The nakedness of thy sister, the daughter of thy father, or daughter of thy mother, whether she be born at home, or born abroad, even their nakedness thou shalt not uncover.
The nakedness of thy sister ... - i:e., the child of either of thy parents, whether thy full sister or a stepsister, born in the same or in another family. The circumstantial minuteness in relation to her birth, as sprung from the same parentage or a second marriage, in wedlock or out of wedlock, was designed to remove all doubt as to the unlawfullness of a connection which, through the corruptions of pagan antiquity, had become very common (Genesis 20:12) (Diodorus, 'Hist.,' 1:, 27), and in Egypt was legalized. Pausanias relates that Ptolemy Philadelphus married his sister ('Attica,' 1:, 7; cf. Philo, 'De Spec. Legg.,' p. 180; Wilkinson's 'Ancient Egypt.,' vol. 2:, p. 63). Jerome affirms that the practice obtained also among the Medes, Ethiopians, and Indians. Euripides, in Andromeda, alluding to the marriage customs of many barbarous nations, gives his testimony to the existence of the practice in question; and that it should have become prevalent cannot be wondered at, when it is remembered that the worshippers were only imitating the conduct of their deities-such as, in Egyptian mythology, Isis and Osiris, and in Greek, Jupiter and Juno, who are described:
` Jovisque Et sorer, et conjux.' (-Virgil, 'AEneis,' 1:, 50.)