The second word, quoted in Leviticus in the Old Testament is "Toeveh" (Hebrew) meaning "ritually unclean", or "abomination" and its use has exclusively described idolatrous practices. The mistranslation of this word has caused it to mean "intrinsically evil" and referred it to homosexual sex, when its meaning in the root text has been in reference to Pagan Idolatry and male prostitutes working in Temple precincts. Its use in Leviticus was to prevent contamination of the Hebrews by Pagan practices and was very much a local and historically timespecific indictment.

It has since, through faulty biblical scholarship, inaccurately come to mean sex between men and has been used to condemn homosexuality amongst the Hebrews in Mosaic Law. Leviticus' Holiness Code (chapters 18 and 20) does not cite Sodom in its prohibitions and decrees only what the Israelites are banned from doing, but which the heathen Egyptians and Canaanites do. Leviticus 18:22 which is considered by biblical scholars to prohibit homosexuality follows Leviticus 18:21 which clearly states the prohibition as being against Israelites participating in idolatrous heathen rituals and the proximity of both verses contextually suggests that the prohibition in Leviticus was not against homosexuality per se but specifically against ritual homosexual temple prostitution and this would reflect the various statutes in place concerning this matter contemporaneously.