Leviticus 20:12

12 "If a man has sex with his daughter-in-law, both of them must be put to death. What they have done is perverse. And they are responsible for their own deaths.

Leviticus 20:12 Meaning and Commentary

Leviticus 20:12

If a man lie with his daughter in law
His son's wife, whether in the lifetime of his son, or after his death, or whether she was espoused or married, according to the above tradition F6:

both of them shall surely be put to death;
it being a breach of the law in ( Leviticus 18:15 ) ; and this is the penalty annexed to it, even death:

they have wrought confusion:
have been guilty of a shocking and shameful mixture, as Jarchi and Ben Gersom, as well as confounded the degrees of relation and affinity:

their blood [shall be] upon them;
it being a capital crime, their, blood shall be shed for it; they shall be found guilty of death by stoning, as the Targum of Jonathan.


FOOTNOTES:

F6 Misn. ut supra. (Sanhedrin, c. 7. sect. 4.)

Leviticus 20:12 In-Context

10 "If a man commits adultery with another man's wife - the wife, say, of his neighbor - both the man and the woman, the adulterer and adulteress, must be put to death.
11 "If a man has sex with his father's wife, he has violated his father. Both the man and woman must be put to death; they are responsible for their own deaths.
12 "If a man has sex with his daughter-in-law, both of them must be put to death. What they have done is perverse. And they are responsible for their own deaths.
13 "If a man has sex with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is abhorrent. They must be put to death; they are responsible for their own deaths.
14 "If a man marries both a woman and her mother, that's wicked. All three of them must be burned at the stake, purging the wickedness from the community.
Published by permission. Originally published by NavPress in English as THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language copyright 2002 by Eugene Peterson. All rights reserved.