The nakedness of thy father, or the nakedness of thy
mother,
shall thou not uncover
By uncovering a father's nakedness is not meant anything similar
to what befell Noah, which Ham beheld with pleasure, and the
other two sons of Noah studiously and with reverence to their
father covered; nor any sodomitical practice of a son with his
father; as Gersom interprets it; but the same is meant by both
phrases, and the words are by many interpreters thus rendered,
"the nakedness of thy father, that is F24, the
nakedness of thy mother thou shalt not uncover": for what is the
mother's is the father's, and uncovering the one is uncovering
the other; wherefore the mother only is made mention of in the
next clause, where the reason of this prohibition is given:
she [is] thy mother, thou shalt not uncover her
nakedness;
that is, not lie with her, nor marry her, because she is his
mother that bore him, of whom he was born, and therefore ought
not to become his wife, or be taken into his bed; such a marriage
must be incestuous and shocking; such were the marriages of
Oedipus with his mother Jocasta, and of Nero with Agrippina;
though the words will bear another sense, that a woman may not
marry her father, which may be meant by the first clause, nor a
man his mother, intended in the next; and where indeed it is not
expressed, females in the same degree of relation are included
with the males, and under the same prohibition; and so the Targum
of Jonathan explains this, a woman shall not have to do with her
father, nor a man with his mother; as Lot's two daughters had
with him, and the Persians with their mothers; among whom such
incestuous marriages and copulations were frequent, and
especially among their Magi F25 who might not perform their
office unless they had lain with their mothers, sisters, and
daughters F26, or were begotten in such incest
F1: a man guilty of such incestuous
copulations was cursed by the law of Moses, ( Deuteronomy
27:20 ) ; this is contrary to nature, what the brute creation
abhors; a camel will not cover its dam: Aristotle F2 reports
of one who was betrayed into it by his keeper, who, after he had
discovered it, fixed his teeth in him and slew him; and he also
relates of a horse after that he had ignorantly done the same,
ran away in great haste and cast himself down from a precipice
headlong.
F24 (twrew) "id est, nuditatem vel pudenda", Vatablus, Fagius, Piscator.
F25 Sex. Empir. Pyrrh. l. 3. c. 24.
F26 Patricides apud Selden. de jure natur. Gent. l. 5. c. 11. p. 624.
F1 "Nam magus ex matre et gnato nascatur oportet." Catull. Epigr. 91.
F2 Hist. Animal. l. 9. c. 47.