Translation commentary on Leviticus 20:16

Approaches … and lies with: that is, enters into contact with an animal for the purpose of having sexual relations with it. See 18.6 and 15.18.

You: as in the previous verse, this is the impersonal use of the second person singular pronoun and may be translated by a passive or some other impersonal or indefinite form.

They shall be put to death: this is the same emphatic construction used in verses 2, 4, 9, 10, and so forth. Compare 19.20.

Their blood is upon them: see verse 11.

Quoted with permission from Péter-Contesse, René and Ellington, John. A Handbook on Leviticus. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1990. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .

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