Incest

The body of texts gathered under this topic ranges from the Mosaic catalogue of forbidden sexual unions among kin, through prophetic indictment of national breaches, to a series of narrated instances reaching from the patriarchs to the Herodian court and the Corinthian church. Alongside the forbidden cases, the same scriptures record marriages within the wider kindred — uncle, niece, cousin — that are not numbered among them.

The Levitical Catalogue

The defining list opens with a general principle and is enforced as both a holiness boundary and a capital matter. "Any man will not have any sex with anyone who is near of kin to him: I am Yahweh" (Lev 18:6). The detailed prohibitions follow: mother (Lev 18:7), father's wife (Lev 18:8), sister "the daughter of your father, or the daughter of your mother, whether born at home, or born abroad" (Lev 18:9), granddaughter (Lev 18:10), step-sister "begotten of your father" (Lev 18:11), father's sister (Lev 18:12), mother's sister (Lev 18:13), father's brother and his wife — "she is your aunt" (Lev 18:14), daughter-in-law (Lev 18:15), brother's wife (Lev 18:16), a woman together with her daughter or her granddaughter (Lev 18:17), and a wife's sister taken "to be a rival [to her], to have any sex with her, besides the other in her lifetime" (Lev 18:18).

Lev 20 restates these prohibitions as crimes carrying sentence. The man who "plows his father's wife" and the man who "plows his daughter-in-law" are both placed under the death sentence, "their blood will be on them" (Lev 20:11-12). The man who has any sex with his sister, whether father's daughter or mother's daughter, is "cut off in the sight of the sons of their people" (Lev 20:17). For the aunt-cases the sentence is to "bear their iniquity" (Lev 20:19); the uncle's wife and the brother's wife each draw the further sanction "they will die childless" / "they will be childless" (Lev 20:20-21).

Deuteronomy reinforces the same lines. "A man will not take his father's wife, and will not uncover his father's skirt" (Deut 22:30). The Ebal curse-list pronounces, "Cursed be he who plows his father's wife, because he has uncovered his father's skirt … Cursed be he who plows his sister, the daughter of his father, or the daughter of his mother … Cursed be he who plows his mother-in-law" (Deut 27:20, 22-23), each followed by the people's "Amen."

Prophetic Indictment

Ezekiel's catalogue of Jerusalem's offenses gathers several of these specific breaches: "And one has done a disgusting thing with his fellow man's wife; and another has lewdly defiled his daughter-in-law; and another in you has humbled his sister, his father's daughter" (Ezek 22:11). Amos, addressing the northern kingdom, names a quieter pattern of the same kind: "a man and his father go to the [same] maiden, to profane my holy name" (Amos 2:7).

Patriarchal Cases

Several incidents from Genesis fall under this heading. After the destruction of Sodom, Lot dwelt in a cave with his two daughters, and the firstborn proposed, "Our father is old, and there is not a man on the earth to come in to us after the manner of all the earth: come, let us make our father drink wine, and we will plow him, that we may preserve seed of our father" (Gen 19:31-32). The narrative reports the act on two successive nights — "the firstborn went in, and plowed her father; and he didn't know when she lay down, nor when she arose" (Gen 19:33), and the same of the younger (Gen 19:35). "Thus were both the daughters of Lot pregnant by their father" (Gen 19:36); the firstborn bore Moab and the younger Ben-ammi, named as the fathers of Moab and Ammon (Gen 19:37-38).

Reuben's act with Bilhah is recorded almost in passing — "while Israel stayed in that land … Reuben went and plowed Bilhah his father's concubine: and Israel heard of it, and it was evil in his eyes" (Gen 35:22). Jacob's deathbed verdict makes the consequence explicit: "Boiling over as water, you will not have the preeminence; Because you went up to your father's bed; Then you defiled it: he went up to my couch" (Gen 49:3-4). The Chronicler closes the loop: "since he defiled his father's couch, his birthright was given to the sons of Joseph" (1 Chr 5:1).

Judah's encounter with his daughter-in-law Tamar belongs to the same gathering of cases. He turned to her by the way, "for he didn't know that she was his daughter-in-law" (Gen 38:16), gave her his signet, cord, and staff as a security deposit, "and entered her, and she became pregnant by him" (Gen 38:18). The genealogy in 1 Chr 2:4 keeps the relationship in view: "Tamar his daughter-in-law bore him Perez and Zerah."

Royal-Court Cases

Amnon's assault on his half-sister Tamar follows the Lev 18:9 / 20:17 line: "Nevertheless he would not listen to her voice; but being stronger than she, he forced her, and plowed her" (2 Sam 13:14). Absalom's act under Ahithophel's counsel falls under Lev 18:8 / 20:11 — "Enter your father's concubines, whom he has left to keep the house" (2 Sam 16:21), "and Absalom entered his father's concubines in the sight of all Israel" (2 Sam 16:22).

The Herodian Case

Herod the tetrarch's union with his brother's wife stands under the Lev 18:16 / 20:21 prohibition. Mark records that he "had sent forth and laid hold on John, and bound him in prison for the sake of Herodias, his brother Philip's wife; for he had married her" (Mark 6:17), and that "John said to Herod, It is not lawful for you to have your brother's wife" (Mark 6:18). Luke summarizes the same matter: "Herod the tetrarch, being reproved by him for Herodias his brother's wife, and for all the evil things which Herod had done" (Luke 3:19).

The Corinthian Case

Paul's report to Corinth names the Lev 18:8 / 20:11 case explicitly: "It is actually reported that there is whoring among you⁺, and such whoring as is not even among the Gentiles, that one [of you⁺] has his father's wife" (1 Cor 5:1).

Marriage of Near of Kin

Distinct from the prohibited list, the same scriptures record marriages within the wider kindred. Abram's brother Nahor "took … Milcah, the daughter of Haran, the father of Milcah" — his niece (Gen 11:29). Abraham himself describes his relation to Sarah: "she is indeed my sister, the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother; and she became my wife" (Gen 20:12). Amram "took himself Jochebed his father's sister as wife; and she bore him Aaron and Moses" (Exod 6:20).

Isaac's marriage to Rebekah passes through the same wider kindred — Rebekah is identified as the daughter of "Bethuel the son of Milcah, the wife of Nahor, Abraham's brother" (Gen 24:15), and "Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah's tent, and took Rebekah, and she became his wife" (Gen 24:67). Jacob's marriages to Leah and Rachel, daughters of his mother's brother Laban, are described in the same plain narrative voice: "he took Leah his daughter, and brought her to him. And he entered her" (Gen 29:23), and "he also entered Rachel, and he loved also Rachel more than Leah, and served with him yet another seven years" (Gen 29:30). Rehoboam later "took himself a wife, Mahalath the daughter of Jerimoth the son of David, [and of] Abihail the daughter of Eliab the son of Jesse" (2 Chr 11:18) — his cousin through both parents.