Leviticus · Chapter 20

V. 2. The people-Here follow the punishments of the crimes forbidden in the former chapters.

Verse 2. That giveth any of his seed unto Molech] To what has been said in the note on Leviticus 18:21, we may add, that the rabbins describe this idol, who was probably a representative or emblematical personification of the solar influence, as made of brass, in the form of a man, with the head of an ox; that a fire was kindled in the inside, and the child to be sacrificed to him was put in his arms, and roasted to death. Others say that the idol, which was hollow, was divided into seven compartments within; in one of which they put flour, in the second turtle-doves, in the third a ewe, in the fourth a ram, in the fifth a calf, in the sixth an ox, and in the seventh a child, which, by heating the statue on the outside, were all burnt alive together. I question the whole truth of these statements, whether from Jewish or Christian rabbins. There is no evidence of all this in the sacred writings. And there is but presumptive proof, and that not very strong, that human sacrifices were at all offered to Molech by the Jews. The passing through the fire, so frequently spoken of, might mean no more than a simple rite of consecration to the service of this idol. Probably a kind of ordeal was meant, the persons passing suddenly through the flame of a large fire, by which, though they might be burnt or scorched, yet they were neither killed nor consumed. Or they might have passed between two large fires, as a sort of purification. See Clarke’s notes on “Leviticus 20:14”; and “Leviticus 18:21”. Cæsar, in his history of the Gallic war, lib. vi., c. 16, mentions a custom of the Druids similar to this. They made an image of wickerwork, inclosed those in it whom they had adjudged to death, and, setting the whole on fire, all were consumed together.

Verse 2. The people — Here follow the punishments of the crimes forbidden in the former chapters.

Verse 2. Molech. See on Leviticus 18:21.

2. Molech — See Leviticus 18:21. Or of the strangers — So cruel were the rites accompanying the worship of this idol that the pagans resident among the Israelites were forbidden to practise it, through mercy to the innocent victims and to keep the Hebrews from becoming insensible through familiarity with this horrid practice. Shall stone him — Stoning was the ordinary method of capital punishment. It was practised in Egypt, Exodus 8:26, and was in vogue among the Jews in the time of Christ. Acts 7:58. The criminal was placed on a rock or platform about twelve feet high, stripped naked, except the loins. The witnesses laid aside their outer garments, then pushed the criminal off the scaffold backwards, and then dashed a great stone upon his breast, if he was not killed by the fall, and all the people threw stones till he died.

V. 3. I will set my face against that man-Deal with him as an enemy, and make him a monument of my justice. To defile my sanctuary-Because the sanctuary was defiled by gross abominations committed in that city or land where God’s sanctuary was: or because by these actions they declared to all men that they esteemed the sanctuary and service of God abominable and vile, by preferring such odious idolatry before it. And to profane my name-Partly by despising it themselves, partly by disgracing it to others, and giving them occasion to blaspheme it, and to abhor the true religion.

Verse 3. I will set my face against that man — Deal with him as an enemy, and make him a monument of my justice. To defile my sanctuary — Because the sanctuary was defiled by gross abominations committed in that city or land where God’s sanctuary was: or because by these actions they declared to all men that they esteemed the sanctuary and service of God abominable and vile, by preferring such odious idolatry before it. And to profane my name — Partly by despising it themselves, partly by disgracing it to others, and giving them occasion to blaspheme it, and to abhor the true religion.

Ver. 3. I will cut him off. Ahaz gave his son to Molech, and the Lord afflicted his reign with miseries.

3. I will set my face — Should Israel connive at this horrible abomination, and through fear or motives of base and selfish policy refuse to execute my law, “I will be my own executioner,” says Jehovah. Defile my sanctuary — It was not necessary to set up the service of Molech in the tabernacle in order to defile the abode of Jehovah, but any flagrant sin committed or permitted by Israel polluted the sanctuary.

V. 4. Hide their eyes-Wink at his fault, and forbear to accuse and punish him.

Verse 4. Hide their eyes — Wink at his fault, and forbear to accuse and punish him.

4, 5. Hide their eyes — The Lawgiver foresees and provides for an amazing moral degeneracy and hardness of heart, when the people’s conscience will be so stupified that they will let this great crime go unpunished. Against his family — This does not necessarily imply the guilt of the family, for ancient law viewed the family as a part of the man’s personality, and inflicted suffering upon them all as if guilty. See Exodus 20:5; and Joshua 7:24, notes. Whoredom — This term is here used figuratively for idolatry. See chap. 17:7, note.

4, 5. Hide their eyes — The Lawgiver foresees and provides for an amazing moral degeneracy and hardness of heart, when the people’s conscience will be so stupified that they will let this great crime go unpunished. Against his family — This does not necessarily imply the guilt of the family, for ancient law viewed the family as a part of the man’s personality, and inflicted suffering upon them all as if guilty. See Exodus 20:5; and Joshua 7:24, notes. Whoredom — This term is here used figuratively for idolatry. See chap. 17:7, note.

V. 6. To go a whoring-To seek counsel or help from them.

Verse 6. Familiar spirits] See Clarke’s notes on “Leviticus 19:31”; and “Exodus 22:18”.

Verse 6. To go a whoring — To seek counsel or help from them.

6. Familiar spirits — See Leviticus 19:31, note. The tendency to resort to necromancy among the Hebrews demonstrates their belief in the existence and activity of disembodied spirits, so that Sadducism is refuted in the Pentateuch. There is nothing in either of these chapters which can be quoted in proof of the reality of the sorcerer’s communications with the spirits of the dead. On the statute books of England there are now laws against an imaginary crime, the pretence of power to bewitch, claimed by designing negroes in Jamaica for the purpose of controlling, terrifying, and blackmailing their superstitious countrymen. Wizards — See Leviticus 19:31, note.

Ver. 7. Sanctify yourselves—be ye holy; in the disposition of your minds, says Maimonides, and from heretical notions in doctrine. Secondly, from all corporeal pollutions, as it is said “their filthiness is in their skirts.” Thirdly, from exterior defilement by contact, for the words of the law suffer no pollution. See that excellent work, the late Dr. James Townley’s More Nevochim.

7. Sanctify yourselves — An important part of sanctification, which lies within the gracious ability of men, is to refrain from acts of impurity. See 1 Thessalonians 4:3. But until the soul is cleansed by the Sanctifier this abstinence will cost a struggle. This is the difference between a justified soul and one entirely sanctified. “The impress of consecration to a holy God is to be stamped on the life of the Israelites in ordinances extending to all important relations and conditions; in every important affair of life the Israelite has to accomplish something demanded by God.” — Oehler.

V. 8. Who sanctify you-Who separate you from all nations, and from their impurities and idolatries, to be a peculiar people to myself; and who give you my grace to keep my statutes.

Verse 8. Who sanctify you — Who separate you from all nations, and from their impurities and idolatries, to be a peculiar people to myself; and who give you my grace to keep my statutes.

8. I am the Lord which sanctify you — Set you apart from all uncleanness and idolatry, and impart to you grace to continue in this state of separation. The sanctification of the nature by the indwelling of the Holy Ghost may have been a rare experience under the old covenant. It is promised to all believers under the spiritual dispensation.

V. 9. Curseth-This is not here meant of every perverse expression, but of bitter reproaches or imprecations. His blood shall be upon him-He is guilty of his own death: he deserves to die for so unnatural a crime.

Verse 9. Curseth his father or his mother] See Clarke’s notes on “Genesis 48:12”, and “Exodus 20:12”. He who conscientiously keeps the fifth commandment can be in no danger of this judgment. The term llqy yekallel signifies, not only to curse, but to speak of a person contemptuously and disrespectfully, to make light of; so that all speeches which have a tendency to lessen our parents in the eyes of others, or to render their judgment, piety, &c., suspected and contemptible, may be here included; though the act of cursing, or of treating the parent with injurious and opprobrious language, is that which is particularly intended.

Verse 9. Curseth — This is not here meant of every perverse expression, but of bitter reproaches or imprecations. His blood shall be upon him — He is guilty of his own death: he deserves to die for so unnatural a crime.

9. Curseth his father — The Hebrew includes contemptuous or disrespectful words, as well as cursing. But it is not probable that petulant words in a momentary passion were sufficient to constitute a capital crime, but the defiant and repeated vilification of the parents and the rejection of their authority. His blood… upon him — This law phrase, recurring so often in the Scriptures, is first found here. It signifies that capital punishment worthily falls upon him who wilfully violates God’s law. Breach of the reverence due to parents is punished in just the same way as offences against the reverence due to God.

Verse 10. Committeth adultery] To what has been said in Clarke’s note on “Exodus 20:14”, we may add, that the word adultery comes from the Latin adulterium, which is compounded of ad, to or with, and alter, another, or, according to Minshieu, of ad alterius forum, he that approaches to another man’s bed.

Verse 10. The adulterer and adulteress shall surely be put to death — Adultery, however lightly it may be accounted of by men who are lost to all sense of virtue and honour, has not only under the Mosaic economy, but by several other civilized nations; been reckoned a capital wickedness. By the ancient laws of Solon the husband was authorized to kill the adulterer and adulteress, if he found them in the fact; or if he did not choose to proceed to that severity, he might put out their eyes. Among the Egyptians too, adulterers were punished with the utmost severity. If a woman were enticed to commit adultery, her nose was slit, and the man received a thousand blows with rods. To the same purpose, by the Roman laws, the adulterer might be put to death if he were taken in the act. Considering the heinous nature and fatal consequences of this vice, we need not wonder much, if, in well-regulated states, it has been punishable with death. By our laws a man shall lose his life by robbing another of a few shillings; but what proportion is there between robbing a man of a sum of money, and invading his property in what he often cherishes more tenderly than ease, plenty, honour, and even life itself?

10. The adulterer and the adulteress — In the Mosaic law adultery is committed only through the unchastity of a wife. A husband commits this crime only with the free wife of another. See Exodus 20:14, note. Put to death — If the adulteress was another’s slave, the penalty was milder, probably corporeal punishment. The allowance of polygamy implies that the wife has no such exclusive right to the husband as the husband has to the wife. In many countries the adulteress has suffered capital punishment while the adulterer has escaped with a less penalty. Since this crime destroys the family, the corner-stone of society, it deserves the severest penalty. If both parties are married persons, the crime is double adultery; if but one is under marriage vows, it is single. See Exodus 20:14, note.

V. 12. Confusion-By perverting the order which God hath appointed, and making the same off-spring both his own child and his grandchild.

Verse 12. They have wrought confusion] See Leviticus 18:1-30, and especially Clarke’s note on “Leviticus 18:6”.

Verse 12. Confusion — By perverting the order which God hath appointed, and making the same offspring both his own child and his grand-child.

12. Confusion — The word tebhel occurs in only one other passage, Leviticus 18:23, note.

V. 13. Put to death-Except the one party was forced by the other. See Deuteronomy 22:25.

Verse 13. Put to death — Except the one party was forced by the other: see Deuteronomy 22:25.

13. An abomination — Leviticus 18:22, note.

V. 14. They-All who consented to it.

Verse 14. They shall be burnt with fire] As there are worse crimes mentioned here, (see Leviticus 20:11 and Leviticus 20:17,) where the delinquent is ordered simply to be put to death, or to be cut off, it is very likely that the crime mentioned in this verse was not punished by burning alive, but by some kind of branding, by which they were ever after rendered infamous. I need not add that the original, wprvy vab baesh yishrephu, may, without violence to its grammatical meaning, be understood as above, though in other places it is certainly used to signify a consuming by fire. But the case in question requires some explanation; it is this: a man marries a wife, and afterward takes his mother-in-law or wife’s mother to wife also: now for this offence the text says all three shall be burnt with fire, and this is understood as signifying that they shall be burnt alive. Now the first wife, we may safely presume, was completely innocent, and was legally married: for a man may take to wife the daughter if single, or the mother if a widow, and in neither of these cases can any blame attach to the man or the party he marries; the crime therefore lies in taking both. Either, therefore, they were all branded as infamous persons, and this certainly was severe enough in the case of the first wife; or the man and the woman taken last were burnt: but the text says, both he and they; therefore, we should seek for another interpretation of they shall be burnt with fire, than that which is commonly given. Branding with a hot iron would certainly accomplish every desirable end both for punishment and prevention of the crime; and because the Mosaic laws are so generally distinguished by humanity, it seems to be necessary to limit the meaning of the words as above.

Verse 14. They — All who consented to it.

14. Burnt with fire — The heinousness of the incest specified in this verse is emphasized by burning the dead bodies of the culprits after they had been stoned. Cremation, so common among the Greeks and Romans, was exceedingly abhorrent to the Hebrews. Burning alive is not a penalty of the Mosaic law. See Joshua 7:15, note. Hence little confidence is to be put in the Targum of Palestine, which says, “Let them be burned with fire, with melted lead in their mouths.”

V. 15. Slay the beast-Partly for the prevention of monstrous births, partly to blot out the memory of so loathsome a crime.

Verse 15. Slay the beast — Partly for the prevention of monstrous births, partly to blot out the memory of so loathsome a crime.

15. Lie with a beast — See Leviticus 18:23. Slay the beast — The innocent instrument of the abominable act of a moral agent is put to death as a mark of Jehovah’s abhorrence.

Verse 16. If a woman approach unto any beast] We have the authority of one of the most eminent historians in the world, Herodotus, to say that this was a crime not unknown in Egypt; yea, that a case of this nature actually took place while he was there. Egeneto dJ en tw no mw toutw epJ emeu touto to terav, Gunaiki Tragov emisgeto anafandon. Touto ev epideixin anqrepen apiketo.-Herod. in Euterp., p. 108. Edit. Gale, Lond. 1679. “In this district, within my own recollection, this portentous business took place: a goat coupled so publicly with a woman that every person knew it,” &c. After this, need we wonder that God should have made laws of this nature, when it appears these abominations were not only practised among the Egyptians, but were parts of a superstitious religious system? This one observation will account for many of those strange prohibitions which we find in the Mosaic law; others, the reasons of which are not so plain, we should see the propriety of equally, had we ampler historic records of the customs that existed in that country.

V. 17. See her nakedness-In this and several of the following verses, uncovering nakedness plainly appears to mean not marriage, but fornication or adultery.

Verse 17. See her nakedness — In this and several of the following verses, uncovering nakedness plainly appears to mean not marriage, but fornication or adultery.

17. Sister — See Leviticus 18:9, 11, notes. Wicked thing — Properly a disgrace.

18. With a woman having her sickness — Since the Hebrew has but one term for woman and wife, this precept, with its dreadful penalty of extermination, must apply to conjugal intercourse during menstruation. This offence against purity is accounted among the crying sins of Israel, ranking with idol-worship, adultery, and violation of a father’s wife. Ezekiel 18:6; 22:10. Both… shall be cut off — They shall both be put to death, though in this case the man is chiefly guilty. Any less stringent safeguard of the wife’s health might have been ineffectual. It is difficult for modern moralists to adjust their ethical notions to all the requirements of the ceremonial law.

19. They shall bear their iniquity — Oehler thinks that this expression does not involve the death penalty. See Leviticus 10:17; Numbers 9:13, notes.

V. 20. They shall die childless-Either shall be speedily cut off ere they can have a child by that incestuous conjunction; if this seem a less crime than most of the former incestuous mixtures, and therefore the magistrate forbear to punish it with death; yet they shall either have no children from such an unlawful bed, or their children shall die before them.

Verse 20. They shall die childless — Both shall be speedily cut off ere they can have a child by that incestuous conjunction; or, if this seem a less crime than most of the former incestuous mixtures, and therefore the magistrate forbear to punish it with death, yet they shall either have no children from such an unlawful bed, or their children shall die before them.

20. Severed you… that ye should be mine — There can be no appropriation without separation. Consecration to Christ implies a death unto sin. Oehler wisely remarks that kadosh, the Hebrew for the word holy, “where it is a designation of a divine attribute, there evidently lies in it primarily a negative element, by which it designates a state of apartness, God raising himself above all others.” The connexion of thought in this verse may be thus expressed: “I am holy, and so I have separated you from among the nations to be mine.” Nothing created is in itself holy, though it is innocent. Holiness in a creature always involves an act of self-determination, and an act of the divine will in the completion of a perfection of life both inwardly and outwardly. “It is certain that in the biblical conception of society a very broad distinction is made between the people of God and all other people. This again is not arbitrary; it comes out of the very nature of the separating God himself. It is only because God is different from all other gods that his people are different from all other people. Monasticism is not taught by this text. Men are to move up and down in the world transacting all its usual business, and yet so to do the work of life as to exert a benign influence, and fill other men with encouragement to move in an upward direction.” — Joseph Parker.

V. 21. His brother’s wife-Except in the case allowed by God, Deuteronomy 25:5.

Verse 21. His brother’s wife — Except in the case allowed by God, Deuteronomy 25:5.

Verse 22. The land, whither I bring you to dwell therein, spue you not out.] See this energetic prosopopœia explained in the note on Leviticus 18:25. From this we learn that the cup of the iniquities of the Canaanitish nations was full; and that, consistently with Divine justice, they could be no longer spared.

22. Spew you not out — See Leviticus 18:25, 28, notes.

23. Therefore I abhorred them — The word kootz signifies to be weary of, to loathe, to be distressed, to abhor; and it heightens the hatefulness of the sins of the Canaanites. How intensely repugnant to the divine mind must those actions be which awaken the emotion of abhorrence! We have no sympathy with the semi-deistic notion that God is a bare and cold intelligence, utterly devoid of sensibilities. To limit him to mere knowledge and volition is to represent him as inferior to man. If man is made in the image of God it must be that the divine prototype is possessed of the capacity of emotion.

Verse 24. A land that floweth with milk and honey] See this explained “Exodus 3:8”.

24. Milk and honey — Both Grecian and Roman poets depict the highest pleasantness and fertility by an abundance of milk and honey. See Homer’s Iliad, 9:141; Ovid, Met., i, iii; See Joshua 5:6, note. Separated you from other people — This separation consisted in circumcision, a knowledge of the true God, a prohibition of idolatry, a unique sacrificial code, and the requirement to obey the moral and the levitical law, which rendered it impossible to mingle socially with the Gentiles without contracting pollution. This separation was subsequently made easier by the secluded position of the Holy Land, which was enclosed on the south and southwest by great wildernesses, on the north by the high mountains of Lebanon, and on the west by a seacoast having few harbours.

Verse 25. Between clean beasts and unclean] See the notes on Leviticus 11:1-47.

25. Clean beasts — This law may be considered both as a sanitary regulation and also a barrier between Israel and all idolatrous nations. See Leviticus 11:2-8, notes. Your souls — The word “souls” is here used for “selves.” See Isaiah 46:2.

V. 27. A man or a woman that hath a familiar spirit, shall surely be put to death-They that are in league with the devil, have in effect made a covenant with death: and so shall their doom be.

Verse 27. A familiar spirit] A spirit or demon, which, by magical rites, is supposed to be bound to appear at the call of his employer. See Clarke’s notes on “Genesis 41:8”; “Exodus 7:11”; “Exodus 7:22”; And see Clarke’s notes “Exodus 7:25”; and “Leviticus 19:31”. FROM the accounts we have of the abominations both of Egypt and Canaan, we may blush for human nature; for wherever it is without cultivation, and without the revelation of God, it is every thing that is vile in principle and detestable in practice. Nor would any part of the habitable globe materially differ from Egypt and Canaan, had they not that rule of righteousness, the revealed LAW of God, and had not life and immortality been brought to light by the GOSPEL among them. From these accounts, for which we could easily find parallels in ancient Greece and Italy, we may see the absolute need of a Divine revelation, without which man, even in his best estate, differs little from the brute.

LEVITICUS

Verse 27. A man or a woman that hath a familiar spirit, shall surely be put to death — They that are in league with the devil have in effect made a covenant with death; and so shall their doom be.