“ ‘You shall not uncover the nakedness of your daughter-in-law. She is your son’s wife. You shall not uncover her nakedness.
Not to have sexual relations with one's son's wife (daughter-in-law)
The cited verse
The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)
עֶרְוַת כַּלָּתְךָ לֹא תְגַלֵּה אֵשֶׁת בִּנְךָ הִוא לֹא תְגַלֶּה עֶרְוָתָהּ
In Maimonides’ words
How Maimonides defines this commandment in his Sefer HaMitzvot — his own words, shown as a primary source.
הזהירנו מגלות ערות אשת הבן. והוא אמרו יתעלה ערות כלתך לא תגלה. והעובר על לאו זה בסקילה. ואם לא נחקרה העדות או לא נודע הוא בכרת אם הוא מזיד, ואם היה שוגג יקריב חטאת קבועה:
He prohibited us from sexual intercourse with the wife of the son. And that is His, may He be exalted, saying, "The nakedness of your daughter-in-law you shall not uncover" (Leviticus 18:15). And one who transgresses this negative commandment is [punished] by stoning. But if the testimony was not ratified or it was not known, it is with excision if it was volitional. However if he was inadvertent, he must sacrifice a fixed sin-offering.
Hebrew: Sefer HaMitzvot, Warsaw 1883 (public domain). English: Sefaria Edition, trans. Rabbi Francis Nataf, 2021 (CC0). Via Sefaria; translator’s footnotes omitted.
Literary form: a prohibition
Applicability
How the catalog describes where and when this commandment applies. These are independent descriptions, not a verdict on which laws still count.
- Recorded as practiced today
Classical halakhic consequences
The consequences the classical halakhah attaches to this commandment, grouped by who imposes them. Where a category has none recorded, that absence is itself meaningful.
Imposed by a court
- Death by stoning (sekilah)
At the hands of Heaven
- Karet — being 'cut off'
Ritual remedy
- A sin-offering (ḥatat)
How the streams of Judaism treat this commandment
The streams of Judaism read the same commandment differently — an ongoing plurality, not a ranking. Each position below is reported as the catalog records it; none is presented as the correct one.
- Orthodox Binding
- Conservative Binding
- Reform Kept as an ethical principle
- Reconstructionist Kept as an ethical principle
- Karaite Binding
24 of 613 commandments have been examined in depth so far — this one is queued.
How later traditions received this commandment
How later traditions read or reworked this commandment, each attributed to its own voice. The catalog’s own classification of each reception is shown as it records it, never adopted as GEBible’s.
Rabbinic aggadah
- Genesis Rabbah 85 (on Judah and Tamar) expanded it homiletically
Philo of Alexandria
- De Specialibus Legibus 3.12-21 affirmed it
Beside the older legal codes of its world
The commandment set beside the ancient Near-Eastern legal collections scholars compare it to — a descriptive comparison, not a claim of dependence.
- code of hammurabi father-in-law lies with son's consummated bride; penalty of drowning Relationship to the parallel: parallel with divergence §155 Roth, Law Collections 2nd ed. (1997)
- code of hammurabi father-in-law lies with son's bride before consummation; monetary penalty and return of bride — a lighter sanction absent from the absolute Israelite formulation Relationship to the parallel: polemical contrast §156 Roth, Law Collections 2nd ed. (1997)
Where this commandment meets modern human-rights frameworks
One modern normative lens, attributed to it — not GEBible’s assessment. Each row names the framework it measures against and the catalog’s own classification of the relation.
This framework catalogues tensions; it records agreement in only one of its entries. The near-total tension rate is the shape of the instrument, not a finding.
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general principle
This framework classifies the relation as a direct contradiction.
Leviticus 20:12 and rabbinic law (Mishnah Sanhedrin 7:4) prescribe execution by stoning for sexual relations with one's daughter-in-law; modern penal proportionality precludes capital punishment for sexual misconduct between adults, however seriously condemned.
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Article 6
This framework classifies the relation as a direct contradiction.
ICCPR Article 6(2) restricts the death penalty to the most serious crimes; stoning for incest between a father-in-law and daughter-in-law, while universally condemned, falls outside the category of intentional homicide to which Article 6(2) limits capital punishment.
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general principle
This framework classifies the relation as abrogated in practice.
Rabbinic tradition holds that capital jurisdiction lapsed with the cessation of ordained Sanhedrin proceedings at the end of the Second Temple era; the death-by-stoning sanction is de jure operative but has not been administered for approximately two millennia.