Leviticus 18:7-8 - Exposition

Incest with a stepmother is placed next after that with a mother. On account of the unity caused by marriage ("they shall be one flesh," Genesis 2:24 ), the stepmother's nakedness is the father's nakedness . The tie of affinity is thus declared to be similar in its effects to the tie of consanguinity. Reuben's sin, by which he forfeited his birthright, is connected with this offense, but is of a more heinous character, as his father was alive at the time of his transgression ( Genesis 49:4 ). It is one of the sins which Ezekiel enumerates as those which brought the judgment of God on Israel ( Ezekiel 22:10 ). "That one should have his father's wife" is declared by St. Paul to be "such fornication as is not named among the Gentiles," and to call for the excommunication of the offender ( 1 Corinthians 5:1-5 ). Adonijah's marriage with Abishag, so strongly resented by Solomon on political grounds, is not denounced as morally reprehensible, probably because Abishag was not the wife of David in such a way as to cause the marriage with his son to be abominable in the eye of the law (cf. 1 Kings 1:4 with Amos 2:7 ). Absalom's" going in unto his father's concubines" was regarded as the final act which made reconciliation with his father impossible ( 2 Samuel 16:22 ; 2 Samuel 20:3 ). The history of the Church has shown that marriage with the stepmother has had to be again and again prohibited by Council after Council (see Smith and Cheetham's 'Dictionary of Antiquities,' s.v. 'Prohibited Degrees').