Leviticus 18 explained: Limits on Sex and Family Ties

Not like Egypt or Canaan (vv. 1-5)

God tells Israel not to copy the ways of Egypt, where they had lived, or of Canaan, where they were headed, but to keep his laws instead. Verse 5 promises that whoever keeps them will live, likely meaning a full and secure life in the land; Paul, an early Christian writer, later quoted this line when contrasting keeping the law with trust in Christ, which shapes how many Christians read it.

No sex with close relatives (vv. 6-17)

These verses forbid sex with a mother or stepmother, a sister or half sister, a grandchild, an aunt, a daughter-in-law, a brother's wife, or both a woman and her daughter or granddaughter. Older translations say 'uncover the nakedness,' a Hebrew way of saying have sex, and the reasons given keep tying each woman to a father, brother or son, which suggests the aim was to protect trust in large shared households. These laws speak to the one who acts. A person abused by a relative did nothing wrong and is not the one condemned here.

Rival wives, periods, adultery (vv. 18-20)

Verse 18 forbids marrying a wife's sister while the wife is alive, since the two would become rivals, as the sisters Rachel and Leah did in Genesis; a minority reads the Hebrew more broadly as a ban on taking any second wife. Verse 19 forbids sex during a woman's period, when the law counted her ritually unclean, meaning temporarily barred from sacred things, and verse 20 forbids sex with a neighbor's wife.

Children given to Molech (v. 21)

Verse 21 bans giving children to Molech (some translations spell it Molek) and says this would disgrace God's name; later biblical books link the practice with burning children. Translations differ here, some saying the children were sacrificed and older ones that they were made to pass through the fire, and scholars still debate whether Molech was a god's name or a term for a kind of offering.

Same-sex acts and animals (vv. 22-23)

Verse 22 forbids a man to have sex with a man as with a woman and calls it detestable (older translations say an abomination), a strong word used elsewhere for idol worship and for cheating with false weights, and verse 23 forbids sex with animals. Traditional Jewish teaching and most Christian churches read verse 22 as a lasting ban on sex between men, while some scholars and churches argue it targeted specific acts or practices of its own time.

The land vomits them out (vv. 24-30)

These verses give the chapter's reason for the violent driving out of Canaan's peoples: their practices so sickened the land that it vomited them up, and Israel, along with foreigners living there, is warned it will be vomited out too if it does the same. Anyone who does these things, not the person they harm, is to be cut off from their people, which scholars read variously as execution, exile, or God ending the person's life or family line.

Key verse: Leviticus 18:3

Where Christians differ

Christians differ on how much of this chapter still applies: Catholic, Orthodox and many Protestant churches treat its bans on incest, adultery, sex with animals and sex between men (verse 22) as lasting moral teaching, while some Protestant churches and scholars hold that verse 22 addressed particular ancient practices and does not rule out committed same-sex relationships today.

Something to think about

What do you think a community is trying to protect when it draws firm lines around sex and family?