Leviticus 12:2

12:2 “Tell the Israelites, ‘When a woman produces offspring ¹  and bears a male child, ²  she will be unclean seven days, as she is unclean during the days of her menstruation. ³ 

Leviticus 15:19

Female Bodily Discharges

15:19 “‘When a woman has a discharge ⁴  and her discharge is blood from her body, ⁵  she is to be in her menstruation ⁶  seven days, and anyone who touches her will be unclean until evening.

Leviticus 18:23

18:23 You must not have sexual intercourse ⁷  with any animal to become defiled with it, and a woman must not stand before an animal to have sexual intercourse with it; ⁸  it is a perversion. ⁹ 

Leviticus 20:13-14

20:13 If a man has sexual intercourse with a male as one has sexual intercourse with a woman, ¹⁰  the two of them have committed an abomination. They must be put to death; their blood guilt is on themselves. 20:14 If a man has sexual intercourse with both a woman and her mother, ¹¹  it is lewdness. ¹²  Both he and they must be burned to death, ¹³  so there is no lewdness in your midst.

Leviticus 20:27

Prohibition against Spiritists and Mediums

20:27 “‘A man or woman who ¹⁴  has in them a spirit of the dead or a familiar spirit ¹⁵  must be put to death. They must pelt them with stones; ¹⁶  their blood guilt is on themselves.’”

Leviticus 24:11

24:11 The Israelite woman’s son misused the Name and cursed, ¹⁷  so they brought him to Moses. (Now his mother’s name was Shelomith daughter of Dibri, of the tribe of Dan.)

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¹ tn Heb “produces seed” (Hiphil of זָרַע, zara’; used only elsewhere in Gen 1:11-12 for plants “producing” their own “seed”), referring to the process of childbearing as a whole, from conception to the time of birth (H. D. Preuss, TDOT 4:144; cf. J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 164-65; and J. Milgrom, Leviticus [AB], 1:742-43). Smr and LXX have Niphal “be impregnated” (see, e.g., Num 5:28); note KJV “If a woman have conceived seed” (cf. ASV, NAB, NRSV; also NIV, NLT “becomes pregnant”).

² sn The regulations for the “male child” in vv. 2-4 contrast with those for the “female child” in v. 5 (see the note there).

³ tn Heb “as the days of the menstrual flow [nom.] of her menstruating [q. inf.] she shall be unclean” (R. E. Averbeck, NIDOTTE 1:925-26; the verb appears only in this verse in the OT). Cf. NASB “as in the days of her menstruation”; NLT “during her menstrual period”; NIV “during her monthly period.”

sn See Lev 15:19-24 for the standard purity regulations for a woman’s menstrual period.

⁴ tn See the note on Lev 15:2 above.

⁵ tn Heb “blood shall be her discharge in her flesh.” The term “flesh” here refers euphemistically to the female sexual area (cf. the note on v. 2 above).

⁶ tn See the note on Lev 12:2 and R. E. Averbeck, NIDOTTE 1:925-27.

⁷ tn See the note on v. 20 above.

⁸ tn Heb “to copulate with it” (cf. Lev 20:16).

⁹ tn The Hebrew term תֶּבֶל (tevel, “perversion”) derives from the verb “to mix; to confuse” and therefore refers to illegitimate mixtures of species or violation of the natural order of things.

¹⁰ tn Heb “[as the] lyings of a woman.” The specific reference here is to homosexual intercourse between males.

¹¹ tn Heb “And a man who takes a woman and her mother.” The Hebrew verb “to take” in this context means “to engage in sexual intercourse.”

¹² tn Regarding “lewdness,” see the note on Lev 18:17 above.

¹³ tn Heb “in fire they shall burn him and them.” The active plural verb sometimes requires a passive translation (GKC 460 §144.f, g), esp. when no active plural subject has been expressed in the context. The present translation specifies “burned to death” because the traditional rendering “burnt with fire” (KJV, ASV; NASB “burned with fire”) could be understood to mean “branded” or otherwise burned, but not fatally.

¹⁴ tc Smr, LXX, Syriac, and some Targum mss have the relative pronoun אֲשֶׁר (’asher, “who, which”), rather than the MT’s כִּי (ki, “for, because, that”).

¹⁵ tn See the note on the phrase “familiar spirit” in Lev 19:31 above.

¹⁶ tn This is not the most frequently-used Hebrew verb for stoning, but a word that refers to the action of throwing, slinging, or pelting someone with stones (see the note on v. 2 above). Smr and LXX have “you [plural] shall pelt them with stones.”

sn At first glance Lev 20:27 appears to be out of place but, on closer examination, one could argue that it constitutes the back side of an envelope around the case laws in 20:9-21, with Lev 20:6 forming the front of the envelope (note also that execution of mediums and spiritists by stoning in v. 27 is not explicitly stated in v. 6). This creates a chiastic structure: prohibition against mediums and spiritists (vv. 6 and 27), variations of the holiness formula (vv. 7 and 25-26), and exhortations to obey the Lord’s statutes (and judgments; vv. 8 and 22-24). Again, in the middle are the case laws (vv. 9-21).

¹⁷ tn The verb rendered “misused” means literally “to bore through, to pierce” (HALOT 719 s.v. נקב qal); it is from נָקַב (naqav), not קָבַב (qavav; see the participial form in v. 16a). Its exact meaning here is uncertain. The two verbs together may form a hendiadys, “he pronounced by cursing blasphemously” (B. A. Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 166), the idea being one of the following: (1) he pronounced the name “Yahweh” in a way or with words that amounted to “some sort of verbal aggression against Yahweh himself” (E. S. Gerstenberger, Leviticus [OTL], 362), (2) he pronounced a curse against the man using the name “Yahweh” (N. H. Snaith, Leviticus and Numbers [NCBC], 110; G. J. Wenham, Leviticus [NICOT], 311), or (3) he pronounced the name “Yahweh” and thereby blasphemed, since the “Name” was never to be pronounced (a standard Jewish explanation). In one way or another, the offense surely violated Exod 20:7, one of the ten commandments, and the same verb for cursing is used explicitly in Exod 22:28 (27 HT) prohibition against “cursing” God. For a full discussion of these and related options for interpreting this verse see P. J. Budd, Leviticus (NCBC), 335-36; J. E. Hartley, Leviticus (WBC), 408-9; and Levine, 166.