Leviticus 18:17-27

17 You shall not uncover the nakedness of a woman and of her daughter, and you shall not take her son's daughter or her daughter's daughter to uncover her nakedness; they are relatives; it is depravity.

18 And you shall not take a woman as a ¹rival wife to her sister, uncovering her nakedness ²while her sister is still alive.

19 ³"You shall not approach a woman to uncover her nakedness while she is in her menstrual uncleanness.

20 ⁴And you shall not lie sexually with your neighbor's wife and so make yourself unclean with her.

21 You shall not give any of your children to ⁵offer them^[a] to ⁶Molech, and so ⁷profane the name of your God: I am the LORD.

22 ⁸You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.

23 ⁹And you shall not lie with any animal and so make yourself unclean with it, neither shall any woman give herself to an animal to lie with it: it is ¹⁰perversion.

24 ¹¹"Do not make yourselves unclean by any of these things, ¹²for by all these the nations I am driving out before you have become unclean,

25 and the ¹³land became unclean, so that I punished its iniquity, and the land ¹⁴vomited out its inhabitants.

26 But ¹⁵you shall keep my statutes and my rules and do none of these abominations, either the ¹⁶native or the stranger who sojourns among you

27 (for the people of the land, who were before you, did all of these abominations, so that the land became unclean),

Leviticus 18:17-27 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO LEVITICUS 18

In this chapter the Israelites are directed in general not to imitate the customs and practices of the Egyptians and Canaanites, but to keep the ordinances, statutes, and judgments of the Lord, Le 18:1-5; and they are instructed particularly to avoid incestuous marriages, Le 18:6-18; carnal copulation with a menstruous woman, Le 18:19; adultery, Le 18:20; letting any of their seed pass through the fire to Molech, Le 18:21; sodomy, Le 18:22; and bestiality, Le 18:23; and they are deterred from these things by observing to them the pollution and destruction which they brought on the inhabitants of Canaan, and would bring the same on them should they commit them, Le 18:24-30.

Cross References

• 1. [1 Samuel 1:6]
• 2. [Genesis 31:50]
• 3. [Leviticus 15:24; Leviticus 20:18; Ezekiel 18:6; Ezekiel 22:10]
• 4. See Exodus 20:14
• 5. Leviticus 20:2-5; Deuteronomy 18:10
• 6. [1 Kings 11:7, 33; Acts 7:43]
• 7. Leviticus 19:12; Leviticus 20:3; Leviticus 21:6; Leviticus 22:2, 32; Ezekiel 36:20, 22; Malachi 1:12
• 8. Leviticus 20:13; [Genesis 19:5; Judges 19:22; Romans 1:27; 1 Corinthians 6:9, 10; 1 Timothy 1:9, 10]
• 9. Leviticus 20:15, 16; Exodus 22:19
• 10. Leviticus 20:12
• 11. ver. 30; [Matthew 15:19, 20; Mark 7:21-23]
• 12. Leviticus 20:23; [Deuteronomy 18:12]
• 13. Numbers 35:34; Jeremiah 2:7; Ezekiel 36:17
• 14. Leviticus 20:22
• 15. See ver. 4, 5
• 16. See Leviticus 16:29

Footnotes

• [a]. Hebrew to make them pass through [the fire]