Do Not Have Relations with Your Wife’s Daughter
Zimah — The Category of Absolute Depravity
Leviticus 18:17: “Do not have sexual relations with both a woman and her daughter. Do not take her son’s daughter or her daughter’s daughter to have sexual relations with her; they are close relatives. It is zimah.” The Torah does not use its usual terms here. It uses “zimah” — a word reserved for the most severe categories of sexual violation. Zimah appears also in Leviticus 20:14 for the death-penalty form of this violation, and in Judges 20:6 for the rape of the Levite's concubine in Gibeah.
The word “zimah” carries the meaning of deliberate, calculated depravity — not a transgression of passion but a violation that treats persons as instruments within a family network. The rabbis (Sanhedrin 76a) use “zimah” to mark the class of prohibitions where the violation is categorically different from other forbidden relations: it uses the family structure itself as the apparatus of exploitation.
The Scope of the Prohibition — Wife’s Daughter and Granddaughters
Leviticus 18:17 explicitly extends the prohibition beyond the wife’s daughter to include “her son’s daughter” (the wife’s granddaughter via her son) and “her daughter’s daughter” (via her daughter). This creates a prohibition that reaches two generations down through the wife’s line. Any woman who stands in the relational position of daughter or granddaughter to the wife is absolutely forbidden.
The rabbis (Yevamot 21a) note that this is one of the broadest prohibited categories — the prohibition is both permanent (unlike the rival-wife prohibition of commandment #520, which ends at the wife’s death) and extends through two generations of descent. Even if the wife dies, her daughter and granddaughters remain permanently forbidden. The word “she’arah hena” (they are close kin) identifies the underlying principle: the wife’s family network is a protected domain that cannot be serially violated through the husband’s position.
Comparison with the Rival-Wife Prohibition
The adjacent commandment (#520, Lev 18:18) prohibits marrying the wife’s sister while the wife is alive. That prohibition carries the temporal clause “in her lifetime.” Commandment #519 carries no such clause — it is permanent. The Talmud (Yevamot 97a) notes the structural difference: the wife’s sister prohibition is situational (it ends at the wife’s death), while the wife’s daughter prohibition is categorical (it does not end). The structure of Leviticus 18:17 with zimah and the explicit generational extension confirms the absolute character of this prohibition.
The practical application: if a man marries a widow with a daughter, or a divorced woman with a daughter, the daughter is permanently forbidden. The marriage to the mother creates a prohibition on the mother’s family line that does not dissolve. Leviticus 20:14 sets the death penalty for violating this: “If a man takes a woman and her mother, it is zimah; he and they shall be burned with fire, that there be no zimah among you.”
- Leviticus 18:17 — Lev 18:17: the prohibition uses the strongest category-word in the Holiness Code’s sexual law: “zimah.” The extension to wife’s granddaughters (son’s daughter and daughter’s daughter) makes this one of the broadest prohibitions in Leviticus 18 — reaching two generations through the wife’s family line.
- Leviticus 20:14 — Lev 20:14: the Holiness Code’s penalty section confirms the severity: death by burning for violating commandment #519. The Torah specifies this penalty only for zimah — the three highest-severity violations in Leviticus 18. This prohibition is in that select category.
- Contrast: Commandment #520 — the rival-wife prohibition (Lev 18:18) ends when the wife dies. The wife’s-daughter prohibition does not. The structural distinction reveals how the Torah calibrates permanence: the wife’s daughter is in the permanent erva domain; the wife’s sister is in a conditional domain that the wife’s death dissolves.
Read the source passage in the Torah reader.
Open in Torah Reader — Leviticus 18:17