What is adultery, biblically?
A close study of how Scripture actually defines adultery. The law in Leviticus 20:10 hinges on a married woman: an adulterer is a man who takes another man’s wife. This “Rosetta Stone” reframes marriage, divorce, and why the laws for man and woman differ.
A spoken reading of the article “What is Adultery, Biblically?” arguing that the modern definition Christians inherit — any spouse cheating on the other — is not the biblical one. Scripture defines adultery in terms of a married woman: an adulterer is a man who takes a woman who belongs to another man. The video makes the case that getting this one word right is a kind of Rosetta Stone that reorders how we read marriage, divorce, and the patriarchal household.
What this video covers
- Why the dictionary, lexicon, and Bible-dictionary definitions diverge, and what that divergence reveals.
- How Leviticus 20:10 frames adultery as an offense involving another man’s wife, not a symmetrical sin between “partners.”
- That a married man lying with an unmarried woman is not called adultery anywhere in the law, while the woman who is taken from her husband is.
- How Solomon could warn against adultery while having a thousand women, and that his sin was foreign, idolatrous wives, not their number.
- That God Himself, through Nathan, said He had given David his wives and would have given more — so plural marriage cannot be adultery against a first wife.
- Why Jesus did not abolish or “raise the bar” on the law but corrected the traditions of men, and why the Torah still applies (Deuteronomy 13 as the test of a prophet).
- The downstream damage of teaching a wife she may divorce a husband who took another woman, or branding the patriarchs adulterers.
Scriptures examined
- Exodus 20:14, 20:17 — the command against adultery and coveting a neighbor’s wife
- Leviticus 20:10 — adultery defined as involving another man’s wife
- Proverbs 2:16; 5:3, 20; 6:24, 26, 32; 7:5; 22:14 — Solomon’s warnings about the adulteress
- 1 Kings 11:1–3 — Solomon’s foreign wives turning his heart
- 2 Samuel 12:1–8 — Nathan’s rebuke of David and the ewe-lamb parable
- 2 Corinthians 6:14 — not being bound together with unbelievers
- Matthew 5:17–18; 23:1–4; Deuteronomy 13; Numbers 12:8; John 1:1 — Jesus and the standing law
Why it matters
If the definition of adultery is wrong, the errors compound into divorce, remarriage, and slander of the patriarchs. For the full written study, see What Is Adultery, Biblically?. Test every claim here against Scripture for yourself.
