Leviticus 20:14

20:14 If a man has sexual intercourse with both a woman and her mother, ¹  it is lewdness. ²  Both he and they must be burned to death, ³  so there is no lewdness in your midst.

Leviticus 20:19

20:19 You must not expose the nakedness of your mother’s sister and your father’s sister, for such a person has laid bare his own close relative. ⁴  They must bear their punishment for iniquity. ⁵ 

Leviticus 22:27

22:27 “When an ox, lamb, or goat is born, it must be under the care of ⁶  its mother seven days, but from the eighth day onward it will be acceptable as an offering gift ⁷  to the Lord.

Leviticus 24:11

24:11 The Israelite woman’s son misused the Name and cursed, ⁸  so they brought him to Moses. (Now his mother’s name was Shelomith daughter of Dibri, of the tribe of Dan.)

---

¹ 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.”

² tn Regarding “lewdness,” see the note on Lev 18:17 above.

³ 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.

⁴ tn Heb “his flesh.”

⁵ tn See the note on Lev 17:16 above.

⁶ tn The words “the care of” are not in the Hebrew text, but are implied. Although many modern English versions render “with its mother” (e.g., NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT), the literal phrase “under its mother” refers to the young animal nursing from its mother. Cf. KJV, ASV “it shall be seven days under the dam,” which would probably be misunderstood.

⁷ tn Heb “for an offering of a gift.”

⁸ 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.