Leviticus 20:9

Family Life and Sexual Prohibitions 1 

20:9 “‘If anyone 2  curses his father and mother 3  he must be put to death. He has cursed his father and mother; his blood guilt is on himself. 4 

Leviticus 20:11-12

20:11 If a man has sexual intercourse with his father’s wife, he has exposed his father’s nakedness. 5  Both of them must be put to death; their blood guilt is on themselves. 6  20:12 If a man has sexual intercourse with his daughter-in-law, both of them must be put to death. They have committed perversion; 7  their blood guilt is on themselves.

1 sn Compare the regulations in Lev 18:6-23.

2 tn Heb “If a man a man who.”

3 tn Heb “makes light of his father and his mother.” Almost all English versions render this as some variation of “curses his father or mother.”

4 tn Heb “his blood [plural] is in him.” Cf. NAB “he has forfeited his life”; TEV “is responsible for his own death.”

sn The rendering “blood guilt” refers to the fact that the shedding of blood brings guilt on those who shed it illegitimately (even the blood of animals shed illegitimately, Lev 17:4; cf. the background of Gen 4:10-11). If the community performs a legitimate execution, however, the blood guilt rests on the person who has been legitimately executed (see the remarks and literature cited in J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 328).

5 sn See the note on Lev 18:7 above.

6 tn See the note on v. 9 above.

7 tn The Hebrew term תֶּבֶל (tevel, “perversion”) derives from the verb “to mix; to confuse” (cf. KJV, ASV “they have wrought confusion”).