What Does Leviticus 18:15 Mean?
Do not uncover the nakedness of your daughter-in-law. She is your son's wife. Do not uncover her nakedness.
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 daughter in law: she is thy son’s wife; thou shalt not uncover her nakedness.THE KEY
The repeated “uncover” brackets the declaration that she is the son’s wife, making the relationship itself the boundary.
THE MEANING
This verse names a present relational boundary: the daughter-in-law is her husband’s wife, and her nakedness is forbidden to her father-in-law. The repeated prohibition leaves no opening for household closeness to become sexual access.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the lie that a father’s place in the household gives him sexual access to his son’s wife; the verse names her relationship and repeats the prohibition.
THE ROOT
תְגַלֶּה
tegalleh
GROWS FROM
גלה
To uncover, expose, or reveal; in another usage, this root also appears in words for going into exile.
The verb translated “uncover” belongs to a root that also means “reveal” and appears in the language of exile. Here, “nakedness” and the kinship clause anchor it in sexual exposure, while its wider range lets the word carry the sense of what is brought out from covering.
ALSO GROWS
galah: Uncover, reveal; also go into exile in another use of the root.
גָּלָה
This root’s range links uncovering with exposure; in this verse, the surrounding words specify the sexual sense.
niglah: Be revealed or uncovered.
נִגְלָה
This related form makes visible the root’s movement from hidden to exposed, sharpening the force of the prohibition.
THE PATTERN
Kinship creates a sexual boundary that household closeness does not erase.
Do not draw near to any flesh of your flesh, to uncover nakedness. I am the LORD.A man shall not take his father's wife, nor uncover his father's wing.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
A man shall not take his father's wife, nor uncover his father's wing.Deuteronomy uses the same root, גלה (galah, uncover), for the mirrored boundary involving a father’s wife. Together, the verses show the prohibition holding across both directions of the family bond.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us