What Does Leviticus 18:23 Mean in the King James?
Neither shalt thou lie with any beast to defile thyself therewith: neither shall any woman stand before a beast to lie down thereto: it is confusion.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The word rendered “confusion” carries the image of mixing, so the verse names sex with an animal as a collapse of the human–animal boundary.
THE MEANING
The verse forbids sexual intercourse between a human and an animal, naming that crossing tevel, a sexual confusion. It states the prohibition for both a man and a woman.
THE ROOT
תֵּבֶל
tevel
GROWS FROM
בלל
The word is traditionally connected to בלל (balal), “to mix, mingle, or confound”; tevel names sexual confusion or violation.
“confusion” in this verse is tevel. Here, tevel does not mean ordinary uncertainty; it names sexual disorder. Its connection to balal, “to mix or confound,” frames the act as a crossing in which human and animal bodies are joined.
ALSO GROWS
belulah: mixed, blended, as flour mixed with oil
בְּלוּלָה
Leviticus 2:4 uses this form for flour mixed with oil; the concrete sense of mingling helps illuminate the image behind tevel.
balal: to mix, mingle, or confound
בָּלַל
Genesis 11:7 uses this verb for confounding language; here, the related word tevel names a prohibited sexual crossing as confusion.
THE PATTERN
The text holds human and animal kinds distinct and names sexual crossing between them as a grave violation.
And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.Whosoever lieth with a beast shall surely be put to death.Cursed be he that lieth with any manner of beast. And all the people shall say, Amen.THE THREAD
And if a man lie with his daughter in law, both of them shall surely be put to death: they have wrought confusion; their blood shall be upon them.“Confusion” here is the same Hebrew word, תֵּבֶל (tevel, sexual confusion or violation), used in the current verse. Its repetition shows that the term names a prohibited sexual crossing, not merely a feeling of mental confusion.
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