What does it mean to uncover nakedness in the Bible?

Lev. 18:6-18.

The divine prohibition in this portion of our chapter refers to near relations and rests simply on the divine will and authority: "I am Jehovah." Marriage was not, save at the beginning, to unite "one's own flesh," naturally united or near already.

"6 None of you shall approach to all (or, any) flesh of his flesh to uncover nakedness: I [am] Jehovah. 7 The nakedness of thy father, and the nakedness of thy mother, shalt thou not uncover (she [is] thy mother); thou shalt not uncover her nakedness. 8 The nakedness of thy father's wife shalt thou not uncover: it [is] thy father's nakedness. 9 The nakedness of thy sister, daughter of thy father, or daughter of thy mother, born at home or born abroad, their nakedness thou shalt not uncover. 10 The nakedness of thy son's daughter or of thy daughter's daughter, their nakedness thou shalt not uncover; for theirs [is] thy nakedness. 11 The nakedness of thy father's wife's daughter, begotten of thy father (she [is] thy sister), thou shalt not uncover her nakedness. 12 The nakedness of thy father's sister shalt thou not uncover; she [is] thy father's own flesh. 13 The nakedness of thy mother's sister shalt thou not uncover; for she [is] thy mother's own flesh. 14 The nakedness of thy father's brother shalt thou not uncover; thou shalt not approach his wife: she [is] thine aunt. 15 The nakedness of thy daughter-in-law shalt thou not uncover (she [is] thy son's wife); thou shalt not uncover her nakedness. 16 The nakedness of thy brother's wife shalt thou not uncover; it [is] thy brother's nakedness. 17 The nakedness of a woman and her daughter shalt thou not uncover; thou shalt not take her son's daughter, nor her daughter's daughter, to uncover her nakedness (they are] her own flesh): it [is] wickedness. 18 And thou shalt not take a wife to her sister, to vex [her] (or, be a rival), to uncover her nakedness, beside her during her life" (vers. 6-18).

The opening is singularly emphatic, "Man, man, etc." This the Septuagint follows closely. Man's attention is called for. Marriage is only honourable where God's will is observed. Heb. 13:4 in no way sanctions or sanctifies a forbidden union. The true rendering is, Let marriage be honourable (not "among all" as the Revisers say, but) "in all things," and the bed be undefiled. The construction is alike before and after. It is an injunction, not an affirmation as in the A.V. with Wiclif, Cranmer, and the Geneva translators. The Rhemish is an ungrammatical evasion, meant to correspond with the Vulgate, which would seem to take the Greek like the Peschito, Wiclif, etc. Tyndale alone was right. Against unions or licences, such as are here indicated, Jehovah sets His face. His name from beginning to end of the chapter is the solemn warrant against them all. If an Israelite allowed passion to carry him away, it was rebellion against Jehovah and at his own peril.

But in these near relationships marriage was unnatural and dishonourable in the measure of the nearness. And that intercourse which was proper to the married tie, forbidden in every case outside it, was here sinful and shameful in the highest degree, whether in the superior place of father or mother, and the nearest on either side, or in the equal one of sister howsoever born, or in the inferior one of daughter-in-law. And who would be bold enough to deny that the corresponding ones, not here specified, are not really implied? It is the man who is here prohibited: surely the woman is so no less. Further, the prohibition goes beyond blood-relations and extends in like degree to those by marriage connection. Of great moment it was to cultivate the warmest affection between all that stood together in near kin or connection. But still more was it essential that their mutual love should be ordered in all purity.

There was a marked exception requisite to keep up tribal inheritance in Israel, which though existing elsewhere applied to no other people as to them, still less to a Christian; a Levirate or brother in-law marriage. It was when a man died childless, and his brother or next of kin was called to raise up seed to the deceased, the aim being to bind up the family line and the inheritance; so much this, that if the nearer kinsman refused, the widow was entitled publicly to loose his shoe and spit in his face.

Verse 17 shows that the prohibition goes beyond this to the incongruous and unnatural intercourse with a woman and her daughter, or her son's daughter or her daughter's daughter, though all strangers to him. And verse 18 forbids an Israelite to have two sisters together, for the reason assigned. Christianity goes to the root of the matter by recalling, as our Lord did, to what was at the beginning when God made one man and one woman. If a man lost his wife by death, he was not only free to marry another but might find it his duty for the children's sake or his own.

" 9 For everyone that curses (or, reviles) his father and his mother shall surely be put to death; he has cursed his father and his mother; his blood is upon him. 10 And a man that commits adultery with a man's wife, that commits adultery with his neighbour's wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death. 11 And a man that lies with his father's wife has uncovered his father's nakedness: both of them shall surely be put to death; their blood [is] upon them. 12 And if a man lie with his daughter-in-law, both of them shall surely be put to death; they have wrought confusion; their blood [is] upon them. 13 And if a man lie with a male, as he with a woman, both of them have committed abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood [is] upon them. 14 And if a man take a wife and her mother, it [is] enormity (or, incest) with fire shall they burn him and them, that there be no enormity among you. 15 And if a man lie with a beast for copulation, he shall surely be put to death; and ye shall kill the beast. 16 And if a woman approach to any beast to gender with it, thou shalt kill the woman and the beast: they shall surely be put to death; their blood [is] upon them. 17 And if a man take his sister, his father's daughter, or his mother's daughter, and see her nakedness and she see his nakedness, it [is] a disgrace: and they shall be cut off before the eyes of the sons of their people. He has uncovered his sister's nakedness; he shall bear his iniquity. 18 And if a man shall lie with a woman in her infirmity, and uncover her nakedness, he has laid naked her flux, and she has uncovered the fountain of her blood; and both of them shall be cut off from among their people. 19 And the nakedness of thy mother's sister and of thy father's sister thou shalt not uncover; for he has laid naked his own flesh (or, near of kin): they shall bear their iniquity. 20 And if a man lie with his aunt, he has uncovered his uncle's nakedness: they shall bear their sin; they shall die childless. 21 And if a man take his brother's wife, it is uncleanness; he has uncovered his brother's nakedness: they shall be childless" (vers. 9-21).

Here then we commence with open and base dishonour to one's parents, which was to be punished with death. And the same sentence is pronounced upon the nearest and deepest wound one man can inflict on another, a sin not foully wrong only, but in despite of Jehovah who instituted married union from the beginning. His law was as extreme against these sins, as against what denied Himself.

But greater impurity prevailed among the heathen, and especially those who occupied the promised land. The sons of Israel too were soon to be exposed to their shameless example. He who gave them Canaan knew their hearts far better than they themselves did. Hence these solemn and painful denunciations of incest, etc. Flesh is the same root of vileness in a Jew as in a Gentile. Restraint may hinder its outbreak; but evil lusts are there, ready to carry away the impulsive and headstrong beyond all bounds.

The Lord Jesus is in every way the Saviour, not from divine punishment only but from sins. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of offences according to the riches of God's grace. But in Him we have life also, life eternal, for He is the Son, and gives nothing less than this life to everyone that believes on Him. And life in Christ is the indispensable basis of the new nature, and of our new relationships and duties, affections and privileges, crowned since redemption with the indwelling Spirit for the Christian and for the church, that both might have an immediate link with God and power from Him.

Leviticus 18 keeps them from dishonouring themselves in the things which belong to nature itself — to what man ought to be in his natural relations, that he might not dishonour himself. Man ought not to do it; but, not having honoured God, he has been left to dishonour himself (compare Rom. 1). The people of God, being brought into nearness to Him, are taught on this subject. They were separated from the evil of the world they were called out of, and the reckless profligacy into which Satan had driven degraded man as his sport. Verse 6 is the great principle which is insisted on in the chapter — not to confound the intimacies of marriage with the confidence of natural relationship. Those things are forbidden into which, in the satanic and unnatural indulgence of flesh, Satan plunged man, and to which God had given them up to work all uncleanness with greediness. The comeliness of nature is maintained; what is defiling forbidden. Jehovah's statutes and judgments were to guide them: man in probation walking in them would live.

Thus the law introduced changes in the innermost circle of social life, and Israel, Jehovah's people, had to learn from it what were the Lord's ordinances relative to marriage, and in what light He would view any infraction of them as there laid down (20). In certain cases it would be wickedness, and death was the penalty annexed; in other cases, to die childless was the penalty such would suffer (20:20-21). What, then, was lawful to Abraham and Amram, was, to their descendants, by the law made unlawful. The marriage of the former if he had lived under the law, would have been wickedness. The marriage of the latter would have entailed on him and Jochebed the bearing of their iniquity. Now this deliverance of the Lord on the subject of marriage, clearly concerns not only Israel, but Christians as well; and although the marriage laws of our own land are not wholly regulated by this revelation made to Moses, still, all that God has here forbidden is reckoned illegal, and no Christian would act aright, if he transgressed the regulations laid down, which plainly tell us what to avoid, leaving us to gather from the prohibitions herein stated what unions are not reckoned unlawful in the eyes of the Lord.

Throughout the man is addressed, and never the woman, and the prohibitions are classed under three heads; first, what concerns certain blood relations of his own (18:6-13); next, certain relations in law (14-16); and lastly, certain relations of his wife (17-18). Of his own blood relations, besides his direct line, i.e., his mother or his offspring, collateral branches are forbidden to him reaching out to his aunts by blood, the sisters of his father, or the sisters of his mother. All within that range are near of kin, and as such are debarred him. And if a man went in to his aunt by blood, they were both to bear their iniquity (20:19). Of his relations in law three were forbidden; viz., his son's wife, his brother's wife, and his aunt by marriage, and all three on the ground that they had been wives of his relations by blood.

Hence it is clear that relations in law were not put in the same category as relations by blood. The penalty for going in to his uncle's widow was not the same as if he went in to his own aunt, who was near of kin to him (20:20). His son's daughter was forbidden him, because she was near of kin to him; but his daughter-in-law was forbidden, because she had been his son's wife. So whatever relation by blood was forbidden to the man, the widow of the corresponding relations in blood was equally forbidden, but on the ground that she had been the wife of his near of kin.

Thus we see that consanguinity is really the guiding principle on the man's side, whether as regards his blood relations, or those relations in law, which were forbidden on the ground that they had been the wives of relations in blood. This last is an important point, and casts light on a question where men have added restrictions unknown to the principle laid down in God's word. And we see how needful it is to come to the book to learn God's mind in the matter, instead of drawing our own deductions, and putting relations in law as such, on the same ground as relations in blood. The reader may see by comparing 20:12 with 20:20, 21 how needful it was to learn God's mind from His own written word.

Coming now to the wife relations, with whom the man is not at liberty to contract a marriage, her own direct line is positively forbidden him. This we can all understand. But here we have left the ground of consanguinity, for between a man and his wife there is, unless he marries his cousin, no blood relationship, and their union does not make it. They are one flesh, but between them there is no tie of consanguinity. Hence, besides the wife's direct line, no collateral branch on her side is forbidden the man, except her sister during her lifetime. The Lord in mercy to the wife would preserve her by this law from the sorrow incident to her husband, following the example of Jacob. Beyond this God's word does not go.

Surrounded as Israel were with all the filth of heathendom, they were to be for Jehovah, and to keep His commandments and His ordinances. As His people, He told them what they were to do, and what they were to be. Certain instructions for their camp life to guard them from idolatry we have looked at in the previous chapter of this book. We now approach the chapter which treats of marriage, for, as Jehovah's people, He prescribed within what degrees of consanguinity or affinity, such unions would be deemed unlawful, and precursors of divine chastisement. Till Israel came to Sinai, we have no hint of any marriage law laid down by God. Before the flood, and certainly in the days of Cain, what the Levitical law ruled as incest, was lawful. Men married their sisters. And even in Abraham's day such unions do not seem to have been unlawful. Sarah was Abraham's half sister. Jochebed was Amram's own aunt, his father's sister. By the the law of Leviticus, such unions as Abraham and Sarah, Amram and Jochebed, and Jacob and Rachel, were distinctly forbidden (18:11-12, 18).

Any sexual relation with a blood relative is firmly forbidden (vv. 6-18). Even secular governments recognize the morality of this, so that incest is illegal. Abraham, married his half-sister (Gen. 20:11-12), but this was early in human history, when there was not the same danger of children being badly affected. “The laws of heredity show that in a fallen race, the inheritance of disease to which all are liable is intensified when similar tendencies are found in both parents” (Numerical Bible — Genesis — page 349). Time only increases the weakness that such disease brings in any genetic line, and of course this would be doubly increased by the marriage of two from the same line.

Any sexual relation with a blood relative is firmly forbidden (vv. 6-18). Even secular governments recognize the morality of this, so that incest is illegal. Abraham, married his half-sister (Gen. 20:11-12), but this was early in human history, when there was not the same danger of children being badly affected. "The laws of heredity show that in a fallen race, the inheritance of disease to which all are liable is intensified when similar tendencies are found in both parents" (Numerical Bible - Genesis - page 349). Time only increases the weakness that such disease brings in any genetic line, and of course this would be doubly increased by the marriage of two from the same line.

This evil defiled the assembly at Corinth when a man took his father's wife, that is, his stepmother (1 Cor. 5:1). The assembly was told that such sin was not even named among the nations, and the man was put out from the assembly (v. 12). Only when the sin was judged and discontinued was the man restored (2 Cor. 2:6-8).

These laws deal with matters that are morally wrong and are still wrong today. Though the believer is not in any sense "under law," but "under grace," this does nor mean that he is free to break over bounds of morality. Rather, it means that grace gives him both the desire and the ability to carry out the righteousness required by the law, without considering himself under the law's authority (Rom. 8:3-4).

And Jehovah's words reveal all the degradations and vile abominations human nature, the nature of sin and death, is capable of. He is the searcher of hearts and Jehovah only can sound the depths of the desperately wicked heart of man. The incestuous relationships against which the Lord warns were commonly practised among the Gentiles. These unholy impure things are still common in the world, not alone among the heathen, but also in the so-called civilized world. The laxity of the marriage laws, divorces and other evils in the same line are the curse of our age. Polygamy is forbidden in verse 18. All that would destroy the sanctity of the family and bring in abuse is solemnly warned against and forbidden. In the New Testament the Spirit of God emphasizes the absolute purity of the family relation and how the Christian family is to be a witness of the holiness and love of Jehovah to make known the mystery of Christ and the church (Eph. 5:22-32).

In chapter 20 we have the avoidance of gross impurities insisted upon by all in the land, for it contemplates the people in the possession of Canaan. A great deal of what is here forbidden was forbidden in chapter 18, yet chapter 20 is no vain repetition of it, for it tells us what the other did not — the penalties attaching to the various acts of impurity against which they are here solemnly warned. That men could practice such vileness was bad enough, and shows the degradation into which they got, the consequences of sin. But the warnings vouchsafed to Israel show us into what uncleannesses they were in danger of falling, if left to themselves, and that without a revelation from God they had really no right standard by which to regulate their conduct in that which so intimately affected their happiness and the purity of family life.