What does the Torah mean when it calls bestiality “tumah” (defilement) in Leviticus 18:23?

Tumah in this context is moral and covenant defilement, not only ritual impurity. The closing section of Leviticus 18 (vv. 24–25) applies the same defilement language to the entire list of prohibited acts: “Do not make yourselves unclean by any of these things, for by all these the nations I am driving out before you have become unclean.” Tumah in Leviticus 18 describes a condition of covenant incompatibility — the person who commits these acts has made themselves incompatible with the covenant community. For bestiality specifically, the rabbis explain the tumah as an ontological violation: the act denies the human's image-bearing status by crossing the created boundary between human and animal.

Why does Leviticus 20:15 impose the death penalty on both the human and the animal?

The animal bears no moral guilt — it has no capacity for moral agency. The rabbis (Sanhedrin 54b) acknowledge this explicitly: the animal is put to death not as punishment but to remove an occasion for scandal. If the animal were allowed to live, its presence in the community would serve as a continual reminder of the act. Rambam (Hilkhot Issurei Biah 1:16) adds that the death of the animal prevents people from identifying “which animal caused the death of so-and-so.” The penalty is practical and communal rather than retributive toward the animal.

How does the Covenant Code's treatment in Exodus 22:19 relate to the Holiness Code's treatment in Leviticus 18:23?

Exodus 22:19 states the prohibition briefly: “Whoever lies with an animal shall be put to death.” This is the Covenant Code's version — direct, without the surrounding Holiness Code framework. Leviticus 18:23 restates it within the comprehensive sexual ethics of chapters 18–20, adding the female prohibition (#370) in the same verse and using the specific term “tevel” (perversion/confusion) for the female case. The two passages frame the same prohibition differently: Exodus as a capital crime, Leviticus as a violation of covenant holiness and created order.

What does the term “tevel” (confusion/perversion) reveal about the Torah's view of bestiality?

Tevel appears only twice in the Hebrew Bible: Leviticus 18:23 (bestiality) and Leviticus 20:12 (intercourse with daughter-in-law). In both cases it names a confusion of categories that the created order keeps distinct. For bestiality, the confusion is between human and animal — categories Genesis 1 separates by assigning to humans alone the status of image-bearers (Gen 1:27). Tevel does not mean “mixing” in a neutral sense but “perverse mixing” — the kind of mixing that undoes a created distinction. The word encodes the Torah's ontological objection: this act violates the structure of creation itself.

Commandment #369 · Negative #369

Do Not Have Sexual Relations with an Animal

לֹא תִתֵּן שְׁכָבְתְּךָ לְהֵמָה

Leviticus 18:23 · Family Laws

וּבְכָל בְּהֵמָה לֹא תִתֵּן שְׁכָבְתְּךָ לְטָמְאָה בָהּ וְאִשָּׁה לֹא תַעֲמֹד לִפְנֵי בְהֵמָה לְרִבְעָהּ תֶּבֶל הוּא

“Do not have sexual relations with an animal and defile yourself with it. A woman must not present herself to an animal to have sexual relations with it; that is a perversion”

Leviticus 18:23 — Open in Reader

Tevel — The Torah’s Category for This Prohibition

Leviticus 18:23: “Do not have sexual relations with an animal and defile yourself with it. A woman must not present herself to an animal to have sexual relations with it; that is a perversion.” The verse addresses both men (#369) and women (#370) in a single statement. The word used for women is “tevel” — typically translated “perversion” or “confusion.” Where the male prohibition uses “tumah” (impurity/defilement), the female prohibition uses “tevel” — a word that appears only twice in the Hebrew Bible, here and in Leviticus 20:12 (daughter-in-law violation).

The Torah locates this prohibition within the Holiness Code’s comprehensive account of what defiles the covenant community. Leviticus 18:24–25: “Do not make yourselves unclean by any of these things, for by all these the nations I am driving out before you have become unclean, and the land became unclean, so that I punished its iniquity, and the land vomited out its inhabitants.” Bestiality is listed in the same closing summary as all the incest prohibitions and homosexual intercourse — acts the Torah treats as collectively responsible for the Canaanite expulsion.

The Parallel in Exodus — Capital Consequences

Exodus 22:19: “Whoever lies with an animal shall be put to death.” This earlier statement in the Covenant Code repeats the prohibition without the surrounding Holiness Code framework. Leviticus 20:15–16: the penalty chapter specifies that both the human and the animal are put to death. The animal is destroyed not because it bears moral guilt — the animal has no moral capacity — but because its continued existence would be a reminder of the act and a potential trigger for others. Rambam (Hilkhot Issurei Biah 1:16) explains the animal’s death as removing an occasion for scandal.

The double penalty — the human and the animal — reflects the structure of Leviticus 20’s penalties throughout. In the most severe violations, the penalty does not end with the human actor. In the case of the animal, the death is not punitive but practical: the act has made the animal part of the violation, and its presence in the community after the violation serves no legitimate purpose.

The Created Order — What Bestiality Violates

The Torah’s framing of bestiality as “tevel” (confusion/perversion) reflects a created-order theology: the categories of creation — human, animal, plant — are meant to remain distinct. Genesis 1:24–27 establishes the animal and human kinds as distinct created categories, each “according to its kind.” Human beings are made “in the image of God” (v.27) — a status that the animal does not share. To cross the species boundary sexually is to negate both the distinction of the human image-bearer and the integrity of the created order.

This is why the Holiness Code calls the act “tumah” (defilement) for the man: the defilement is not merely ritual but ontological — it violates the nature of what the man is. The term “tevel” (confusion) for the parallel female prohibition carries the same logic: the act confuses categories that creation separated. The prohibition is not merely about social harm but about the integrity of the created order that the covenant is designed to inhabit and protect.

Leviticus 18:23-24 — Lev 18:23–24: the bestiality prohibition is the final item in the Leviticus 18 list before the summary that applies all the prohibitions to the Canaanite expulsion. Its placement last in the list reflects the structure of the chapter: from prohibited human relations to the prohibition that crosses the species boundary entirely.
Leviticus 20:15–16 — Lev 20:15–16: the penalty chapter. Both the man and the animal are put to death. The woman and the animal are put to death. The double penalty is the strictest in the chapter's system.
Exodus 22:19 — Ex 22:19: “Whoever lies with an animal shall be put to death.” The Covenant Code’s version of the prohibition, stated without the Holiness Code’s surrounding framework. The two statements establish the prohibition as spanning both the early and late legal codes of the Torah.

For reflection and group study

The Torah calls bestiality “tumah” (defilement) and “tevel” (confusion/perversion). Both terms point beyond social harm to something in the structure of creation itself. Genesis 1 separates human beings from animals by assigning humans alone the image of God. What does crossing the species boundary sexually violate about this created distinction? Is the prohibition about the image-bearer's dignity, the animal's integrity, the created order's structure, or all three?

See Genesis 1

The death penalty in Leviticus 20:15 applies to both the human and the animal. The rabbis explicitly state that the animal has no guilt — its death is practical, not punitive. What does the Torah's imposition of consequences on a morally innocent party (the animal) reveal about its understanding of the communal effects of covenant violations? Is there a principle here about how the community relates to objects or beings that have been part of a transgression?

See Leviticus 20:15

Read the source passage in the Torah reader.

Read in the Torah Reader — Leviticus 18:23

← Do Not Have Homosexual Relations Woman May Not Have Relations with an Animal →