an abomination: something felt as so revolting that it must be rejected and shut out
An abomination is not merely a thing someone dislikes. It is a thing felt as deeply offensive, even sickening, so that the one who recoils from it refuses to have it near. The word carries the reaction (disgust) and the verdict (this does not belong here) at the same time. It says less about what a thing is in itself than about how it is judged: it marks something as crossing a line and provoking revulsion. That is why the same word can be aimed at idols, at cheating in business, at certain sexual acts, at forbidden food, and even at a foreign people's customs. The thing changes from passage to passage; the feeling of loathing and exclusion stays the same.
Most often in the Bible the one who recoils is God, and the line being crossed is his own holiness and his covenant with Israel. Two great streams flow from that. One is worship: idols, occult practices, corrupted offerings, and even forbidden food are abominations because they betray or defile the God Israel is meant to serve. The other is conduct: cheating, lying, twisting justice, and forbidden sexual acts are abominations because they violate how God's people are to live. Both streams name things that provoke God's revulsion and that he shuts out of his presence and his land.
A smaller use turns the camera around: it describes what a particular people finds detestable. Egyptians would not eat at the same table with Hebrews, and regarded shepherds and Israel's kind of sacrifice as abominations. Here the revulsion is human and cultural rather than a moral verdict from God, but the core feeling is the same: something held in such disgust that contact with it is refused.
The book of Proverbs sharpens the word into a refrain. It pairs what is an abomination to the LORD with what is his delight, so that the term draws a sharp line between the conduct God turns away from and the conduct he welcomes. To read any single verse well, two questions help: what boundary is the text protecting, and whose disgust is it describing.
Nuances
Whether calling this act detestable states an absolute, universal moral verdict, or marks it as forbidden to Israel specifically as a people set apart from the surrounding nations.
- contestedThe label marks the act as repugnant within Israel's own covenant identity, a communal boundary distinguishing Israel from its neighbors rather than a claim about every people everywhere; the framing of the chapter ties the prohibition to not living as the Egyptians and Canaanites did, and to the land that expels those who defile it.; Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 17-22, Anchor Bible 3A (Doubleday, 2000), 1565-74; 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
- contestedThe label states an absolute moral verdict, condemning the act as wrong in itself and not merely as a culturally bounded taboo, given the unqualified form of the prohibition and its capital sanction.; Robert A. J. Gagnon, The Bible and Homosexual Practice (Abingdon, 2001), 111-46
Whether calling this act detestable states an absolute, universal moral verdict, or marks it as forbidden to Israel specifically as a people set apart from the surrounding nations.
- contestedThe label marks the act as repugnant within Israel's own covenant identity, a communal boundary distinguishing Israel from its neighbors rather than a claim about every people everywhere; this verse extends the verdict to both partners and ties it to the land that expels those who defile it.; Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 17-22, Anchor Bible 3A (Doubleday, 2000), 1565-74; 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
- contestedThe label states an absolute moral verdict, condemning the act as wrong in itself and not merely as a culturally bounded taboo, given the unqualified form of the prohibition and its capital sanction.; Robert A. J. Gagnon, The Bible and Homosexual Practice (Abingdon, 2001), 111-46