What Does Leviticus 18:9 Mean in the King James?
The nakedness of thy sister, the daughter of thy father, or daughter of thy mother, whether she be born at home, or born abroad, even their nakedness thou shalt not uncover.
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 boundary follows a sister across households: neither shared parentage nor distance makes her nakedness something to uncover.
THE MEANING
This verse marks sexual exposure of a sister as a boundary the reader is not to cross. Whether she shares the father or the mother, and whether she was born at home or elsewhere, the relation remains the same.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a different household or only one shared parent makes this boundary disappear.
THE ROOT
תְגַלֶּה
tegalleh
GROWS FROM
גלה
g-l-h
to uncover, expose, reveal
The verse centers the act of bringing someone into exposure, not simply the family label. This root also yields words for disclosing and being revealed, so English “uncover” carries a wider field of exposure than the single act may suggest.
ALSO GROWS
gillah: revealed, disclosed
גִּלָּה
This form shows the same root at work in bringing what was hidden into view.
niglah: was revealed, appeared
נִגְלָה
The root also describes something becoming exposed or visible, echoing the boundary named in this verse.
THE PATTERN
Kinship establishes a boundary that sexual exposure cannot erase.
None of you shall approach to any that is near of kin to him, to uncover their nakedness: I am the LORD.Cursed be he that lieth with his sister, the daughter of his father, or the daughter of his mother. And all the people shall say, Amen.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 he drank of the wine, and was drunken; and he was uncovered within his tent.The Hebrew verb translated “uncovered” here comes from גלה (galah), the same root as “uncover” in Leviticus 18:9. The shared root makes the act of exposure visible beneath both English verses.
This reading is from Selah Verse.
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