What Does Leviticus 20:14 Mean in the King James?
And if a man take a wife and her mother, it is wickedness: they shall be burnt with fire, both he and they; that there be no wickedness among you.
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 Hebrew word zimmah frames the sentence: the offense is named before the sentence and named again as what the community is meant to be without.
THE MEANING
The verse names taking both a wife and her mother as zimmah, a prohibited sexual union, and prescribes that all involved be burned with fire. Its stated aim is that this offense not remain “among you.”
THE ROOT
זִמָּה
zimmah
GROWS FROM
זמם
To devise, plan, or purpose.
“wickedness” in this verse is zimmah. The noun zimmah is related to zamam, “to devise or plan,” though the verse’s context specifies the sexual offense it names. Repeating zimmah at the beginning and end makes that named offense the frame around the decree and its stated communal purpose.
ALSO GROWS
zamam: To devise, plan, or purpose.
זָמַם
This verb carries the seed of intention behind zimmah, showing a connection English’s single word “wickedness” does not expose.
mezimmah: A plan or device; also discretion, as in Proverbs 1:4.
מְזִמָּה
This related word can describe prudent planning, showing that the root’s idea of devising is broader than wrongdoing; the context gives zimmah its severe sense here.
THE PATTERN
Sexual relations that cross a kinship boundary are named as a communal matter, not left as private conduct.
Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of a woman and her daughter, neither shalt thou take her son’s daughter, or her daughter’s daughter, to uncover her nakedness; for they are her near kinswomen: it is wickedness.Cursed be he that lieth with his father’s wife; because he uncovereth his father’s skirt. 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
Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of a woman and her daughter, neither shalt thou take her son’s daughter, or her daughter’s daughter, to uncover her nakedness; for they are her near kinswomen: it is wickedness.Both verses use זִמָּה (zimmah, a devised offense or illicit sexual conduct) for a union that crosses a family boundary. Leviticus 18:17 makes the shared term visible in another prohibition, showing that “wickedness” names a specific category of sexual violation here.
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