Torah · The contested verse
Text 03 / 08 · The law
The hardest verse in the argument
Leningrad CodexCarpet page1008 CE
Illustrative artifact · does not contain this passage
One Hebrew phrase may mean “a woman in addition to another,” which would make this a direct prohibition. Or it may mean a woman’s actual sister. The argument made here has to survive that choice.
וְאִשָּׁה אֶל־אֲחֹתָהּ לֹא תִקָּח לִצְרֹר לְגַלּוֹת עֶרְוָתָהּ עָלֶיהָ בְּחַיֶּיהָ׃
transliteration
ve-ishshah el-achotah lo tiqqach litzror, le-gallot ervatah aleha be-chayyeha.
And a woman to her sister you shall not take, to be a rival, uncovering her nakedness beside her, during her lifetime.
A close literal rendering; the page below weighs both readings of the disputed phrase.
This is the verse that could overturn the entire reading offered on this site. If ishshah el-achotah means “one woman in addition to another,” then the law prohibits polygyny here. If it means a woman and her actual sister, then the verse prohibits a narrower union.
Serious Hebrew scholars take both positions. So do not hurry through this page. The wording, the chapter around it, and the rest of Scripture all have to be considered before either answer is treated as obvious.
A closer look at the important words
Open any term to see its range and where else Scripture uses it.
- a woman to her sister · The contested phrase. Elsewhere the paired construction is idiomatic (“one to another”) of curtains and wings. Here it sits in a chapter of kin.
- to be a rival · The motive clause: to make rivals of them. The same root the narrative gives Peninnah, Hannah's tormentor: tzaratah, “her rival.”
- during her lifetime · The prohibition lasts while she lives. That timing fits the actual-sister reading, because marriage to a deceased wife's sister would no longer create rivalry between living sisters. It also fits the broader reading as a ban on simultaneous wives, so the clause does not settle the dispute.
Why both readings deserve attention
There is a real case for the broader reading. Similar constructions elsewhere in the Bible mean “one to another,” and verse 17 uses a different connector from verse 18. The Hebrew phrase by itself does not settle the question.1
The narrower reading begins with the chapter. Verse 6 introduces a list of forbidden unions with close kin. Reading verse 18 as an actual sister keeps the final entry inside that subject. The words litzror, “to be a rival,” and be-chayyeha, “during her lifetime,” also fit the rivalry between living sisters. On the broader reading, the lifetime clause means the restriction ends when the first wife dies.
How does each reading fit the rest of Scripture?
I choose the actual-sister reading partly because of the other passages. Exodus 21 and Deuteronomy 21 give marital and inheritance standing inside plural households. Israel comes through Jacob’s four-mother household, and Nathan’s speech to David says God gave him his master’s house and wives. Readers who take the broader reading answer that these cases were tolerated, temporary, or part of a revelation that later becomes more restrictive. That is a coherent canonical argument. The question is which reading best explains both this sentence and those passages.
One fact remains on either reading. Jacob married two living sisters, and the rivalry in that household wounded the family from which Israel came. The narrower reading sees verse 18 as a specific protection against repeating that arrangement. The broader reading sees the same history as evidence for a general prohibition. The stories matter, but we still have to decide what this sentence actually names.2
How did an early Jewish community read it?
The Damascus Document from Qumran connects this language with taking two wives “in their lifetimes.” That makes it one of the earliest surviving Jewish readings in the restrictive direction, long before later church law. Scholars still debate whether the passage forbids concurrent wives, remarriage after divorce, or both, and Qumran was a sectarian community rather than a stand-in for all Second Temple Judaism. The source record gives the text and those limits together.
Why you may reach a different conclusion
Here is the broader reading in plain terms, along with scholars who hold it:
The construction ishshah el-achotah is idiomatic (“one to another”) in all eight of its other biblical occurrences (Exodus 26:3 twice; 26:5, 26:6, 26:17; Ezekiel 1:9, 1:23, 3:13); verse 17 switches connectors; litzror describes co-wife rivalry generally; and the lifetime clause fits a ban on simultaneity. So read, the verse prohibits taking any second wife while the first lives, a reading held by Angelo Tosato, Richard Davidson, Walter Kaiser, and others; Gordon Wenham grants it “a fairly strong case.”
Why I reach a different conclusion
My answer is that the chapter’s kinship subject, the rivalry word, the lifetime limit, and the other biblical laws together favor an actual-sister reading. None of those points makes the disputed idiom vanish. They explain why I do not let the idiom decide the verse by itself.
What I think this passage establishes
Two readings remain possible. I land on the actual-sister reading because I believe it fits the kinship chapter and the other biblical material more closely. The idiom prevents certainty, and a broader reading would substantially change the site’s conclusion. This is not a verse to hurry past.
Chapter Six, Section Five: Leviticus 18:18 and the Hardest Verse · coming soon →
1note
The Septuagint renders the motive with ἀντίζηλον, “as a rival.” That confirms that the Greek translators heard rivalry in the clause, but it does not decide whether the two women were sisters.
2note
Scripture also mentions plural households without making their structure the subject of the passage, including Joash (2 Chronicles 24:2–3), Abijah (2 Chronicles 13:21), Gideon (Judges 8:30), and several genealogies. Those neutral mentions do not prove approval. Gideon is also followed by the catastrophic Abimelech story, so his household should not be offered as a clean counterexample. These notices only show that detailed rivalry scenes are not the sole form in which plural households appear. The Questions page discusses what can and cannot be inferred from that difference.
Open the sources
- Sefaria · Leviticus 18:18 ↗ · The Masoretic Hebrew with English alongside; the Hebrew shown here comes from this text.
- Bible Hub interlinear · Leviticus 18:18 ↗ · A word-by-word parsing with Strong's numbers for checking the terms used here.
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The next passage is Deuteronomy 17:17. This verse plainly limits the king's wives and places that warning beside horses, silver, and gold. The dispute is whether it forbids every second wife or warns the throne against dangerous accumulation.