You must not have sexual relations with your brother’s wife; that would shame your brother.
Parallel translations
- WEB “‘You shall not uncover the nakedness of your brother’s wife. It is your brother’s nakedness.
- KJV Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy brother’s wife: it is thy brother’s nakedness.
- NKJV You shall not uncover the nakedness of your brother’s wife; it is your brother’s nakedness.
- NASB You shall not uncover the nakedness of your brother’s wife; it is your brother’s nakedness.
- NLT “Do not have sexual relations with your brother’s wife, for this would violate your brother.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Relations with a brother's wife are forbidden as a violation of the brother.
Overview
This guards the marriage bond of one's brother, treating such an act as an offense against him. (The later levirate provision for a deceased brother without heirs is a distinct, regulated exception, not a contradiction.) The principle protects marital faithfulness and the honor due within the family God has joined together.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 7
- Deut 25:5When brothers dwell together and one of them dies without a son, the widow must not marry outside the family. Her husband’s brother is to take her as his wife and fulfill the duty of a brother-in-law for her.
- Lev 20:21If a man marries his brother’s wife, it is an act of impurity. He has uncovered the nakedness of his brother; they shall be childless.
- Mark 12:19“Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies and leaves a wife but no children, the man is to marry his brother’s widow and raise up offspring for him.
- Matt 22:24“Teacher,” they said, “Moses declared that if a man dies without having children, his brother is to marry the widow and raise up offspring for him.
- Matt 14:3–4Now Herod had arrested John and bound him and put him in prison on account of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife,
- Luke 3:19But when he rebuked Herod the tetrarch regarding his brother’s wife Herodias and all the evils he had done,
- Mark 6:17For Herod himself had ordered that John be arrested and bound and imprisoned, on account of his brother Philip’s wife Herodias, whom Herod had married.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
Every sacrifice, every priest, and every day of atonement points beyond itself to the one perfect offering and the great High Priest who, by his own blood, makes the unclean holy once for all.
How Leviticus 18:16 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.