Wednesday, July 15, 2015

The coda to Lev 20:13, "dying, they will die," is not necessarily a threat

Lev 20:13 contains a coda that Lev 18:22 does not have:  מות יומתו דמיהם בם:  dying, they will die, their blood on/in them.

That sounds dire.  But is it?

Bible scholarship says that when the very is duplicated, as this is
(מות יומתו) it acts as an intensifier.  Thus, "dying they will die" should be interpreted as "they're REALLY going to die."

That still sounds dire.  But is it a threat, or a statement of fact, based on the presumption that a male, attempting to impregnate another male, will fail to do so, and the result of that failure will be that both lines of descent are extinguished due to lack of progeny?  Conversely, it could also mean that the successful impregnation of a male by a male would result in one of the two having to disown the progeny, thereby ending his own family line.

Either situation would make the coda true without making it a threat of harm or punishment to be meted out.

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