Imamat 20:9-10

Family Life and Sexual Prohibitions ¹ 

20:9 “‘If anyone ²  curses his father and mother ³  he must be put to death. He has cursed his father and mother; his blood guilt is on himself. ⁴  20:10 If a man ⁵  commits adultery with his neighbor’s wife, ⁶  both the adulterer and the adulteress must be put to death.

[20:9]  ¹ sn Compare the regulations in Lev 18:6-23.

[20:9]  ² tn Heb “If a man a man who.”

[20:9]  ³ tn Heb “makes light of his father and his mother.” Almost all English versions render this as some variation of “curses his father or mother.”

[20:9]  ⁴ tn Heb “his blood [plural] is in him.” Cf. NAB “he has forfeited his life”; TEV “is responsible for his own death.”

[20:9]  sn The rendering “blood guilt” refers to the fact that the shedding of blood brings guilt on those who shed it illegitimately (even the blood of animals shed illegitimately, Lev 17:4; cf. the background of Gen 4:10-11). If the community performs a legitimate execution, however, the blood guilt rests on the person who has been legitimately executed (see the remarks and literature cited in J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 328).

[20:10]  ⁵ tn Heb “And a man who.” The syntax here and at the beginning of the following verses elliptically mirrors that of v. 9, which justifies the rendering as a conditional clause.

[20:10]  ⁶ tc The reading of the LXX minuscule mss has been followed here (see the BHS footnote a-a). The MT has a dittography, repeating “a man who commits adultery with the wife of” (see the explanation in J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 328). The duplication found in the MT is reflected in some English versions, e.g., KJV, ASV, NASB, NIV.