The Hebrew text of the beginning of this verse literally reads “A man who commits adultery with the wife of another who commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor….” The majority of modern English translations understand this to be an error made by someone copying a part of the manuscript twice over. Nevertheless, this text is recommended by HOTTP and is followed by New International Version, New Jerusalem Bible, New American Standard Bible, and An American Translation. The New Jerusalem Bible rendering is typical of the way that sense is made of the longer text: “If a man commits adultery with a married woman, committing adultery with his neighbor’s wife….”

Commits adultery: the Hebrew verb thus translated has the meaning of “have sexual intercourse with someone other than one’s marriage partner” or “be unfaithful to one’s marriage promise.” In other words, it is not just any unlawful sexual activity, but it always involves breaking the marriage covenant and violating the marriage relationship. In Hebrew thought a man committed adultery only when he slept with a married woman (another man’s wife), but a woman was considered to have committed adultery if she slept with any person other than her husband. This specific case concerns the adultery of a male with the wife of another man. But in the end both the man and the woman were considered as having violated the law concerning adultery. See Exodus 20.14.

His neighbor: see 19.13 on the broader meaning of this word.

The adulterer and the adulteress: it may be more natural and simpler in some languages to say “both the man and the woman” or “the woman as well as the man involved in the act.”

Shall be put to death: this is again the emphatic construction seen in verses 2, 4, and 9 above.

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 .