What Does Leviticus 18:13 Mean?
Do not uncover the nakedness of your mother's sister, for she is your mother's flesh.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy mother’s sister: for she is thy mother’s near kinswoman.THE KEY
The Hebrew word for kin also means flesh: your aunt’s nakedness cannot be detached from the family bond that names her.
THE MEANING
This verse sets a boundary around sexual access to your mother’s sister and names her as your mother’s near kin. The reason is built into the relationship: the body being exposed remains part of the family bond.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that desire can make a close relative’s body unrelated to the family bond. Here, kinship remains part of how that body is named.
THE ROOT
תְּגַלֶּה
tegalleh
GROWS FROM
גלה
To uncover, reveal, or become exposed.
“uncover” in this verse is tegalleh. The Hebrew verb carries the sense of uncovering or bringing into view. Here the object is explicitly nakedness, and the verse sets the boundary by naming the family relationship.
ALSO GROWS
gillah: He uncovered or revealed.
גִּלָּה
This form shares the same root and makes the act of uncovering explicit.
niglah: He was revealed or became visible.
נִגְלָה
This form shows the other side of the root: what is uncovered comes into view.
שְׁאֵר
she’er
GROWS FROM
שאר
Flesh, body, close kin.
The Hebrew term gathers flesh and kindred into one word. Calling her your mother’s she’er makes the family bond part of the reason her nakedness is bounded.
ALSO GROWS
she’erah: Her near kin or flesh.
שְׁאֵרָה
Leviticus 18:17 uses this form for close female relatives, showing the same kinship word at work.
she’ero: His near kin.
שְׁאֵרוֹ
Leviticus 21:2 uses this form for a man’s close relative, carrying the same flesh-and-kindred sense.
THE PATTERN
Sexual boundaries are expressed through kinship, because bodily union and family bonds are not separate things.
Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother, and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh.Do not draw near to any flesh of your flesh, to uncover nakedness. I am the LORD.It is heard commonly that there is the trade of bodies among you, and such trade as is not even named among the nations, that one should hold his father's wife.THE THREAD
Do not uncover the nakedness of a woman and her daughter. Do not take her son's daughter, or her daughter's daughter, to uncover their nakedness. They are her flesh. It is a plotted thing.The Hebrew calls those relatives שְׁאֵרָה (she’erah), the same flesh-and-kin word used here. The shared root makes the boundary follow the family bond across different relationships.
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