What Does Leviticus 18:8 Mean in the King James?
The nakedness of thy father’s wife shalt thou not uncover: it is thy father’s nakedness.
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 verse makes the boundary relational: uncovering the father’s wife is named as uncovering the father himself.
THE MEANING
A sexual boundary reaches beyond the two people directly involved: the father’s wife remains within the father-child bond. To uncover her is named as uncovering the father’s nakedness, so the act exposes a kinship relation.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that a father’s wife is detached from the father-child bond is undone: the verse names intimacy with her as an exposure of the father himself.
THE ROOT
תְגַלֵּה
tegalleh
GROWS FROM
גלה
To uncover or reveal; to make something bare or manifest.
English “uncover” can sound like a physical act alone, but גלה also describes something becoming manifest. Here the object of the uncovering is explicitly the father’s nakedness, framing the act as an exposure of the father through the boundary with his wife.
ALSO GROWS
niglah: is revealed; appears
נִגְלָה
This form shows the root describing what becomes visible, not only the action of removing a covering.
gilluy: disclosure; exposure
גִּלּוּי
This noun keeps the sense of something being brought into the open, clarifying the force of “uncover” in the verse.
THE PATTERN
Sexual access to a father’s wife is treated as crossing a bond that extends to the father himself.
A man shall not take his father’s wife, nor discover his father’s skirt.It is reported commonly that there is fornication among you, and such fornication as is not so much as named among the Gentiles, that one should have his father’s wife.THE THREAD
And the man that lieth with his father’s wife hath uncovered his father’s nakedness: both of them shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.This verse repeats the same גלה root, calling the act an uncovering of the father’s nakedness just as Leviticus 18:8 does. It states the consequence directly, showing the weight this boundary carries in the text.
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