Leviticus 20:10

10 If a man commits adultery with a married woman, committing adultery with a neighbor's wife, both the adulterer and the adulteress must be executed.

Leviticus 20:10 Meaning and Commentary

Leviticus 20:10

And the man that committeth adultery with [another] man's
wife
Which is a breach of the seventh command, ( Exodus 20:14 ) ;

[even he] that committeth adultery with his neighbour's wife:
which is only an explanation of the former clause; though the Jewish writers, as Jarchi and Ben Gersom, say this is so expressed to except the wife of a stranger, or a Gentile; but it means whether a Gentile or an Israelite; and which may be confirmed by the instance of Phinehas slaying a prince of Israel, that lay with a Midianitish woman, ( Numbers 25:6-8 ) :

the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death;
on account of her that is espoused, by strangling, with a hard napkin within a soft one; and on account of her that is married, by casting stones; even both the adulterer and adulteress, as the Targum: and the Jews say F2, strangling was thus performed; they that were strangled were fixed up to their knees in dung, and then they put a hard napkin within a soft one, and rolled it about his neck, and one drew it to him this way, and another drew it to him that way, until he expired: and there is no unlawful copulation punished with strangling, according to Maimonides F3, but lying with another man's wife; and who observes, that the death which is spoken of in the law absolutely, that is, without specifying any kind of death, is strangling; but stoning seems rather meant, agreeably to ( Deuteronomy 22:24 ) ( John 8:5 ) .


FOOTNOTES:

F2 Misn. Sanhedrin, c. 7. sect. 3.
F3 Hilchot lssure Biah, c. 1. sect. 6.

Leviticus 20:10 In-Context

8 You will keep my rules and do them; I am the LORD, who makes you holy.
9 If anyone curses their father or mother, they must be executed. They have cursed their own father and mother; that person's blood is on their own heads.
10 If a man commits adultery with a married woman, committing adultery with a neighbor's wife, both the adulterer and the adulteress must be executed.
11 If a man has sexual intercourse with his father's wife, he has uncovered his father's nakedness. Both of them must be executed; their blood is on their own heads.
12 If a man has sexual intercourse with his daughter-in-law, both of them must be executed. They have acted perversely; their blood is on their own heads.
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