ואני אתן את פני באיש ההוא, “and as for Me, I will give My special attention to that man;” Ibn Ezra writes that this statement presupposes that the sin was committed in the privacy of the sinner’s house or secretly, as otherwise judicial steps have to be taken by the court. Some commentators understand this wording to imply that G’d is going to single out the offspring of that person for extinction.

למען טמא את מקדשי, ”(he had done what he did) in order to defile and desecrate My Sanctuary, etc.” Rashi feels that in this instance the word מקדשי refers to the whole of the Jewish people, seeing they have been declared a holy people, עם קדוש, by G’d Himself. Conduct, such as that of the person who worships the Moloch deity, results in the presence of the Shechinah leaving the Jewish people, thus depriving them of their status of being a holy nation. This is also the reason why in this instance the Torah demands that the death penalty by stoning be administered by the עם הארץ, “the people for whose sake the earth had been created,” whereas in other similar executions the Torah simply writes באבן ירגמו אותו, “they are to stone him,” without appending a specific subject to who those “they” are. Seeing that the man worshipping the Moloch had put at risk every single Israelite’s status in the eyes of the Creator, they all have to demonstrate their disapproval of that sinner by throwing a stone or stones at him.

לזנות אחר המולך, “to stray after the Moloch.” When Rashi, following Torat Kohanim, writes that these words include anyone straying after other types of idolatry whose form of worship is of a similar nature or even of a different nature, he means that the reason why the Torah singled out this particular cult for expressing its extreme abhorrence, is that this form of idolatry is especially abhorrent. When such a cult is worshipped even in a manner not typifying the norms of worship for that particular idolatry, it still carries the death penalty of karet. Nachmanides writes that this is not so, seeing that according to the Talmud Sanhedrin 64 the penalty applicable to that cult is only for those who “crowns” that deity, looking up to it as a “king” [as implied by the word Moloch. Ed.]

כי איש אשר יקלל את אביו, “for any man who curses his father, etc.” According to Nachmanides this line is a continuation from the commandment in 19,2 to revere one’s parents. There the commandment had been expressed as a positive commandment, whereas here it is reinforced as a negative commandment, telling us what is in store for people who not only ignore 19,2, but who engage in doing the opposite. Alternately, the Torah draws our attention to the harshness of the penalty by reminding us that G’d commanded us to sanctify ourselves. Anyone who curses G’d’s “partners,” i.e. our parents who helped bring us into this world, has thereby frustrated the Creator’s design and deserves a suitable punishment. This, after all, is also the penalty for marital infidelity, etc.; the underlying concept is similar in all such cases. Abstention from incestuous and promiscuous behaviour furthers G’d’s plan to sanctify our world, whereas violating His laws concerning chastity does the opposite. The positioning of our verse here immediately after the imperative to become holy is quite natural then. Some commentators understand this sequence in a somewhat narrower frame, i.e. verses 9 and 10 respectively as being justified by the simple fact that the mamzer, bastard, product of incestuous relationship does not recognize his father and mother as such, and therefore is liable to curse them. The Torah now lists some of the laws of incest already detailed in chapter 18, in order to spell out the penalties for them, especially those that constitute a capital sin. These include sleeping with one’s father wife, any woman married to another man, one’s daughter-in-law, and indulging in homo-sexual relations, sleeping with a woman and her daughter, including her granddaughter. This was not spelled out, as only some of the woman’s relatives have been spelled out. Clearly, if sleeping with one’s granddaughter is a capital offence so is sleeping with one’s daughter. Naturally one’s own relatives are also included in the list of incestuous relationships subject to the death penalty. One’s aunt and the wife of one’s brother are singled out to remind us that this is forbidden on pain of death even if it is clear that no issue could result from their unions, i.e. that they would die childless, (verse 20). Some more relatives need not be listed specifically as culpability for illicit relations with them has already become clear when more distantly related relatives have been for bidden on pain of death either by tribunal or at the hands of G’d. The reason why, when mentioning the penalty of karet, the Torah adds the enigmatic words לעיני בני עמה, “in the sight of members of her people,” (verse 17) is because this is the Torah’s way of saying that the guilty party will die in her youth, thus enabling the survivors to reflect on the cause of her early death, and for this to act as a deterrent. The meaning of the words עונם ישאו, commonly translated as: “they will have to carry the burden of their sin,” is that the sin will stick to both of the guilty parties like glue from that moment on, and will result in their various endeavours and enterprises in life all failing to be successful. The reason why the Torah repeats the prohibition of a man to sleep with his own wife when the latter is in a state of niddah, menstrual bleeding, is to inform us that the karet penalty applies on such union even if the coitus has not been completed.

דמיו בו, ”his blood is upon himself.” The meaning of this expression is similar to דמו בראשו, “his blood is on his own head.” The same applies to someone who lies in an adulterous manner with someone else’s wife. He is no less guilty than someone who has cursed father or mother.

ואיש אשר יקח את אחותו, “and a man who takes his sister as a wife.” Nachmanides already comments on why the Torah here uses an expression for a sexual union which elsewhere always means a legal union, i.e. marriage. This seems especially inappropriate, as, according to halachah, any such “marriage” ceremony between brother and sister is null and void. Nachmanides therefore does not understand the word יקח here in the legal sense of the word, but as a graphic description of how brother and sister who both live under the same roof are liable to slide into an intimate relationship precisely because they are so familiar with one another and the frequency of the opportunity makes it hard to resist. Whereas the normal expression in halachah describing sexual intercourse between two people is ביאה, i.e. one party has to “come” to the other, here, due to both parties already being in the same location, that word would lose its normal connotation. All the brother has to do is יקח, take the sister, just as he takes a glass of water. You will find that the Torah has adopted this phraseology of יקח whenever the union of heterosexual relatives who are likely to live in the same house is described.

וראה את ערותה, “and he sees her nakedness;” Nachmanides writes that it is the style of the Torah to teach morality by varying the expressions used for the same phenomenon. Sometimes sexual intercourse by people whose sexual union is forbidden is described as “revealing nakedness,” other times it is described as “seeing nakedness,” as here. Other times the same act is simply described as “sleeping or lying together.” The reason why the Torah may have chosen to describe brother/sister sexual relations as “seeing nakedness,” may be because being in the same house together all the time” may not have left much to reveal that either one of them had not seen before without their being intimate with one another. By repeating that the sister also saw her brother naked, the Torah may indicate that the attraction and desire was completely mutual and that neither force nor enticement was needed. When a female is seduced unwillingly, she would protest in the loudest possible terms. What is described here therefore occurred by mutual consent, so that no investigation was needed to determine that both were equally guilty. [Compare Deut. Chapter 22 where seduction or rape between two people not related to one another genetically are discussed. Ed.] Seeing that when brother and sister are in the habit of sleeping in the same bed, the brother might have perpetrated his act without the prior consent of his sister, or even without her knowledge, the Torah reports her consent in order to justify the penalty she will have to suffer.

חסד הוא, “it is a shameful disgraceful act.” People, by nature, possess a sense of shame that often deters them from committing sins, acts that are despicable. We find the word חסד in that context in Proverbs 25,10 פן יחסדך שומע, “lest he who will hear it puts you to shame.” (By revealing something you would have preferred to keep secret.) Nachmanides writes that he feels that the word חסד in our verse is used in the way it is used in nearly all other instances in the Bible, namely referring to an act of kindness. How then does this fit our situation? Precisely because brother and sister are closely related it was the duty of the brother to see to it that his sister find a suitable husband, something he has now made difficult if not impossible because he indulged his lust. The Torah repeatedly stated that the prohibition to reveal the other party’s nakedness was because of the close relationship that exists between such parties, so that it is taking unfair advantage of that relationship. It is as if the Torah asks the rhetorical question: “is this the way you show your sister true kindness?” The Torah speaks of חסד in the masculine mode, i.e. הוא to show that it always considers the male to have been the one initiating the intimacy between the two. This approach can also be applied to the verse from Proverbs we quoted earlier, namely: “the one who revealed your innermost secret has deprived you of all the kindness he should have shown you.”

ונכרתו לעיני עם, “they shall be cut off in the sight of their whole nation.” The message of this verse is that when you commit a sin in secret, I, G’d, will see to it that it becomes public by means of the penalty I will exact from you in plain view of all. The Torah chose to tell us this in connection with sins usually committed in the privacy of one’s home. What applies here also applies to all the sins that are punishable by the karet penalty.

ערות אחותו גלה, עונו ישא, “he will have to bear the burden of his sin for having revealed the nakedness of his sister.” Ibn Ezra adds that if her brother had raped his sister so that only he alone had revealed the nakedness of his sister, of course, only the brother will be subject to the penalty described here. Nachmanides writes that the reason that the word עונו, “his guilt,” is written in the singular mode is that each of the two parties will have to bear the burden of their joint sin individually. It is similar to the situation in verse 19 where the Torah uses the word עוונם, “their collective guilt” in the plural mode. Ibn Ezra mentions that the reason why the Torah did not spell out the penalty for sleeping with the grandson or granddaughter may be that the senior partner in that relationship, due to old age, may not get much carnal pleasure out of gratifying his desire.

את מקורה הערה, “he has bared the source of her blood.” Ibn Ezra views this expression, used here for the first time, as an indication that the Torah considers this sleeping with a menstruating partner as an abomination reflecting something very depraved. He explains the additional words:

והיא גלתה את מקור דמיה, “and she revealed the source of her blood,” as applicable only if she was a willing partner in the union, not if she had been raped.

אשת אחיו, נדה היא, “the wife of his brother, is as forbidden as a menstruating woman.” Our sages (Yevamot 54) interpret this somewhat unclear wording to mean that even incomplete coitus with one’s sister-in-law is as serious a sin as sleeping with one’s own wife while she is menstruating. The penalty makes this point quite clear. Some commentators feel that the Torah was especially harsh here, seeing that under certain circumstances, such as the brother having died without ever having had children, it may actually become a mitzvah to marry this sister-in-law who had become widowed by performing the levirate marriage ceremony with her.

ואיש או אשה כי יהיה בהם אוב או ידעוני, “any man or woman practicing the cult of ov or yidoni, etc.” The reason that the Torah mentions the word אשה especially, although like all negative commandments women are as culpable as men, is because women far more than men are known to have practiced these cults.