Leviticus 18:22
What does Leviticus 18:22 mean?
“‘You shall not lie with a man, as with a woman. That is detestable.
The short answer
Leviticus 18:22 reads, "You shall not lie with a man, as with a woman," and calls the act "detestable." On its face it is a prohibition addressed to men, stated in the same terse legal style as the rest of the chapter. To hear it well, though, it helps to notice how the chapter as a whole talks about sex.
As John Goldingay points out, Leviticus 18 has its own idiom: "revealing someone's nakedness" is the chapter's way of saying "having sex with." Most of its bans concern relationships within one's own household — one's own flesh, in the chapter's language. Goldingay observes that the worry driving these bans is not biological incest as we might define it; the rules would cover, for instance, marrying certain relatives even after a spouse's death. The deeper concern is disruption inside the household and the misuse of power, the kind of dynamic on display when Absalom sleeps with his father's secondary wives as a bid for David's throne. Family in the Old Testament, he notes, simply works differently from the Western pattern most of us assume. Verse 22 sits inside that world of household order, kinship, and power — not inside modern debates framed in modern categories.
How the verse reaches most readers is another matter. The excerpt from New Meanings for Ancient Texts describes a study Bible where 18:22 appears alongside a bold, eye-catching feature headed "Only One Right Choice," which declares homosexual sex a sin and points readers on to Romans 1:26–27. Design and cross-references do real interpretive work here: they present the verse as a settled verdict before a reader has considered its literary setting. Distinguishing what the text says in its own context from how it has been packaged and applied is the first step toward reading it honestly.
What scholars say
John Goldingay's excerpt answers the question of how Leviticus 18 itself talks about sex — its idiom of "revealing nakedness" and its concern with household disruption and power — while the excerpt from New Meanings for Ancient Texts shows how one study Bible's bold design and its cross-reference to Romans 1:26–27 present verse 22 to lay readers as an unambiguous ruling.
“Overlapping dynamics underlie the concern about sexual relationships in Leviticus 18. “Revealing someone’s nakedness” is a term for having sex with them, and the chapter bans a wide range of sexual relationships with one’s own flesh—that is, within the household, such as the relationship I have just described. Its concern is not that the relationships are biologically incestuous, and as well as extramarital sex its ban would cover marriage (for instance, after a woman’s original husband had died). Such relationships threaten disruption within the household and raise questions about power such as are illustrated in the story of Absalom and his father’s secondary wives, with whom he has sex as a sign of claiming to take over David’s position. Both this chapter and that story illustrate how we have to think of the family in the Old Testament in a different way from the one that is customary in the West.”
“On the same page as Leviticus 18:22 in this Bible, there is a “The Bible Says” feature with the bold heading, “Only One Right Choice.” Laid out in orange text in a contemporary, sans-serif font and highlighted with a blue swoosh that makes it jump off the page and leave the traditionally biblical looking (serif font) Levitical text in the background, this bold feature decries the idea that homosexuality could be an “alternative lifestyle.” According to it, Leviticus 18 clearly states, “It’s wrong to have homosexual sex,” and “this isn’t the only Bible passage that says homosexual sex is a sin. Read also Romans 1:26–27. If someone tells you homosexuality is an alternative lifestyle—meaning that it’s OK—don’t let those words fool you.”
What it means for you
Whatever conclusions you ultimately draw, this verse rewards slow reading rather than proof-texting. Read all of Leviticus 18, notice its recurring idiom, and ask what the chapter as a whole is protecting — the integrity of households and the vulnerable people within them. That framing does not answer every modern question, but it keeps you from importing assumptions the text does not share.
It is also worth noticing how your own Bible presents the verse. Headings, sidebars, and cross-references shape what you see before you have read a word of the text itself. Being aware of that packaging lets you engage both the scripture and its interpreters with clearer eyes.
Leviticus 18 in context
Leviticus 18 opens with God telling Israel not to imitate the practices of Egypt, where they had lived, or Canaan, where they were going. What follows is a list of forbidden sexual relationships, most of them within the extended household — a father's wife, a sister, a daughter-in-law, and so on — along with bans on adultery, child sacrifice to Molech, and bestiality. Verse 22 falls near the end of this list. The chapter closes with a warning that these practices defile the land itself, which will "vomit out" its inhabitants.