StrongerBible

shekhovet

שְׁכֹבֶת

HebrewH7903“emission, sexual relations, ...”

Appears 4 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Lev 18:20Lev 18:23Lev 20:15Num 5:20
Root family
Word studyResearch-gradesheh-KHOH-vetnoun

What shekhovet means

a man's sexual emission, spoken of as a deposit placed into another body

TranslatabilityPartialCertaintyContested

This word turns up only four times, and every time it is attached to a person ("your ...", "his ...") inside the same legal sentence: a man gives it, or is forbidden to give it, into another body. It is not the ordinary Hebrew way of speaking about sex. The plain verb for that is "to lie down" (שָׁכַב), and the laws in Leviticus and Numbers reach past it for this rarer, more clinical noun whenever the point is to fix responsibility on the man and on where his emission went.

Everything turns on direction. The four laws differ only in the destination:

  • into the wife of a fellow Israelite, which is adultery
  • into an animal, in the two laws forbidding sex with animals
  • into a woman by a man who is not her husband, in the ordeal for a wife suspected of unfaithfulness

Naming the deposit rather than the encounter lets these laws describe sexual wrongdoing the way the same writers describe everything else: as a boundary crossed and a defilement left behind, on the person and on the land. That is why the word carries far more weight than four appearances would suggest.

A sister noun from the same root, שְׁכָבָה, covers close to the same ground in the phrase usually translated "emission of semen," and Numbers 5 reaches for both words within a few verses of each other.

Lev 18:20Lev 18:23Lev 20:15Num 5:20

What scholars say about shekhovet

All four attestations (Leviticus 18:20, 18:23; 20:15; Numbers 5:20) are suffixed forms of an absolute שְׁכֹבֶת that is itself unattested, reconstructed as a qetolet-pattern feminine segholate on the analysis of Lagarde and Barth, which BDB (1012), HALOT and DCH follow in keeping it lexically distinct from שִׁכְבָה (H7902), the noun of שִׁכְבַת־זֶרַע. Gesenius (Tregelles) took the two forms to be one lexeme differently vocalized; that unitary view is now a minority position. Every occurrence sits in Priestly or Holiness material, and every one uses the same formula: נָתַן plus the suffixed noun plus a preposition of destination. Milgrom (Leviticus 17-22, AB 3A, 1548-70) reads that formula as evidence that the sexual legislation of the Holiness Code is organized around misdirected seminal deposit. Levine (JPS Leviticus, 121-22; AB Numbers 1-20, 11, "inseminated you carnally"), Hartley (WBC 4, 285, 294-95), Olyan (JHSex 5 [1994]: 184-85), Stewart and Whitekettle take the noun concretely as the emission; Milgrom, Wenham (NICOT, 258-60), Gerstenberger and Ashley (NICOT Numbers, 122-35) treat it as intercourse-with-emission fused into one legal idiom; Gane ("Didactic Logic," SBL 2015, 206), with Milgrom tentatively (Leviticus 17-22, 1550), proposes a metonymic sense, the male organ, which reads naturally in Leviticus 18:23 and 20:15 but awkwardly in 18:20 (with לְזָרַע) and Numbers 5:20. Fishbane (HUCA 45 [1974]: 25-45) attributes the doubled vocabulary in Numbers 5 (שִׁכְבַת־זֶרַע in v. 13, שְׁכָבְתּוֹ in v. 20) to the joining of two independent formulations of the offense; Frymer-Kensky (VT 34 [1984]: 11-26) ties the physical specificity to the matching shape of the penalty in Numbers 5:27. Comparative evidence supports the root (Akkadian šakābu, Ugaritic škb, Syriac šḵeḇ, Geʿez sakaba) but not the noun: the specialized feminine emission-noun has no exact cognate and appears to be a Hebrew Priestly coinage, chosen in preference to the pejorative forensic vocabulary of the Middle Assyrian Laws (nâku) and the Hittite Laws (ḫurkel).

Where scholars disagree about shekhovet

Whether the word names the semen a man deposits, the act of intercourse that deposits it, or the male organ itself.

  • contestedIt names the emission itself: the semen deposited where the law forbids it.; Baruch A. Levine, Numbers 1-20 (Anchor Bible 4A, 1993), 11; John E. Hartley, Leviticus (Word Biblical Commentary 4, 1992), 285, 294-95; Saul M. Olyan, Journal of the History of Sexuality 5 (1994): 184-85
  • contestedIt names intercourse together with its emission, act and substance fused into a single legal idiom.; Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 17-22 (Anchor Bible 3A, 2000), 1548-50, 1567; Gordon J. Wenham, The Book of Leviticus (NICOT, 1979), 258-60; Timothy R. Ashley, The Book of Numbers (NICOT, 1993), 122-35
  • minorityIt is a figure of speech for the male organ, the thing with which one lies.; Roy E. Gane, Didactic Logic and the Authorship of Leviticus, in Current Issues in Priestly and Related Literature (SBL Press, 2015), 206; Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 17-22 (Anchor Bible 3A, 2000), 1550 (tentatively)

Whether שְׁכֹבֶת is a noun distinct from שִׁכְבָה or simply that same word carrying a pronoun ending.

  • majorityTwo distinct feminine nouns from one root, each restricted to its own set of forms.; BDB, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, 1012; Koehler, Baumgartner, Stamm, HALOT IV, s.v. שְׁכֹבֶת; David J. A. Clines, ed., The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew VIII, s.v. שְׁכֹבֶת; Jakob Barth, Die Nominalbildung in den semitischen Sprachen, sect. 144
  • minorityOne word in two vocalizations, both meaning sexual intercourse.; Gesenius, Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon, trans. Tregelles, s.v. שְׁכֹבֶת
In-depth research

This is a research paper, so it may be hard to read without scholarly background. It is useful if you want to dig even deeper into this word.

Sources

  • BDB, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, 1012, s.v. שְׁכֹבֶתlexicon
  • Koehler, Baumgartner, Stamm, HALOT IV, s.v. שְׁכֹבֶתlexicon
  • David J. A. Clines, ed., The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew VIII, s.v. שְׁכֹבֶתlexicon
  • W. A. M. Beuken and G. Fleischer, šākab, in Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament XIVtheological-dictionary
  • Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 17-22 (Anchor Bible 3A, Yale, 2000), 1548-70commentary
  • Baruch A. Levine, Leviticus (JPS Torah Commentary, 1989), 121-22, 138-39commentary
  • Baruch A. Levine, Numbers 1-20 (Anchor Bible 4A, Doubleday, 1993), 11commentary
  • John E. Hartley, Leviticus (Word Biblical Commentary 4, Word, 1992), 285, 294-95, 337-38commentary
  • Gordon J. Wenham, The Book of Leviticus (NICOT, Eerdmans, 1979), 258-60commentary
  • Timothy R. Ashley, The Book of Numbers (NICOT, Eerdmans, 1993), 122-35commentary
  • Roy E. Gane, Didactic Logic and the Authorship of Leviticus, in Current Issues in Priestly and Related Literature, ed. Gane and Taggar-Cohen (SBL Press, 2015), 206article
  • Saul M. Olyan, And with a Male You Shall Not Lie the Lying Down of a Woman, Journal of the History of Sexuality 5 (1994): 179-206, at 184-85article
  • Tikva Frymer-Kensky, The Strange Case of the Suspected Sotah (Numbers V 11-31), Vetus Testamentum 34 (1984): 11-26article
  • Michael Fishbane, Accusations of Adultery: A Study of Law and Scribal Practice in Numbers 5:11-31, Hebrew Union College Annual 45 (1974): 25-45article
  • Richard Whitekettle, Leviticus 15.18 Reconsidered: Chiasm, Spatial Structure and the Body, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 49 (1991): 31-45article
  • Raymond Westbrook, Adultery in Ancient Near Eastern Law, Revue biblique 97 (1990): 542-80article
  • David Tabb Stewart, Categories of Sexual Impurity in the Biblical Holiness Legislation, in Sexuality and Law in the Torah, ed. Lipka and Wells (T&T Clark, 2020)article

AI-generated word study · claude-opus-4-8

All attested forms of שְׁכֹבֶת

f s construct

שְׁכָבְתְּךָ

Lev 18:20, Lev 18:23

f s construct

שְׁכָבְתּוֹ

Lev 20:15, Num 5:20