Leviticus 20:12

Summary

Leviticus 20:12 states the legal consequence for a man who lies with his daughter-in-law: both parties are to be put to death. The verse characterizes the act as tevel ("confusion", H8397) and closes with a formula placing the bloodguilt on the offenders themselves.

Key words

• yishkav ("he will lie with", H7901I) — qal imperfect, describing the prohibited act in an ongoing/future sense, introduced by the relative asher ("who", H0834A).
• mot yumtu ("certainly to die... they will be put to death", H4191) — infinitive absolute + hophal imperfect. The infinitive absolute intensifies the verb, and the hophal marks the action as passive/causative ("they will be caused to die"), i.e., an imposed penalty rather than a natural death.
• sheneihem ("both of them", H8147 + H9028) — dual cardinal number in construct with the 3rd person masculine plural suffix, explicitly binding the penalty to both participants.
• tevel ("confusion", H8397) — masculine singular noun functioning as the object of asu ("they have done", H6213H), a qal perfect indicating a completed act.
• demeihem bam ("their blood is upon them", H1818 + H9028 + H9003 + H9038) — plural construct noun with pronominal suffix followed by a prepositional phrase repeating the same suffix, a formulaic closing structure.

What the text says

The verse opens with ve'ish asher ("and a man who", H0376G + H0834A), a common legal-formula construction in this chapter that identifies a class of offender through a relative clause rather than a direct conditional. The verb yishkav is qal imperfect, grammatically open to future or habitual reference, which is typical of case-law style: it describes the type of act being regulated rather than a specific past event.

The penalty clause mot yumtu combines an infinitive absolute of the root mut ("to die", H4191) with a hophal imperfect of the same root. The infinitive absolute here has an intensifying function, and the hophal form marks the dying as caused by an external agent (i.e., a judicial killing) rather than a spontaneous death. The dual-construct sheneihem ("both of them") attaches grammatically to this verb, making explicit that the passive causative applies to two subjects, though the earlier verb yishkav was singular (referring to the man only).

The final two clauses shift to qal perfect (asu, "they have done") describing the act as already completed and categorized as tevel ("confusion", H8397). The closing formula demeihem bam uses a construct noun with a suffix followed by a prepositional phrase with a matching suffix, a repetitive structure that reinforces the attribution of bloodguilt to "them" twice within a short clause.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders tevel ("confusion") as ἠσεβήκασιν ("they have acted impiously"), shifting the semantic field from disorder/mixing to impiety. The Vulgate uses scelus ("crime"), a broader term than either the Hebrew tevel or the LXX's religious framing. The LXX also renders the closing bloodguilt formula as ἔνοχοί εἰσιν ("they are liable/guilty"), an abstract legal status, differing from the Hebrew's concrete image of blood being "on them" (bam, H9038), which the Vulgate preserves more literally as sanguis eorum sit super eos.