'Afet ("the adulterer" / "the adulteress", H5003) — qal participles with the definite article, functioning as substantives ("the one doing [adultery]") rather than finite verbs, naming the two parties subject to the penalty.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence opens with ve-'Ish ("and a man") followed by a relative clause introduced by 'a.Sher ("who") containing the verb yin'Af. This clause structure is then repeated: a second 'a.Sher yin'Af clause follows, this time specifying 'Eshet re'Ehu ("the wife of his neighbor") rather than simply 'Eshet 'Ish ("the wife of a man"). The repetition functions as a restatement or clarification — the generic "a man" whose wife is violated in the first clause is identified more precisely as "his neighbor" in the second clause, rather than describing two separate offenses.

The penalty clause uses the infinitive absolute mot directly before the finite hophal verb yuMat, a construction that in Biblical Hebrew intensifies or confirms the certainty of the verbal action — here rendered by translations as "surely be put to death." The subjects of this penalty are given not as nouns but as substantivized participles, ha-no'Ef and ha-no'Afet, literally "the one who commits adultery" in masculine and feminine forms, naming both parties without further specification of circumstance.

Differences between versions

The LXX condenses the double Hebrew relative clause into a single sentence joined by ἢ ("or"): "a man who commits adultery with a wife of a man, or who commits adultery with the wife of the neighbor," treating the two clauses as alternative rather than clarifying restatement. The Vulgate resolves the repetition differently, using two distinct verbs — moechatus fuerit ("shall have committed adultery") and adulterium perpetraverit ("shall have perpetrated adultery") — joined by et, presenting them as two linked conditions rather than a single restated one, as the Hebrew's repeated yin'Af clauses do.