What Does Leviticus 20:10 Mean?
And the man who commits adultery with another man's wife, and the one who commits adultery with his neighbor's wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely die.
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
And the man that committeth adultery with another man’s wife, even he that committeth adultery with his neighbour’s wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.THE KEY
The sentence names both partners and assigns them the same stated penalty.
THE MEANING
This verse speaks to you in the stark language of law: adultery is named as a grave breach, and death is stated as the penalty for both the man and the woman. The violence is part of the sentence itself; it is direct and severe.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the claim that this sentence assigns culpability only to the woman: it names the man as an adulterer too, and assigns both the same penalty.
THE ROOT
נִאֵף
na'aph
GROWS FROM
נאף
n-ʾ-p
To commit adultery.
“adultery” in this verse is na'aph. The repeated root names the act in both the masculine form for the adulterer and the feminine form for the adulteress. English keeps the two labels separate, while Hebrew lets the shared root show that both are named for the same act and receive the same stated penalty.
ALSO GROWS
no'ef: An adulterer.
נֹאֵף
This masculine form names the man by the act the verse describes.
no'efet: An adulteress.
נֹאָפֶת
This feminine form shares the root, making the woman’s culpability explicit in the sentence.
מוֹת יוּמָת
mōṯ yūmāṯ
GROWS FROM
מות
m-w-t
To die; death.
“shall surely die” in this verse is mōṯ yūmāṯ. The Hebrew repeats the root for dying: an infinitive absolute followed by a Hophal verb, a construction rendered emphatically as “shall surely be put to death.” The repetition gives the penalty force, while the passive form states that death is imposed.
ALSO GROWS
mûṯ: To die.
מוּת
This verb is the root action repeated in the penalty formula.
māveṯ: Death.
מָוֶת
This noun makes explicit the outcome named by the repeated verb.
THE PATTERN
Across command, legal sentence, and inward intention, adultery remains a named breach with consequences.
You shall not commit adultery.If a man is found lying down with a woman who belongs to a husband, then both of them shall die, the man who lies with the woman and the woman. So you shall burn out the evil from Israel.But I say to you, whoever looks at a woman to crave her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.THE THREAD
You shall not commit adultery.Exodus uses the same root, נאף (na’aph, commit adultery), as Leviticus. One verse names the act as a prohibition; the other names its stated penalty and the two people held liable.
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