Leviticus 18:22 addresses sexual conduct, specifically prohibiting sexual relations between men. The King James Version renders the command as: “Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.”
In its immediate context, the verse is part of a series of regulations concerning sexual behavior. The passage is commonly understood as prohibiting male-male sexual intercourse, while its interpretation and relevance for contemporary discussions about sexuality remain subjects of debate.
The setting of Leviticus 18
Much of Exodus and Leviticus focuses on the communication of God’s law for Israel through Moses. The Law of Moses (or Mosaic Law) consists of more than six hundred rules for Israel to follow in order to be separate from surrounding nations, to illustrate God’s holiness, and to show how problematic sin is.
Leviticus 18 includes rules to keep the people of Israel from behaving like the peoples of Egypt and Canaan (Leviticus 18:3). Instead, the people of Israel were to obey God’s law-because He was the Lord their God (Leviticus 18:4).
Author: Traditionally attributed to Moses
Written: Around 1400 BC
Genre: Law (Pentateuch)
Original audience: The Israelites in the wilderness
The sexual regulations surrounding the verse
Leviticus 18 includes a number of restrictions on sexual behavior, including these:
- a prohibition of “uncovering the nakedness” of blood relatives and close relatives (Leviticus 18:6-17)
- a prohibition of sex with women who are menstruating (Leviticus 18:19)
- a prohibition of marrying a woman and her sister (Leviticus 18:18)
- a prohibition of adultery (Leviticus 18:20)
- a prohibition of bestiality (Leviticus 18:23)
- a prohibition of sacrificing to the false god Molech (Leviticus 18:21)
- an instruction that men shall not lie with men as a man would lie with a woman (Leviticus 18:22)
The context seems plain enough that the command “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman” in Leviticus 18:22 refers to acts of homosexuality, since Leviticus 18:6-23 only includes offenses of a sexual nature.
While the prohibition of sacrifice to Molech is not explicitly sexual in nature, the implication by inclusion in this context is that such a ritual involved sexual activity.
Some translations make this unambiguous: “Do not practice homosexuality, having sex with another man as with a woman” (NLT).
What “lie with a male as with a woman” means
Leviticus 18:22 prohibits sexual relations between men, labeling such actions as an “abomination.” This reflects the ancient Israelite cultural and religious values regarding sexual conduct.
The Hebrew wording is traditionally understood as a prohibition against a man lying with another male in the manner in which a man lies with a woman. In this reading, the phrase describes the sexual act rather than a commercial relationship or a particular social class.
The Hebrew expression translated “as with a woman” contains the phrase mishkebey isha. The phrase consists of two nouns in a construct relationship. A construct chain has a head noun, the governing noun, at the beginning which is followed by a governed noun.
The head noun mishkebey is the construct plural form of mishkab. The word mishkab commonly refers to a lodging place or a bed. But it can also express the verbal notion of lying down on a bed.
In Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 the postconstructus is not “noontime” but “a woman”. Hence the going to bed is not specified here to be “at noontime” but “with a woman”. This at any rate is how the phrase has been understood traditionally.
Going to bed with someone, as in English, usually has sexual connotations in Hebrew. The Hebrew verb shakhab (“to lie down”) seems to behave like the English “to sleep” in this respect.
In sum, the prohibition in Lev. 18:22 is usually read “with a male you shall not go to bed as one goes to bed with a woman” or “with a male you shall not lie down as one lies down with a woman.”
Does the verse prohibit homosexuality generally?
The context of Leviticus 18:22 is commonly taken to indicate that the verse refers to male-male sexual intercourse generally. Some suggest that the reference to Molech-worship somehow implies a prohibition of homosexual prostitution and not of committed homosexual relationships.
However, Leviticus 18:22 in this context seems to be a clear reference to homosexuality in general. The context of both passages clearly restricts sexual activity and not commerce.
Leviticus 20 adds specificity to these sexual regulations and prohibits adultery (Leviticus 20:10), lying with one’s mother (Leviticus 20:11), lying with one’s daughter-in-law (Leviticus 20:12), and males lying with males (Leviticus 20:13).
The same terminology is used in Leviticus 18:22 as is used in Leviticus 20:13. If these two passages are referring to prostitution only, then the prohibitions only forbid prostitution with a neighbor’s wife, a mother, a daughter-in-law, and a man-in other words, sexual activity within those relationships is not actually prohibited in this section of the Law of Moses.
Homosexuality is characterized as “detestable” and is distinctly prohibited in Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13.
The Hebrew interpretation debate
Some interpreters have questioned the traditional understanding of these texts based on philological insights in the work of Saul Olyan. Both Olyan’s and Walsh’s article focus on the precise understanding of the phrase mishkebey isha in Lev. 18:22 and 20:13.
Saul M. Olyan’s essay “’And with a Male You Shall Not Lie the Lying down of a Woman’: On the Meaning and Significance of Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13,” in the Journal of the History of Sexuality 5 (1994): 179-206, is not readily accessible to most biblical interpreters.
Jerome T. Walsh therefore did us a good service in drawing our attention to Olyan’s contribution in an essay published in the Journal of Biblical Literature. In “Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13: Who is Doing What To Whom?,” JBL 120 (2001): 201-209, Jerome T. Walsh argues that the traditional understanding of the construct chain, still followed by Olyan, is incorrect.
Walsh’s conclusion that Lev. 18:22 does not prohibit all male-male sexual intercourse but only those in which a free, male citizen of Israel is penetrated is therefore not warranted.
Walsh notes the difference of verbs used in the passages cited by Olyan: the women are said to “know” (experience) mishkab zachar, while the men are said to “lie down (with a male)” the mishkebey isha.
The difference is that in Lev. 18:22 and 20:13 mishkebey isha is a cognate accusative. In other words, it has the same root as the verb. Walsh compares Hebrew idioms such as “to dream a dream” or “to sin a sin” and observes that “this construction regularly describes an action performed by the subject, not the subject’s experience of someone else.”
He concludes from this that “the man to whom the laws of Lev 18:22 and 20:13 are addressed, then, is the one who performs the ‘lyings down of a woman’” and then assumes that the one who performs the lying down must be “the one who acts as the receptive partner.”
This is not warranted. When “x lies down with y,” x may be described as “the one who performs” and may indeed be “the receptive partner” but this is by no means certain and in fact more commonly it is the other way round.
From the observation that in the case of cognitive accusatives the construct regularly describes the one performing rather than suffering the action, he jumps to the conclusion that the postconstructus must further qualify the subject.
So while we may all agree that the one who lies down with a male is the one who “performs” the lying down, this does not yet decide whether he does so “as a woman” or whether his lying down is as if “with a woman”.
Given the variety of relationships that can be indicated by a construct chain, how does one decide? Walsh appeals to the use of “male” rather than “man” to suggest that “male” here must mean “the penetrator.”
But because “man” can be used in Hebrew impersonally without regard for gender or to refer generally human beings, again without regard to gender, the use of “male” may simply draw attention to the sex of the people involved without on its own establishing who does what to whom.
My preference remains for the traditional understanding of the postconstructus as a complement, not dissimilar to 2 Sam. 4:5 (“at noontime”, here: “with a woman”).
This is based on the observation that the verbal sentence to which the construct chain is a shortcut in all attested cases has a complement. The subject of the verbal sentence implied-the x who performs the lying down-is implied in the verbal idea expressed in the construct noun.
This makes it more likely, in my view, that the postconstructus provides the complement (“with a woman”) rather than a specification of the subject (“[as] a woman”).
Leviticus 18:22 and Leviticus 20:13
Leviticus 20:13 reads alongside Leviticus 18:22 and is significant because it repeats the same basic terminology in a section that gives penalties for several prohibited sexual acts.
Leviticus 20 adds specificity to these sexual regulations and prohibits adultery (Leviticus 20:10), lying with one’s mother (Leviticus 20:11), lying with one’s daughter-in-law (Leviticus 20:12), and males lying with males (Leviticus 20:13).
The same terminology is used in Leviticus 18:22 as is used in Leviticus 20:13. The parallel wording supports the traditional conclusion that both passages address sexual activity rather than prostitution alone.
Ancient Israelite values and the word “abomination”
In Leviticus 18:22, “abomination” signifies a strong moral disapproval of certain actions, indicating that sexual relations between men are considered unacceptable within the context of ancient Israelite law.
Leviticus 18:22 reflects the cultural values of ancient Israel, where sexual relations were strictly defined and aimed at preserving the moral fabric of the community.
The verse therefore belongs to a wider legal and religious framework in which Israel was commanded to live differently from Egypt and Canaan and to obey the Lord’s regulations concerning holiness, worship, family relationships, and sexual conduct.
How Christians understand the law today
While the Law of Moses was fulfilled by Christ on the cross (Ephesians 2:15) and that Law is no longer in effect (Galatians 3:24-25), it is evident that God’s view of homosexual acts has not changed-homosexuality is still a violation of God’s design for humanity (see Romans 1; 1 Corinthians 6:9; and 1 Timothy 1:10).
It is also important to recognize that God’s love for humanity (John 3:16) is greater than our failings, and Christ died for all-including those who struggle with homosexual desires and those who have acted on those desires.
While God’s design for men and women does not include homosexuality, in His grace He saves all who believe in Christ-including those who are homosexual (1 Corinthians 6:11).
God has provided for salvation by grace through faith (Ephesians 2:8-9) and then asks all who have believed to walk in a manner worthy of that calling (Ephesians 4:1). As children of God, we no longer walk in our old ways of sin.
Implications for contemporary discussion
Today, Leviticus 18:22 invites discussions about sexuality and morality, encouraging individuals to consider the historical context of ancient texts and their relevance to contemporary values.
The central interpretive questions concern the meaning of the Hebrew wording, the scope of the prohibition, the relationship between Leviticus 18 and Leviticus 20, and the way Christians understand Mosaic law after Christ.
The traditional reading understands the verse as a prohibition of male-male sexual intercourse generally, rather than a prohibition limited to prostitution or a specific exploitative arrangement. Other interpreters have proposed a narrower reading based on the grammar and syntax of the Hebrew phrase.
The debate demonstrates that the verse must be read in its literary, historical, legal, and theological context. Its immediate setting is a list of regulations concerning sexual conduct, and its wording has traditionally been understood as prohibiting a man from having sexual relations with another male in the manner of intercourse with a woman.
