What Does Leviticus 18:16 Mean in the King James?

Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy brother’s wife: it is thy brother’s nakedness.

Leviticus 18:16 · KJV

The analysis reads the King James wording.

King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.

This verse in the Selah Decoded Version

THE KEY

The verse names the brother’s wife’s nakedness as his because uncovering is treated as a relational act of exposure, not an event involving only one body.

THE MEANING

This verse places a boundary around your brother’s marriage: his wife’s nakedness is named as his nakedness. Exposure is treated as relational, so the bond between them remains present in the act the verse names.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

It undoes the belief that exposure concerns only the person being exposed; the verse names the brother as implicated through the marital bond.

THE ROOT

תְגַלֵּה

tegalleh

GROWS FROM

גלה

⁨גלה⁩ (galah) means to uncover, reveal, or expose: to bring what was covered into view.

The verb means to uncover or expose, and its root also names the state of being revealed. That makes the verse’s language of nakedness relational: exposure is spoken through the bond between the woman and her brother’s husband.

ALSO GROWS

galah: Uncover, reveal, expose

גָּלָה

The verse’s verb ⁨תְגַלֵּה⁩ (tegalleh, “you uncover”) is formed from this root, naming the action directly.

niglah: Be revealed, become visible

נִגְלָה

This form preserves the root’s consonants while shifting attention to what comes into view, illuminating the verse’s concern with exposure.

THE PATTERN

Scripture presents sexual exposure and union as bound to relationships, not as acts involving isolated bodies.

Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.

Genesis 2:24 · KJVThe body is named as one flesh within a bond, so sexual union is not described as isolated access.

And if a man shall take his brother’s wife, it is an unclean thing: he hath uncovered his brother’s nakedness; they shall be childless.

Leviticus 20:21 · KJVThis parallel names the same boundary as exposure of a brother’s nakedness, making the kinship relation explicit.

What? know ye not that he which is joined to an harlot is one body? for two, saith he, shall be one flesh.

1 Corinthians 6:16 · KJVEven this union is described as joining two into one body, keeping the relation present in the act.

THE THREAD

And he drank of the wine, and was drunken; and he was uncovered within his tent.

Genesis 9:21 · KJV

Genesis uses the same root, ⁨גלה⁩ (galah, “uncover” or “reveal”), when Noah is uncovered. The shared word makes exposure the common thread, while Leviticus names the brother’s marital bond as part of what that exposure implicates.

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Leviticus 18:16 KJV Meaning