Leviticus 18:8

Lev 18:8 The nakedness of thy father’s wife shalt thou not uncover: it [is] thy father’s nakedness.

Ver. 8. It is thy father’s nakedness.] For "the wife hath not power over her own body, but the husband": {1Co 7:4} and when her chastity is assaulted, she should say, saith Chrysostom, Non est corpus meum, sed mariti, My body is not mine, but my husband’s.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Which is thy stepmother.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

(8) The nakedness of thy father’s wife.—Whilst the former prohibition refers to the son’s own mother, this law is directed against illicit commerce with his stepmother. Here we have an instance where the phrase “to uncover the nakedness” denotes both illicit commerce and incestuous marriage. Accordingly the administrators of the law during the second Temple defined it as follows; a man’s father’s wife is for ever prohibited, whether she be simply betrothed or married to his father, whether she be divorced or not, whether she be a widow or not; all connection with her on the part of the father’s son is forbidden. If he lie with her while her husband is alive, he is doubly guilty, first, because she is near of kin, and secondly, because she is another man’s wife. This, therefore, includes the sin of Reuben with Bilhah, his father’s concubine (Gen_35:22), and of Absalom with the wives of his father (2Sa_16:20-23; 1Ki_2:17), which was not incestuous marriage but adultery, since their husbands were alive and the wives were not divorced from them, as well as the sin practised among some of the Christians in Corinth, which consisted in sons actually marrying their divorced stepmothers in the lifetime of their fathers, and which the Apostle denounced with such severity (1Co_5:1-4). Among the ancient Arabs, marriages with stepmothers were common, and to this day among some tribes in Africa, when a father is unable through advanced age to attend to his young wives, he voluntarily gives them over to his eldest son. The Koran, however, like the Mosaic law, proscribes these marriages (Koran, 4:27).

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

8. This is the one case which appears (apart from two others in the imprecations, Deu_27:22-23), but stated in different words, in Deut. (Deu_22:30 [Heb. 23:1], Deu_27:20). This has been thought to point to the code represented by the v. in Deut. as earlier than that here; but an easier explanation is to suppose that the practice, as specially prevalent at the time, needed specific prohibition. Illicit connexion with a stepmother here forbidden, was not uncommon in the polygamous East. See Driver, Deut., p. 259, for the custom in Syria and Arabia. It seems to have been still common in the time of Ezekiel (Eze_22:10).

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The nakedness of thy father's wife shalt thou not uncover,.... That is, who is indeed a man's father's wife, but not his own mother, but a stepmother or mother-in-law; or otherwise this law would coincide with the former; a man lying with such an one is accursed by the law, Deu 27:23; such an incestuous copulation was that of Reuben with Bilhah, and Absalom with his father's concubines or secondary wives, and such an incestuous marriage was that of the Corinthians, Co1 5:1; and of Antiochus Soter, king of Syria, with Stratonice his mother-in-law (c): and even it was criminal to do this after a father's death, as Jarchi interprets it; and though she was only betrothed, and not married, and the father dead after such betrothing; as Gersom; nay, though she was divorced by the father, yet was not lawful for the son to have, no, not after his death:

it is thy father's nakedness; being espoused to him, and so one flesh with him; and the son and father being one flesh, such a mixture must be unlawful; and since then the nakedness of a mother-in-law is the father's, then surely that of an own mother's must be so likewise, which confirms a sense given of it in Lev 18:7, Cicero (d) exclaims against such marriages as incredible and unheard of, as instances of unbridled lust and singular impudence.

(c) Vid. Julian. in Misopogon, p. 72, &c. (d) Orat. 14. pro A. Cluentio Avito.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Compare the case of Reuben, Gen 49:3-4. See 1Co 5:1.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Father. He hath known her; and to him she belongs, as being one flesh. (Haydock) --- If he were even dead, it would shew a want of respect to marry his widow, though she were not your own mother. (Calmet) --- This law, Ruben and the incestuous Corinthian transgressed. [1 Corinthians 5:1] (Tirinus)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

i.e. Thy step-mother. Examples of this are Gen 35:22; 49:4; 1Co 5:1. It is thy father’s nakedness, by interest and relation; that which he only may uncover.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

8. Father’s wife — His stepmother is especially intended.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Intercourse with a father's wife, i.e., with a step-mother, is forbidden as uncovering the father's nakedness; since a father's wife stood in blood-relationship only to the son whose mother she was. But for the father's sake her nakedness was to be inaccessible to the son, and uncovering it was to be punished with death as incest (Lev 20:11; Deu 27:20). By the "father's wife" we are probably to understand not merely his full lawful wife, but his concubine also, since the father's bed was defiled in the latter case no less than in the former (Gen 49:4), and an accursed crime was committed, the punishment of which was death. At all events, it cannot be inferred from Lev 19:20-22 and Exo 21:9, as Knobel supposes, that a milder punishment was inflicted in this case.

Keil & Delitzsch — Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament (1861–1891) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API. (Old Testament only.)

ערות אשת אביך THE NAKEDNESS OF THY FATHER'S WIFE [SHALT THOU NOT UNCOVER] — This is intended to include in the prohibition of union with one's father's wife already mentioned v. 7. even the doing of this after his death (Sanhedrin 54a).

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.