What Does Leviticus 20:20 Mean?
If a man lies down with his uncle's wife, he has uncovered his uncle's nakedness. They shall bear their falling short; they shall die bare of children.
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 if a man shall lie with his uncle’s wife, he hath uncovered his uncle’s nakedness: they shall bear their sin; they shall die childless.THE KEY
The Hebrew word for “uncle” is dōd, which also means “beloved one” or “lover,” so kinship and desire meet in the word naming the boundary.
THE MEANING
This verse speaks now by naming a man lying with his uncle’s wife as an uncovering of his uncle’s nakedness, then stating that both bear their crookedness and die childless. It holds the kinship breach and its consequence together without softening the loss of children.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This verse undoes the belief that a sexual relation concerns only the two people in it: it names the uncle as exposed and says both bear the crookedness and its cost.
THE ROOT
דֹּדוֹ
dōdō
GROWS FROM
דוד
uncle; beloved one or lover
“uncle’s” in this verse is dōdō. The Hebrew word here is dōd, which also means a beloved one or lover. The kinship sense is clear in context, while the shared word holds kinship and desire in the same consonants.
ALSO GROWS
dōd: uncle; beloved one or lover
דּוֹד
This is the unsuffixed form of the word in the verse, with both kinship and beloved senses.
dōdîm: loves, caresses
דּוֹדִים
The word for intimate love in Song of Songs 1:2 shares these consonants, bringing the erotic resonance into view.
Dāwīd: David, the beloved
דָּוִד
The name David shares the consonants and carries the beloved sense, showing the root’s affective range.
גִּלָּה
gillāh
GROWS FROM
גלה
uncover, expose, reveal
“uncovered” in this verse is gillāh. The act is named as exposure: something covered is brought into view. The same root also describes revealing, so physical uncovering and disclosure share one Hebrew seed.
ALSO GROWS
niglāh: be revealed, become exposed
נִגְלָה
This form carries the same root into the state of being revealed, echoing the exposure named in the verse.
megallēh: one who reveals; revealing
מְגַלֶּה
This form makes the root’s sense of disclosure explicit alongside the physical uncovering.
THE PATTERN
The text makes sexual boundaries within a family visible by naming the kinship relation itself.
Do not uncover the nakedness of your father's brother. Do not draw near to his wife. She is your aunt.Cursed be he who lies with his father's wife, for he uncovers his father's wing. And all the people shall say, Amen.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
Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth, for your love is better than wine.Leviticus uses dōd for “uncle,” while Song of Solomon uses dōdîm for “love” or “caresses”; both share the consonants דוד. The same word family holds kinship and desire together, sharpening the boundary named in Leviticus.
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