Leviticus 18:7
Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy father, or the nakedness of thy mother: she is thy mother, thou shalt not uncover her nakedness.
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- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Turpitudinem patris tui et turpitudinem matris tuæ non discooperies : mater tua est : non revelabis turpitudinem ejus.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- ἀσχημοσύνην πατρός σου καὶ ἀσχημοσύνην μητρός σου οὐκ ἀποκαλύψεις· μήτηρ γάρ σού ἐστιν καὶ οὐκ ἀποκαλύψεις τὴν ἀσχημοσύνην αὐτῆς.
- Hebrew (WLC)
- עֶרְוַ֥ת אָבִ֛יךָ וְעֶרְוַ֥ת אִמְּךָ֖ לֹ֣א תְגַלֵּ֑ה אִמְּךָ֣ הִ֔וא לֹ֥א תְגַלֶּ֖ה עֶרְוָתָֽהּ
Haydock's commentary
Father, with whom the daughters must not have any connexion, as Myrrha had with Cynoras. (Metam. x.) (Haydock)
All relations in a right line are excluded for ever, according to the emperor Justinian. The reason of these various impediments is, 1. That God's people may not resemble infidels, who permitted such things, ver. 3. The Persians married their own mothers, daughters and sisters. (St. Clement of Alexandria, strom. 3.) Semiramis married her son Justin. Cleopatra was both mother and wife of the two Ptolemies, Philometor and Euergetes, or Physcon. (Tirinus)
The Egyptians took their sisters to wife for a long time, by the authority of their laws, and in imitation of Isis. (Diodorus 1.; Clem. recogn. 9.) Solon permitted people to marry their step-sisters by the same father, and Lycurgus only those by the same mother. (Philo ad 6. præc.) 2. By this law, the bands of society are strengthened, and families become connected. (St. Augustine, City of God xv. 16.) 3. Disorders which would easily take place under the same roof, on the prospect of a future marriage, are prevented. 4. The contrary practice would often prove contrary to order and decency, as the son would be raised above his mother. These regulations seem to have been made from the beginning, or at least from the time of the deluge; since the nations not subject to the law of Moses, are condemned for the transgression of them, ver. 24. See Genesis xix. 33. (Calmet)
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
St John Cassian The Conferences of John Cassian. Part I. Containing Conferences I-X, Chapter XXIII. The answer, that by the law of nature men were from the beginning liable to judgment and punishment
Serenus : God at man’s creation implanted in him naturally complete knowledge of the law, and if this had been kept by man, as at the beginning, according to the Lord’s purposes, there would not have been any need for another law to be given, which He afterwards proclaimed in writing: for it were superfluous for an external remedy to be offered, where an internal one was still implanted and vigorous. But since this had been, as we have said, utterly corrupted by freedom and the opportunity of sinning, the severe restrictions of the law of Moses were added as the executor and vindicator of this (earlier law) and to use the expressions of Scripture, as its helper, that through fear of immediate punishment men might be kept from altogether losing the good of natural knowledge, according to the word of the prophet who says “He gave the law to help them:” and it is also described by the Apost …
St Gregory the Great Book XI, To Augustine, Bishop of the Angli
A certain earthly law in the Roman republic allows the son and daughter, whether of a brother and sister, or of two brothers, or of two sisters, to marry together. But we have learnt by experience that progeny cannot ensue from such marriages. And the sacred law forbids to uncover the nakedness of kindred. Whence it follows that only the third or fourth generations of believers may be lawfully joined together. For the second which we have spoken of, ought by all means to abstain from each other. But to have intercourse with a stepmother is a grave offence, seeing that is also written in the law, thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy father ( Lev. xviii. 7 ). Not indeed that a son can uncover his father’s nakedness; but, since it is written in the law, They too shall be one flesh ( Gen. ii. …