Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Leviticus 18:1
And the LORD spoke unto Moses, saying,
1. Purity in those connected through the relationship of parent and child.
The first Pentad: Kinship of the first degree, Lev 18:6-10.
The second Pentad: Kinship of the second degree, Lev 18:11-15.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Lev 18:1-5
Ye shall do My judgments
Safety in the observance of Gods laws
This preface of some is taken generally to concern all the laws of God; the observation whereof is ever the sure safety of a state public or private, for it is not the munition of walls, leagues, and alliance with foreign princes, largeness of confines, plenty of treasure, or such like, that preserve a commonwealth, but careful and diligent observation of public laws ordained of God for the good of man.
It is said that Lacedemon flourished whilst Lycurguss laws were observed: much more any commonwealth when Gods be kept. For what comparison betwixt mans laws and Gods? Demosthenes saith, It was the manner of the Loerenses, that if any man would publish and devise a new law he should put his neck into a halter ready to be put to death, if the law were not good, by which means they made men more careful to observe old and ancient, tried and known laws, than with busy heads to make new. Now what laws so old and so approved good as Gods laws? Ever, therefore, are they to be regarded and hearkened unto. Others take this preface particularly of these laws concerning marriage now following, that if they be carefully kept, a kingdom long flourisheth, and if not, soon ii cometh to a fearful fall. For so odious and abhorred of God is the unlawful mixture of man and woman that the Lord cannot long withhold great judgments. And thus much remember as you read them ever, that these laws do not concern the Jews only, as the ceremonial laws now spoken of and judicial did, but these laws belong to all men and women and to all succeeding times, being eternal, immutable, grafted by God in mans nature and given by Him for holiness sake. Note all the words well that God would not have them like either the Egyptians or Canaanites, and wish with me that there was a like law against our being like foreign nations near us, with ruffs dipped in the devils liquor called starch, Turkish heads, Spanish backs, Italian waists, &c., giving daily occasion to the mockers that say French nets catch English fools. (Bp. Babington.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
CHAPTER XVIII
The people are commanded to avoid the doings of the Egyptians
and Canaanites, 1-3.
They are to do God’s judgments, and to keep his ordinances,
that they may live, 4, 5.
Marriages with those who are near of kin are prohibited, 6.
None to marry with his mother or step-mother, 7, 8;
with his sister or step-sister, 9;
with his grand-daughter, 10;
nor with the daughter of his step-mother, 11;
nor with his aunt, by father or mother, 12, 13;
nor with his uncle’s wife, 14;
nor with his daughter-in-law, 15;
nor sister-in-law, 16;
nor with a woman and her daughter, son’s daughter, or
daughter’s daughter, 17;
nor with two sisters at the same time, 18.
Several abominations prohibited, 19-23,
of which the Canaanites, &c., were guilty, and for which they
were cast out of the land, 24, 25.
The people are exhorted to avoid these abominations, lest they
be treated as the ancient inhabitants of the land were treated,
and so cast out, 26-28.
Threatenings against the disobedient, 29,
and promises to the obedient, 30.
NOTES ON CHAP. XVIII
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
And the Lord spake unto Moses,…. He continued speaking to him, after he had delivered to him the laws respecting the day of atonement, and the bringing of the sacrifices to the door of the tabernacle, and particularly concerning the Israelites not worshipping devils, as they had done in Egypt: the Lord proceeds to deliver out others, the more effectually to guard against both the immoral and idolatrous practice, of the Egyptians and Canaanites:
saying, as follows.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Holiness of the Marriage Relation. – The prohibition of incest and similar sensual abominations is introduced with a general warning as to the licentious customs of the Egyptians and Canaanites, and an exhortation to walk in the judgments and ordinances of Jehovah (Lev 18:2-5), and is brought to a close with a threatening allusion to the consequences of all such defilements (Lev 18:24-30).
Lev 18:1-4 By the words, “I am Jehovah your God,” which are placed at the head and repeated at the close (Lev 18:30), the observance of the command is enforced upon the people as a covenant obligation, and urged upon them most strongly by the promise, that through the observance of the ordinances and judgments of Jehovah they should live (Lev 18:5).
Lev 18:5 “ The man who does them (the ordinances of Jehovah) shall live (gain true life) through them ” (see at Exo 1:16 and Gen 3:22).
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
| Cautions against Idolatrous Practices. | B. C. 1490. |
1 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, 2 Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, I am the LORD your God. 3 After the doings of the land of Egypt, wherein ye dwelt, shall ye not do: and after the doings of the land of Canaan, whither I bring you, shall ye not do: neither shall ye walk in their ordinances. 4 Ye shall do my judgments, and keep mine ordinances, to walk therein: I am the LORD your God. 5 Ye shall therefore keep my statutes, and my judgments: which if a man do, he shall live in them: I am the LORD.
After divers ceremonial institutions, God here returns to the enforcement of moral precepts. The former are still of use to us as types, the latter still binding as laws. We have here, 1. The sacred authority by which these laws are enacted: I am the Lord your God (Lev 18:1; Lev 18:4; Lev 18:30), and I am the Lord,Lev 18:5; Lev 18:6; Lev 18:21. “The Lord, who has a right to rule all; your God, who has a peculiar right to rule you.” Jehovah is the fountain of being, and therefore the fountain of power, whose we are, whom we are bound to serve, and who is able to punish all disobedience. “Your God to whom you have consented, in whom you are happy, to whom you lie under the highest obligations imaginable, and to whom you are accountable.” 2. A strict caution to take heed of retaining the relics of the idolatries of Egypt, where they had dwelt, and of receiving the infection of the idolatries of Canaan, whither they were now going, v. 3. Now that God was by Moses teaching them his ordinances there was aliquid dediscendum–something to be unlearned, which they had sucked in with their milk in Egypt, a country noted for idolatry: You shall not do after the doings of the land of Egypt. It would be the greatest absurdity in itself to retain such an affection for their house of bondage as to be governed in their devotions by the usages of it, and the greatest ingratitude to God, who had so wonderfully and graciously delivered them. Nay, as if governed by a spirit of contradiction, they would be in danger, even after they had received these ordinances of God, of admitting the wicked usages of the Canaanites and of inheriting their vices with their land. Of this danger they are here warned, You shall not walk in their ordinances. Such a tyrant is custom that their practices are called ordinances, and they became rivals even with God’s ordinances, and God’s professing people were in danger of receiving law from them. 3. A solemn charge to them to keep God’s judgments, statutes, and ordinances,Lev 18:4; Lev 18:5. To this charge, and many similar ones, David seems to refer in the many prayers and professions he makes relating to God’s laws in the 119th Psalm. Observe here, (1.) The great rule of our obedience–God’s statutes and judgments. These we must keep to walk therein. We must keep them in our books, and keep them in our hands, that we may practise them in our hearts and lives. Remember God’s commandments to do them, Ps. ciii. 18. We must keep in them as our way to travel in, keep to them as our rule to work by, keep them as our treasure, as the apple of our eye, with the utmost care and value. (2.) The great advantage of our obedience: Which if a man do, he shall live in them, that is, “he shall be happy here and hereafter.” We have reason to thank God, [1.] That this is still in force as a promise, with a very favourable construction of the condition. If we keep God’s commandments in sincerity, though we come short of sinless perfection, we shall find that the way of duty is the way of comfort, and will be the way to happiness. Godliness has the promise of life, 1 Tim. iv. 8. Wisdom has said, Keep my commandments and live: and if through the Spirit we mortify the deeds of the body (which are to us as the usages of Egypt were to Israel) we shall live. [2.] That it is not so in force in the nature of a covenant as that the least transgression shall for ever exclude us from this life. The apostle quotes this twice as opposite to the faith which the gospel reveals. It is the description of the righteousness which is by the law, the man that doeth them shall live en autois—in them (Rom. x. 5), and is urged to prove that the law is not of faith, Gal. iii. 12. The alteration which the gospel has made is in the last word: still the man that does them shall live, but not live in them; for the law could not give life, because we could not perfectly keep it; it was weak through the flesh, not in itself; but now the man that does them shall live by the faith of the Son of God. He shall owe his life to the grace of Christ, and not to the merit of his own works; see Gal 3:21; Gal 3:22. The just shall live, but they shall live by faith, by virtue of their union with Christ, who is their life.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
LEVITICUS- CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Verses 1-5:
This text introduces the theme of moral uncleanness and its punishment, the subject of chapters 18-20. The theme progresses from ceremonial uncleanness and its remedy, to moral uncleanness and its penalty.
These verses are the introduction to the laws defining the prohibited digression of marriage, and of forbidden immorality.
The clause, “I am Jehovah your Elohim,” occurs three times in these five verses. This emphasizes the solemnity of the declarations of morality and holy living.
Because Jehovah is Israel’s God (Elohim), they are to abstain from the depraved and immoral customs of the Egyptians in whose land they had dwelt, and the Canaanites to whose land they were going. History reflects the depravity of both these peoples.
On a positive note, because Jehovah is Israel’s God (Elohim), they are to obey His commands and walk in His statutes.
“Judgments,” mishpat, a synonym of “law,” with emphasis upon the judicial pronouncements of the Judge, either written or oral.
“Ordinances,” chuqqah, “decree,” a fiat of an official nature, another synonym for “law,” with emphasis upon the royal edicts of a king.
“Statutes,” choq “decreed limit,” a synonym of “law” with emphasis upon its written nature.
All God’s laws, decrees, judgments, whether written or oral, are designed to reflect .His holiness, and to encourage holiness in the lives of His servants.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
1. And the Lord spoke unto Moses. I have not introduced this declaration amongst other similar ones, which had for their object the preparation of their minds for the reverent reception of the Law, because, whatever conformity there may be in the words themselves, in their substance there is a great difference; for they were general, whereas this is specially confined to a single point. For it was not God’s intention here merely to exhort the people to the study of the Law, but the address respecting the keeping of His statutes is directed to the present cause, since He does not refer indifferently to all the statutes of Himself and of the Gentiles, but restricts Himself to the subject-matter, as it is called; and thus, by the statutes of the Gentiles, He means those corruptions whereby they had perverted His pure institution as to holy matrimony. First, however, tie forbids them from following the customs of the Egyptians, and then includes all the Canaanitish nations. For, since all the Orientals are libidinous, they never had any scruple in polluting themselves by incestuous marriages; whilst it is abundantly proved by history, how great were the excesses of the Egyptians (86) in this respect. A brother had no abhorrence against marrying his uterine sister, nor a paternal or maternal uncle his niece; in a word, they were so dead to. shame that they were carried away by their lusts to trample upon all the laws of nature. This is the reason why God here enumerates the kinds of incest of which the mention would else have been superfluous.
(86) “A very objectionable custom, which is not only noticed by Diodorus, but is fully authenticated by the sculptures both of Upper and Lower Egypt, existed among them from the earliest times, the origin and policy of which it is not easy to explain — the marriage of brother and sister, which Diodorus supposes to have been owing to, and sanctioned by, that of His and Osiris; but as this was purely an allegorical fable, and these ideal personages never lived on earth, his conjecture is of little weight; nor does any ancient writer offer a satisfactory explanation of so strange a custom.” — Wilkinson’s Popular Account of the Ancient Egyptians, 2:224.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
Incestuous Marriages: Domestic Purity
SUGGESTIVE READINGS
Lev. 18:2.Speak unto them and say, I am the Lord your God. Jehovah is the sole lawgiver, His word the one law to His people: ungodly customs and usages claim no heed from them: what He wills is absolute. Relationship to, and fellowship with God are based upon implicit obedience. There must be cheerful acceptance of His authority in all the details of life. Ethics are to be decided by the word divine, for who but the Lord should erect the standard of rectitude for man?
Lev. 18:3.After the doings of the land of Egypt. The Israelites dwelt amid a people of corrupt and debasing habits for so long a period that it was with difficulty they purged themselves from sympathy with familiar evils. They who enter upon the new life of grace in Christ Jesus find that their old sins follow close upon their steps and exert seductive influence. To cast out the old leaven is a necessity still, if we would enjoy the favours of our redeemed lot and our new-covenant relationships. What Egypt approved or Canaan practised may no longer regulate the godly life; but, What saith the Lord?
Lev. 18:5.He shall live in them. Social health and spiritual blessedness will always attend obedience to Gods just and benign statutes. Violation of the laws of humanity, the laws of rectitude and purity, bring physical decrepitude and social disaster.
Here note that these words form the basis of the Old Testament doctrine of salvation by works Obedience secures lifesacred and eternal life. These words are quoted by the prophet Ezekiel (Lev. 20:11; Lev. 20:13; Lev. 20:21), and by the Apostle Paul (Rom. 10:5; Gal. 3:12.), as summarizing the teachings of Moses dispensationthe merits of works, justification by obedience. We, in gospel times, realise life through faith; salvation in Christs merits, and not in our own. Yet the beneficent law stands for ever: that observance of Gods law is salutory; for life is most truly realised now by those whose conduct is godly, and blessed rewards are assured hereafter to those who do those things which please the Lord.
Lev. 18:6-18.None of you shall approach to any that is near of kin. The prohibited cases of intercourse or marriage are: the sons own mother, and consequently, by inference, the daughters own father (Lev. 18:7); a stepmother, and, by inference, a stepfather (Lev. 18:8); a full sister or half sister (Lev. 18:9); a granddaughter (Lev. 18:10); a half-sister (Lev. 18:11); an aunt (Lev. 18:12); an aunt by marriage (Lev. 18:13-14); a daughter-in-law (v 15); a brothers wife (Lev. 18:16); a step daughter, and a step-granddaughter (Lev. 18:17); polygamy is interdicted (Lev. 18:18), the adding a wife to her sister, and this during the wifes lifetime. The inference in each case carries prohibition also to the corresponding relationship: as e.g., half-brother (Lev. 18:9); uncle (Lev. 18:12); son-in-law (Lev. 18:15), and so on throughout. Every marriage alliance is to be ruled by the initiatory definition (Lev. 18:6), Near of kin; and the instances specified show this near kinship to include cases of consanguinity and also equally of marriage relationship. Let this interpretation be applied to the question of the deceased wifes sister.
The important law running through all these regulations is: Fidelity in wedlock; scrupulous honour in the marriage relationship; the door is to be closed on all occasion of jealousy or illicit love. Home bonds are to be cherished as all too sacred and precious for passion or caprice to trifle with. God will have family obligations loyally and vigorously maintained.
Lev. 18:19-23 Crimes against Purity. How shamefully vile humanity may become! What a gross being is he whom God pities and would save; and how low has he fallen whom Christ would lift up to sanctity and bliss!
Lev. 18:24-30. The land is defiled. The well-being of a land depends on the morality of its inhabitants. National decay sets in when the people become abandoned. The records of national life, from ancient times till now, emphasise the precept, Righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people (Pro. 14:34).
SECTIONAL AND TOPICAL HOMILIES
Topic: UNACCOMMODATING GODLINESS (Lev. 18:1-5)
After the doings of the land of Egypt, wherein ye dwelt, shall ye not do; and after the doings of the land of Canaan, whither I bring you, shall ye not do, etc.
Danger lurks in example; customs lure us from strict integrity; easy to fall in with prevailing habits, sentiments, ideas. With men of this world who have no disposition to come out from among them, be separate, and touch not the unclean thing, the current maxims and methods are accepted without challenge, they stream along with the flow of social life; they yield themselves unresistingly to the popular course.
Herein lies the distinction, the distinguishing element of piety; it refuses to allow custom to dominate either conscience or conduct.
I. WORLDLY SEDUCTIONS EVERYWHERE ENVIRON THE GODLY LIFE.
After the doings of the land of Egypt, and after the doings of the land of Canaan.
1. Ensuarements are not escaped by change of place. He who thinks to flee the world by exchanging Egypt for Canaan, will find the world still at his heels. To quit your gentle home for the cloister or the nunnery; to forsake one sphere of business for another in hope of fleeing the sanctioned malpractices of trade; to attempt to be not of the world by any process of mere exclusion and avoidance of places and people, is a fallacy; for evil is everywhere, in some guise or disguise; and from the snares of sin and the sanctions of impiety there is no hiding-place in this present evil world.
2. Ensnarements are not left behind with the advance of years Forty years were spent by the Israelites in the desert, between Egypt and Canaan; yet that distance of time would not liberate them from the seductions of worldliness. What they left behind them in Egypt they would meet again, in altered forms, in Canaan, when at length they reached that land. No Christian ever advances beyond the reach of evil and the subtleties of the world. What he had to fight with during his Egyptian life he will have to fight with all his career through. Time does not rid the godly of this seductive peril.
3. Ensnarements are not absent from coveted scenes of privilege. Canaan was the hope and desire of every Israelite. It was a goodly land, the inheritance of faith, the goal of pilgrimage. Egypt was a scene of bondage and grief, type of a sinners lot ere redeemed. But Canaan was suggestive of liberty, prosperity, privilege, symbol of the Christian life of sacred rest, freedom, and joy in the Lord. Yet even within Canaan the snares of sin would be encountered; no release from danger, a stern necessity to watch and pray, lest ye enter into temptation; and this in most delightful and hallowed hours, amid spiritual favours and privileges. Even the happiest Christian life is encompassed about with the sins that so easily beset us. [See Addenda to chapter xviii., Custom.]
II. SANCTIONED IMPIETIES MUST BE EVERYWHEREE SHUNNED BY THE GODLY LIFE.
The Egyptians were the most civilised and majestic people of the age; and their doings and ordinances may represent the usages of society and culture: the customs of refinement and respectability. The Canaanites were a rude and unpolished people, easy and free; and their doings and ordinances answer to the popular maxims and habits, the pleasures and practices current among the less educated, the customs of the masses.
1. Wherever our place, whatever our station, godliness repudiates and renounces sin. Yes: and every form of sin; personal or social; secret or open; sanctioned or unpopular. The man of God loathes impurity, shuns impiety. Not fashioning himself to the standard of morals around him, he has no fellowship with the unfaithful works of darkness, but rather reproves them.
2. An accommodating conscience, and an obliging disposition, must be allowed no sanction in commerce with the world. After their doings ye shall not do! Neither shall ye walk in their ordinances.
And to my mind, tho I am a native here,
And to the manner born, it is a custom
More honoured in the breach than in the observance.Hamlet.
3. Amid prevailing error it is the business of godliness to show the right and good. What else is the significance of our Lords words: Ye are the light of the world; ye are the salt of the earth? It is neither convenient or advantageous to assume this attitude of resistance against the cherished ordinances of social, literary, or professedly religious life. But the Christian is among men with a divine business, to put wrong to the blush; to pronounce by his virtues against all vice, by his spirituality against all earthliness of soul, by his self-denials against all low indulgence, by his lofty worship against all dead formality or careless irreverence. Religion is the fearless yet beautiful exhibition of the
Piety, whose soul sincere,
Fears God, and knows no other fear.
III. AN INFLEXIBLE DIVINE STANDARD EVERYWHERE REGULATES THE GODLY LIFE.
1. The standard of divine relationship. I am the Lord your God (Lev. 18:2). Israels doings were to take tone and character from this facttheir God was the Lord; He was theirs, and they His. Living under the influence of that solemn relationship, their conduct should harmonise with His perfectionsholy as He is holy. It is the hourly obligation of the Christian, to walk worthy of the Lord, to walk so as also He walked.
2. The standard of divine teachings. God has told us His will; in precept and commandment we have our directory of conduct. His word is to be a lamp to our feet and a light to our path. None can err through lack of instruction. Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed thereto according to thy word. This is the law for Israel everywhere: Ye shall do my judgments, and keep mine ordinances, to walk therein (Lev. 18:4).
3. The standard of divine claims. Gods ordinances were not imperious exactions; He deserved all He asked of Israel in return for His grace and love to them. Already they were, by His almighty arm, redeemed from Egypt, and they were journeying to Canaan, whither I bring you. They owed Him loyal obedience, loving regard, cheerful acquiesence. What shall I render unto the Lord for all His benefits towards me? How much owest thou unto my Lord? What claim on your life comes from His cross?
4. The standard of divine promise. Keep my statutes, which if a man do he shall live in them (Lev. 18:5). Present gains and comforts, eternal life and bliss. For godliness is profitable unto all things, having the promise of the life which now is, and of that which is to come. [See Addenda to chap. xviii., Religion.]
Topic: NONCONFORMITY TO THE WORLD
After the doings of the land of Egypt, wherein ye dwelt, shall ye not do (Lev. 18:3).
Israel now under the drill and discipline of Jehovah. The pilgrimage through the wilderness to be a period of moral probation. Moral precepts now associated with positive commands. The need of this injunction seen from
I. THE INHERENT PROPENSITY OF HUMAN NATURE TO WORLDLINESS. Indulgence of animal appetites, exclusive concern for present enjoyment, inclination to conform to prevailing customs, worldliness congenial, and therefore easy to our fallen nature; these things show the need for the call to nonconformity to the world.
II. THE EXALTED MISSION TO WHICH ISRAEL WAS CALLED. The nation was selected to be the repository of divine truth, the community among which Jehovah would specially display His goodness and glory. Israel was not to move with the evil stream of tendency making for unrighteousness, but to become singular, come out from the ungodly, and touch not the unclean thing. This, the true idea of a Churchdrawn out, separated from the world. Christ taught that those who escape a worse than Egyptian bondage are to be known by the nonconformity to the world, separation from sin, light of the world, salt of the earth, city set on a hill.
To become thus peculiar and distinguished for holiness would require, on the part of Israelas it does of Christians(a) Deep rooted repugnance to sin; (b) resolute resistance of temptation; (c) prayer for divine assistance; (d) heroic struggles after self-conquest. To achieve victory over the world is life, to sustain defeat is death. While in the world, let us seek not to be of it. While not praying to be taken out of the world, we should pray to be kept from the evil.F.W.B.
Topic: THE BLESSEDNESS OF OBEDIENCE
If a man do, he shall live in them (Lev. 18:5)
The legislation to which Israel was expected to submit was not an arbitrary and despotic code of laws imposed to humble them and force them into subjection; but a government of righteousness that would secure the glory of God and, at the same time, the salvation of man. Jehovah entered into covenant with His people, and engaged to fulfil all His gracious promises, if only the conditions were secured upon which their fulfilment was made to hinge. The way of life and the way of death were set before the people; they were exhorted to embrace the former, warned to escape the latter. Punishment was annexed to disobedience, reward to doing well. Thus the world was taught through the Mosaic legislation
I. THAT LIFE IS NOT AN IDLE DREAM. Time was not to be spent in self-gratification, or wasted in wanton wickedness. Life, though brief, and like a vapour, to be turned to something real, spent in doing the will of God. Life not a period for lounging or loitering, but for service, conflict, progress. It is the morning, the seed time of eternity; let us improve each golden opportunity, and remember whatsoever we sow that shall we reap,
We live in thoughts, not breath; in deeds, not years;
In feelings, not in figures on the dial:
We must count time by heart-throbs,
He most lives, who thinks most, feels the noblest,
Acts the best.
II. THAT MAN IS NOT A CREATURE OF CIRCUMSTANCES. Israel was not to be the victim of the environments of Egypt, from which they had just emerged; nor of the influences that would encircle them in the land towards which they were journeying. They were not to drift but to livenot to be moulded by circumstances, but conquer them, and leave the stamp of their piety and loyalty wherever they went. They had the faculty of reason, the prerogative of choice, were responsible for the use they made of the privileges they enjoyed. Though Jehovah commanded, He did not coerce, the people were left free to obey or rebel. With life attached to obedience, surely the people would be led to (a) resist every seduction to disobedience; (b) avoid every place, person, and thing that would suggest sin and incite to wrong doing; (c) covet above everything else the favour of the great king, who declared Himself, I am the Lord your God. Concerning the commandments of the gospel, in the language of its glorious Author, If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them.F. W. B.
Topic: GODS HOLY NAME
Neither shalt thou profane the Name of thy God (Lev. 18:21).
Peculiar solemnity attached to the divine name; it conveyed to the minds of the Hebrews ideas of the infinite greatness and glory of Jehovahs nature. It was hedged in by special sanctity, and gave infinite importance and power to everything to which it was attached. The sacredness of the name of the Lord, and the command to keep it holy
I. SHOWED HOW CLOSELY HE IDENTIFIED HIMSELF WITH HIS PEOPLE. He was one with them, called them into close fellowship, and His honour was bound up with their character and conduct. If Israel fell into sin and shame, Jehovahs name was profaned.
II. SHOWED HOW IMMACULATELY PURE JEHOVAH IS. His name was emphatically holy and distinguished from all other names known in earth and heaven. The nature of Jehovah so transparently pure that every kind of evil, however trivial in appearance, was to be scrupulously avoided for His sake.
III. SHOWED HOW HEINOUS ALL SIN IS. Sin is odious and repulsive when we remember (a) Its brutish and fiendish influences; (b) how it defiles the perpetrator, and contaminates society; (c) how it brings punishment here and torment hereafter. But sin appears most abominable in its nature and awful in its consequences when regarded as an insult to the Almighty, a profanation of His holy name. Let us hate and forsake sin because God hates it; let us view it in the light of Gethsemane and Calvary. The love of Christ will not only conquer our selfishness, and constrain us to holy consecration, but make us hate and forsake every form of iniquity in thought, word, and deed. Life will not be the dragging out of a miserable existence, but a triumphant march to the heavenly Canaan, if we seek to become cleansed from all unrighteousness, and to perfect holiness in the fear of the Lord.F. W. B.
Topic: CONJUGAL CHASTITY; OR, HOLINESS IN THE HOME (Lev. 18:1-30)
In this chapter moral precepts are associated with ceremonial observances. The home life of Israel was to be kept pure, sexual intercourse to be righteously restricted. The people among whom Jehovah would dwell must be clean in their domestic habits, pure in their social relationship. The natives of Canaan became so addicted to the vices here interdicted that by a retributive providence they became exterminated. These statutes, being moral, are of perpetual obligation; were not destroyed, but fulfilled in the ethical teaching of Christ and His Apostles. The fire of divine anger against impurity burns with greater intensity in the New Testament than in the Old. Observe
I. THAT THE SOCIAL AFFECTIONS OF HUMAN NATURE ARE PRONE TO BECOME WICKED AND WILD.
Man was made at first with social instinct and affections; therefore, it is not good for him to be alone. In the one help-meet made for him would be found congenial society, conjugal bliss. In the first family marriage relationships were entered upon among its own members, but as the race multiplied it was to the general advantage of families to marry out of their own circles, that the purity and unity of the race might be preserved. Bounds within which the affections might be indulged were divinely revealed, and the displeasure of the Almighty unmistakably announced against every infringement or perversion. The natural propensity to inordinate affection is confirmed (a) By history. Nations and individuls, mentioned in sacred and profane history, present sad proofs of the excesses into which social love will run when the reins are thrown upon the neck of lust. (b) By observation. In our own land and age, amid abounding religious advantages, and restraining influences of civilisation, what vice, immorality, conjugal unfaithfulness, and domestic impurity, abound! Deeds of infamy are done that the powers of darkness may blush to look upon, which the stern hand of the law and the sweet influence of the gospel are aiming to prevent and remove. (c) By experience. When we would do good evil is present with us, and the most invincible enemy we have to contend with in our hearts is the Goliath of lust. Our animal passions are our body of death, that often wrings from us the doleful exclamation, O wretched man that I am. Pure Platonic love is a splendid but Utopian idea. The best of men have found it necessary to watch carefully the issues of life, to keep the body under subjection, lest passions intended to play honourably become prolific sources of corruption and misery.
II. THAT GOD HAS THEREFORE PROMULGATED SUITABLE LAWS TO RESTRICT THE SOCIAL AFFECTIONS OF HUMAN NATURE.
The springs of national purity are in the homes of the people; when the home life is corrupt the knell of a nations greatness is tolled by the hand of doom. Expediency, conscience, and self-love might, in some instances, suggest restrictions in the indulgence of sensuous affection; but nothing short of such regulations as those here enjoined could effect the desirable end. And these regulations were enforced with great authorityon the ground of Jehovahs sovereignty and holiness, I am the Lord your God. From such an authority there could be no appeal, for it respect and obedience would be demanded. Thus, all incest and unchastity were (a) detestable to Jehovah; (b) an outrage upon human nature; (c) incompatible with mans physical, mental, and moral well-being; (d) in antagonism to the laws and forces of the universe. These statutes exhibit the wisdom and goodness of our great Creator; that as a holy and righteous Father He cares for the best interests of His children by wedding holiness and happiness in indissoluble union. Having made man, He knew what was in him, what was best for him; being his natural and moral governor He could justly impose what prohibitions He saw fit.
III. THAT THOSE LAWS DEMAND IMPLICIT OBEDIENCE FROM ALL WHO KNOW THEM
Whether positive or moral, divine precepts ought to be obeyed, for (a) they are all sovereign. Emanate from the King of kings, from the Source of all authority and power. God has absolute right to command or restrain. (b) They are all humane. Everything interdicted would be good for man to shun, for vice is cruel, degrading and filthy. (c) They are all salutary. The Individual, the Family, the Church, the State, all made healthy, pure and strong by avoidance of every species of immorality, by the practice of moral virtues.
(1) To keep these divine commandments was life. They tended to prolong his life, make it worth living, secure the favour of the Almighty, which is better than life.
(2) To break them was death. Those who indulged in corrupt heathenish habits would be cut off from among the people. Immorality debases, deteriorates, and entails death. Let but the divine laws regarding purity be rigidly observed, the social fabric of a nation will rest upon a rock; neglected, it will sink into the mire of corruption, into the pit of oblivion. To go on in sin that grace may abound is a foul heresy, injurious to man, detestable to God. The gospel gathers up the teachings of the law and the prophets, and shows that to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.F. W. B.
ILLUSTRATIVE ADDENDA TO CHAPTER 18
CUSTOM:
Man yields to custom, as he bows to fate,
In all things ruledmind, body, and estate.
CRABBE.
Custom calls me tot:
What custom wills, in all things should we do it?Coriolanus, II. 3.
New customs
Tho they be never so ridiculous,
Nay, let them be unmanly, yet are followed.
Henry VIII., I. 3.
RELIGION:
The body of all true religion consists, to be true, in obedience to the will of the Sovereign of the world, in a confidence in His declarations, and in imitation of His perfectionsBURKE.
Piety, like wisdom, consists in the discovery of the rules under which we are actually placed, and in faithfully obeying them.FROUDE.
Life and Religion are one, or neither is anything. I will not say neither is going to be anything. Religion is no way of life, no show of life, no observances of any sort. It is neither the food nor medicine of being. It is life essential.GEO. MACDONALD.
A religious life is a struggle and not a hymn.MADAME DE STAEL.
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
HOLINESS IN THE MARRIAGE RELATIONSHIP 18:130
IMPRESSIVE INTRODUCTION TO THE SUBJECT 18:15
TEXT 18:15
1
And Jehovah spake unto Moses, saying,
2
Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, I am Jehovah your God.
3
After the doings of the land of Egypt, wherein ye dwelt, shall ye not do: and after the doings of the land of Canaan, whither I bring you, shall ye not do; neither shall ye walk in their statutes.
4
Mine ordinances shall ye do, and my statutes shall ye keep, to walk therein: I am Jehovah your God.
5
Ye shall therefore keep my statutes, and mine ordinances; which if a man do, he shall live in them: I am Jehovah.
THOUGHT QUESTIONS 18:15
387.
Why remind the children of Israel of the existence of God? Or is this the meaning of Lev. 18:2? Discuss.
388.
The total life style of Egypt and Canaan were to be rejected. Is this the thought of Lev. 18:3?
389.
If these people learned carefully all the laws and statutes we have discussed thus far in Leviticus (to say nothing of previous books) their whole life would be under the direction of God. Is this what is meant in Lev. 18:4? What reason is given for such obedience?
390.
Explain the phrase . . . if a man do, he shall live in (or by) them Cf. Rom. 10:5; Gal. 3:12.
PARAPHRASE 18:15
The Lord then told Moses to tell the people of Israel, I am Jehovah your God, so dont act like heathenlike the people of Egypt where you lived so long, or the people of Canaan where I am going to take you. You must obey only My laws, and you must carry them out in detail, for I am the Lord your God. If you obey them you shall live. I am the Lord.
COMMENT 18:15
Lev. 18:1-5 Moses doesnt need Aaron or his sons to help him in the instructions of this chapter. The lawgiver is to speak directly to the children of Israel or their representatives for what he has to say relates to their moral conduct and personal happiness. It is of real interest to note that the emphatic phrase I am the Lord your God is used three times in this one chapter (Lev. 18:1; Lev. 18:4; Lev. 18:30) and only one other time in the whole book (Lev. 11:44). This speaks to a very deep need. We can have no communion with God in whose image we are created if we indulge or serve the lusts of the flesh. We cannot and will not know Him personally until we are willing to submit to His way of life. The Egyptians walked in the way of sexual promiscuitythe freedom-bondage which has always been the fruit of such a choice. What a galling yoke of bondage this freedom has always provided! Strange to say man has but one choice: which master will you have? God also offers a bondage-freedom relationship but His yoke is easy and His burden is light, i.e. as compared with that of the Egyptians or Canaanites. The spirit-slave is always happier than the body-slave because we are created in the image of a Spirit not an animal. Our essential nature is spirit, not flesh. Walk in my statutes and you will have life, not deathpeace, not frustration is the message of Lev. 18:5.
FACT QUESTIONS 18:15
395.
Why not include Aaron or his sons in the address by God?
396.
What is the deep significance of the phrase I am the Lord your God?
397.
Man has but one choice. Discuss what it is and the consequences of it.
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
XVIII.
(1) And the Lord spake unto Moses.Unlike the preceding Divine communications, which treated of the ritual and ceremonial pollutions, the enactments which Moses is here commanded to communicate direct to the children of Israel, or their representatives, the elders, affect their moral lifeprecepts which form the basis of domestic purity, and which are the foundation of human happiness.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
This Is The Word Of God ( Lev 18:1 ).
Lev 18:1
‘And Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying,’
Once more we have the emphasis on the fact that these are God’s words to Moses. The ideas are not to be seen as Moses’ ideas, but as God’s.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Lev 18:1-30 Sexual Sins The topic of Lev 18:1-30 is sexual sins.
1. Intro: Charge to Keep God’s Commandments Lev 18:1-5 2. Sin of Incest Lev 18:6-18 3. Sin of Lying with a woman in uncleanness Lev 18:19 4. Sin of adultery Lev 18:20 5. Sin of child sacrificing Lev 18:21 6. Sin of homosexuality Lev 18:22 7. Sin of bestiality Lev 18:23 8. Conclusion: God’s Warning of Judgment Lev 18:24-30 This passage of Scripture also deals with the issue of nakedness and commands the children of Israel not to expose their nakedness as do the Gentiles around them. We know that in the original order of creation all of God’s creatures, including Adam and Eve, were naked and were not ashamed. But when Adam and Eve fell, He gave them alone the awareness of their nakedness and it is for this reason that all of mankind must cover their shame. But to the animals God did not give this awareness of nakedness and they continue in their nakedness until now.
Lev 18:5 Ye shall therefore keep my statutes, and my judgments: which if a man do, he shall live in them: I am the LORD.
Lev 18:5
Rom 10:5, “For Moses describeth the righteousness which is of the law, That the man which doeth those things shall live by them.”
Gal 3:12, “And the law is not of faith: but, The man that doeth them shall live in them.”
These reference verses tell us that a man who practices the Law would have to find justification before God by fulfilling these laws. This is what is meant by the phrase “if a man do, he shall live (or be justified) by doing them.” Unfortunately, if man fails and breaks just one law, he might as well have broken them all, because he becomes guilty before God as if he had broken all; for, this is what James meant in his epistle when he wrote, “For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.” (Lev 2:10) Knowing man’s sinful nature, the Lord intended the Law to be our “schoolmaster” as a tool to lead us to Christ, as man realized his sinful nature while living under the Law.
Lev 18:6 None of you shall approach to any that is near of kin to him, to uncover their nakedness: I am the LORD.
Lev 18:6
Lev 18:8 The nakedness of thy father’s wife shalt thou not uncover: it is thy father’s nakedness.
Lev 18:8
Lev 18:23 Neither shalt thou lie with any beast to defile thyself therewith: neither shall any woman stand before a beast to lie down thereto: it is confusion.
Lev 18:23
Lev 20:12, “And if a man lie with his daughter in law, both of them shall surely be put to death: they have wrought confusion; their blood shall be upon them.”
1Co 14:33, “For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints.”
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
Unlawful Marriages
v. 1. And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, v. 2. Speak unto the children of Israel and say unto them, I am the Lord, your God. v. 3. After the doings of the land of Egypt wherein ye blood shall ye not do, and after the doings of the land of Canaan whither I bring you shall ye not do; neither shall ye walk in their ordinances. v. 4. Ye shall do My judgments and keep Mine ordinances to walk there in; I am the Lord, your God. v. 5. Ye shall therefore keep My statutes and My judgments, v. 6. None of you shall approach to any that is near of kin to him, to uncover their nakedness; I am the Lord. v. 7. The nakedness of thy father or the nakedness of thy mother shalt thou not uncover: she is thy mother; thou shalt not uncover her nakedness. v. 8. The nakedness of thy father’s wife, v. 9. The nakedness of thy sister, the daughter of thy father or daughter of thy mother, v. 10. The nakedness of thy son’s daughter or of thy daughter’s daughter, v. 11. The nakedness of thy father’s wife’s daughter, begotten of thy father, v. 12. Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy father’s sister, v. 13. Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy mother’s sister; for she is thy mother’s near kinswoman.
v. 14. Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy father’s brother, v. 15. Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy daughter-in-law; she is thy son’s wife; thou shalt not uncover her nakedness.
v. 16. Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy brother’s wife, v. 17. Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of a woman and her daughter, v. 18. Neither shalt thou take a wife to her sister, v. 19. Also thou shalt not approach unto a woman to uncover her nakedness, v. 20. Moreover, thou shalt not lie carnally with thy neighbor’s wife,
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
PART III. SECTION III.
EXPOSITION
MORAL UNCLEANNESS AND ITS PUNISHMENT. This being the subject of the three following chapters (chapters 18-20), they naturally form a sequence to chapters 11-17, which have dealt with ceremonial uncleanness and its purification. It is a remarkable thing that, except by implication in connection with the sin offerings and the trespass offerings and the ceremonies of the Day of Atonement, there has not yet been a single moral precept, as such, in the Book of Leviticus, and there has been very little recognition of sin as distinct from pollution. All has been ceremonial. But the ceremonial is typical of the moral, and from the consideration of ceremonial uncleanness and its remedy, we now proceed to the consideration of moral uncleanness and its penalty. It is to be noticed too that, while the ensuing laws are commanded as the positive injunction of God (verses 2, 30), which of itself is sufficient to give them their authority and force, they are still founded, like the ceremonial prohibitions, upon the feelings of repugnance implanted in the mind of man. To enter into the marriage relation with near relatives is abhorrent to a sentiment in mankind so widely spread that it may be deemed to have been originally universal, and the same abhorrence is entertained towards other foul sins of lust. Ugliness, which creates disgust by its ugliness, symbolizes sin; immorality, which inspires abhorrence by its immoral character, proves itself thereby to be sin. The section deals first with sin in the marriage relation, next with sexual impurities connected with marriage, then with other cases of immorality, and lastly with the penalties inflicted on these sins in their character of crimes.
Lev 18:1-5
Form an introduction to the Hebrew code of prohibited degrees of marriage and of forbidden sins of lust. The formal and solemn declaration, I am the Lord your God, is made three times in these five verses. This places before the people the two thoughts:
1. That the Lord is holy, and they ought to be like him in holiness;
2. That the Lord has commanded holiness, and they ought to obey him by being holy. Because the Lord is their God, and they are his people, they are, negatively, to refrain from the vicious habits and lax customs prevalent in the land of Egypt wherein they dwelt, and in the land of Canaan whither they were going, the sensuality of which is indirectly condemned by the injunctions which command purity in contrast to their doings; and, positively, they are to keep God’s statutes, and his judgments, as laid down in the following code, which if a man do, he shall live in them. The latter clause is of special importance, because it is repeated in the same connection by Ezekiel (Eze 20:11, Eze 20:13, Eze 20:21), and in the Levitical confession in the Book of Nehemiah (Neh 9:29), and is quoted by St. Paul in a controversial sense (Rom 10:5; Gal 3:12). Its full meaning is that by obedience to God’s commands man attains to a state of existence which alone deserves to be called true life”the life which connects him with Jehovah through his obedience” (Clark). And this involves the further truth that disobedience results in death. Accordingly, St. Paul uses the text as being the testimony of the Law with regard to itself, that salvation by it is of works in contrast with faith. (Cf. Luk 10:28.) We have no evidence to tell us what were the doings of the land of Canaan in respect to the marriage relation, but this chapter is enough to show that the utmost laxity prevailed in it, and we may be sure that their religious rites, like those of Midian (Num 25:1-18), were penetrated with the spirit of licentiousness. With regard to the doings of the land of Egypt, we have fuller information. We know that among the Egyptians marriage with sisters and half-sisters was not only permissible, but that its propriety was justified by their religious beliefs, and practiced in the royal family (Died. Sic; 1:27; Die. Cass; 42). Other abominations condemned in this chapter (verse 23) also, as we know, existed there (Herod; 2:46), and if queens could be what in later times Cleopatra was, we may imagine the general dissoluteness of the people. Among Persians, Medes, Indians, Ethiopians and Assyrians, marriage with mothers and daughters was allowed, and from the time of Cambyses, marriage with a sister was regarded as lawful (Herod; Neh 3:31). The Athenians and Spartans permitted marriage with half-sisters. All these concessions to lust, and ether unclean acts with which the heathen world was full (verse 22; Rom 1:27), were fallings away from the law of purity implanted in the heart of man and now renewed for the Hebrew people.
Lev 18:6
The next thirteen verses contain the law of incest, or the prohibited degrees of marriage. The positive law of marriage, as implanted in the human heart, would be simply that any man of full age might marry any woman of full age, provided that both parties were willing. But this liberty is at once controlled by a number of restrictions, the main purpose of which is to prevent incest, which, however much one nation may come to be indifferent to one form of it, and another to another, is yet abhorrent to the feelings and principles of mankind. The Hebrew restrictive law is contained in one verse. None of you shall approach to any that is near of kin to him to uncover their nakedness: I am the Lord. All that follows (Lev 18:9-18) is simply an amplification and an explanation of the words, near of kin to him. These words would be literally rendered, flesh of his flesh, or less probably, remainder of his flesh. They certainly include within the compass of their meaning those that are near by affinity, as much as those that are near by consanguinity. This is proved by the instances given below, where no difference is drawn between blood relations and relations by marriage, the latter being supposed to become the former, in consequence of the marriage that has taken place. Nearness of kin is generally counted by “degrees;” but, unfortunately, this word is itself ambiguous, for it is used in different senses by canonists and by civilians. So far as the direct line is concerned, the same method of calculation is observed by the canon and by the civil law. There is one degree from the son to the mother, two degrees to the grandmother; one degree from the father to the daughter, two degrees to the granddaughter. But this is not so with the collateral lines. A brother and sister, for example, are regarded by the canon law as in the first degree of kinship, because there is only one step to the father, in whom their blood meets; but the civil lawyers consider them as being in the second degree, because, as they calculate, there is one step from the brother to the father, and a second from the father to the sister. An aunt is, according to the canonists, in the second degree of propinquity, because there are two steps from her nephew to his grandfather, who is likewise her father, in whom their blood unites; but, according to the civilian’s calculation, there are three steps, namely, from her nephew to his grandfather, two steps, and a third from that grandfather to his daughter the aunt; and therefore the aunt and nephew are in the third degree of propinquity. The case of an uncle and niece is exactly the same as that of a nephew and aunt. On the same principle, according to the canonists, first cousins are in the second degree of kinship; according to the civilians, in the fourth. Propinquity by affinity is calculated in just the same way; so that the brother’s wife is in the same degree of relationship as the brother, and wife’s sister as the sister by blood. In the code before us, confirmed by that in Deuteronomy, marriage is forbidden with the following blood relations: mother (verse 7), daughter (verse 17), sister (verse 9; Le Deu 20:17; Deu 27:22), granddaughter (verse 10), aunt (verses 12, 13; Le Deu 20:19); and with the following relations by affinity: mother-in-law (verse 17; Deu 20:14; Deu 27:23), daughter-in-law (verse 15; Le Deu 20:12), brother’s wife (verse 16; Le 20:21), stepmother (verse 8; Deu 20:11; Deu 22:30; see Gen 49:4; 1Co 5:1), stepdaughter and step-granddaughter (verse 17), uncle’s wife, or aunt by marriage (verse 14; Le Deu 20:20); putting aside for the present the question of who is meant by a wife to her sister, in verse 18. In these lists, according to the canonists’ method of reckoning, the mother, the daughter, and the sister are related in the first degree of consanguinity; the wife’s mother, the wife’s daughter, the stepmother, the daughter-in-law, the brother’s wife, are related in the first degree of affinity. The granddaughter and the aunt are in the second degree of consanguinity; the wife’s granddaughter and the uncle’s wife in the second degree of affinity. According to the civilians’ reckoning, the following would be the degrees of propinquity:The mother and the daughter would be in the first degree of consanguinity; the wife’s mother, the wife’s daughter, the stepmother, the daughter-in-law, would be in the first degree of affinity. The sister and the granddaughter would be in the second degree of consanguinity; the brother’s wife and the wife’s granddaughter would be in the second degree of affinity. The aunt by blood would be in the third degree of consanguinity, and the uncle’s wife, or aunt by marriage, would be in the third degree of affinity. The wife’s sister, with regard to whom it is questioned whether she is referred to or not in verse 18, is in the first degree of affinity (a man’s wife being regarded as himself) according to the canonists’ reckoning, and in the second according to the civilians’. There is no mention made in the code of the grandmother, the niece, and the cousin-german. All of these are in the second degree of consanguinity according to the canon law; and according to the civil law, the grandmother would be in the second degree, the niece in the third, and the cousin-german in the fourth. It may reasonably be supposed that by the expression, None of you shall approach to any that is near of kin to him, to uncover their nakedness, intercourse is forbidden between all those who are related by consanguinity or affinity in the first and second degrees according to the canonists’ reckoning (except cousins-german, whose case is considered below); in the first, second, and third degrees ‘according to the civilians’ method of calculating; whether they are mentioned by name in the list or not. It is only by implication, not by direct injunction, that marriage even with a daughter is forbidden (verse 17).
Lev 18:7, Lev 18:8
Incest with a stepmother is placed next after that with a mother. On account of the unity caused by marriage (“they shall be one flesh,” Gen 2:24), the stepmother’s nakedness is the father’s nakedness. The tie of affinity is thus declared to be similar in its effects to the tie of consanguinity. Reuben’s sin, by which he forfeited his birthright, is connected with this offense, but is of a more heinous character, as his father was alive at the time of his transgression (Gen 49:4). It is one of the sins which Ezekiel enumerates as those which brought the judgment of God on Israel (Eze 22:10). “That one should have his father’s wife” is declared by St. Paul to be “such fornication as is not named among the Gentiles,” and to call for the excommunication of the offender (1Co 5:1-5). Adonijah’s marriage with Abishag, so strongly resented by Solomon on political grounds, is not denounced as morally reprehensible, probably because Abishag was not the wife of David in such a way as to cause the marriage with his son to be abominable in the eye of the law (cf. 1Ki 1:4 with Amo 2:7). Absalom’s” going in unto his father’s concubines” was regarded as the final act which made reconciliation with his father impossible (2Sa 16:22; 2Sa 20:3). The history of the Church has shown that marriage with the stepmother has had to be again and again prohibited by Council after Council (see Smith and Cheetham’s ‘Dictionary of Antiquities,’ s.v. ‘Prohibited Degrees’).
Lev 18:9
In the third place, incest with a sister is forbidden, and it is specifically stated that under the term “sister” is meant the half-sister, the daughter of thy father, or thy mother, born at home, as would naturally be the case if she were the father’s daughter, or born abroad, that is, the daughter of the mother by a previous marriage, when she belonged to a different household. Tamar’s appeal to Amnon, “I pray thee speak unto the king; for he will not withhold me from thee,” exhibits to us the poor woman grasping at any argument which might save her from her half-brother’s brutality, and does not indicate that such marriages were, in the time of David, permissible (2Sa 13:29). The exact degree of relationship which existed between Abraham and Sarah is not altogether certain (cf. Gen 20:12 with Gen 11:29). Ezekiel reckons this sin in the catalogue of the iniquities of Jerusalem (Eze 22:11).
Lev 18:10
The fourth case of incest which is prohibited is that with a granddaughter, whether the daughter of son or daughter, for, as they are descended from the grandfather, their’s is thine own nakedness.
Lev 18:11
Incest with a half-sister on the father’s side is again forbidden. Perhaps “the prohibition refers to the son by a first marriage, whereas Lev 18:9 treats of the son by a second marriage” (Keil).
Lev 18:12-15
Fifthly, incest with a paternal or maternal aunt is forbidden; sixthly, with an aunt by marriage; seventhly, with a daughter-in-law. The last of these finds its place in Ezekiel’s catalogue of abominations (Eze 22:11; cf. Gen 28:18, 26).
Lev 18:16
The eighth ease of incest is intercourse with a brother’s wife. Yet this is commanded under certain circumstances in the Book of Deuteronomy, and was practiced in patriarchal times (Gen 38:8). The following are the circumstances under which it is commanded. “If brethren dwell together, and one of them die, and have no child, the wife of the dead shall not marry without unto a stranger: her husband’s brother shall go in unto her, and take her to him to wife, and perform the duty of an husband’s brother unto her” (Deu 25:5). It has been asked, “How can the same thing be forbidden as immoral in Leviticus, and commanded as a duly in Deuteronomy?” Bishop Wordsworth replies, “In a special case, for a special reason applicable only to the Jews, God was pleased to dispense with that law, and in the plenitude of his omnipotence to change the prohibition into a command. God cannot command anything that is sinful. For sin is ‘transgression of the Law’ (1Jn 3:4), and whatever he commands is right. But it would be presumptuous to say that we may dispense with God’s law concerning marriage, because he in one case dispensed with it; as it would be impious to affirm that murder is not immoral, and may be committed by us, bemuse God, who is the sole Arbiter of life and death, commanded Abraham to slay his son Isaac.” The levirate marriage was not a concession to the desires of the second brother, but a duty enjoined for a family or tribal purpose, and it was plainly at all times must distasteful. Thus Onan refused to perform his duty to Er’s wife (Gen 38:9); the legislation in Deuteronomy anticipates objection on the part of the brother, and institutes an in-suiting ceremony to be gone through by him if he declines to do his duty to his dead brother (Deu 25:9, Deu 25:10), which we see carried out in some of its details in the case of Ruth’s kinsman (Rth 4:7, Rth 4:10). Indeed, in such a marriage, the second husband seems rather to have been regarded as the continuation of the first husband than as having a substantive existence of his own as a married man. He performed a function in order “that the name of his brother which is dead may not be put out of Israel” (Deu 25:6), “to raise up the name of the dead upon his inheritance, that the name of the dead be not cut off from among his brethren” (Rth 3:10). The second husband’s position may be compared to that of the concubine presented by Rachel to her husband. “Behold my maid Bilhah, go in unto her; and she shall bear upon my knees, that I may also have children by her” (Gen 30:3). The whole object of the rule was that, as the elder brother could not keep up the flintily by begetting an heir, the younger brother should do it for him after his death.
Lev 18:17
The ninth form of incest prohibited is intercourse with a stepdaughter, or step-granddaughter, or mother-in-law. The expression made use of, Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of a woman and her daughter, covers the case of a man’s own daughter, and it is singular that it is only in this incidental manner that it is specifically named. But it has been already disposed of by the general command, None of you shall approach to any that is near of kin to him, to uncover their nakedness. The daughter being nearest of kin, this command was sufficient without further specification. The niece and probably the wife’s sister are forbidden by the same general rule (see following note).
Lev 18:18
Neither shalt thou take a wife to her sister, to vex her, to uncover her nakedness, beside the other in her life time. Do these words refer to the marriage of two sisters or not? It has been passionately affirmed that they do, by those who are opposed to permission being granted for marriage with a deceased wife’s sister, and by those who are in favour of that measure, each party striving to derive from the text an argument for the side which they are maintaining. But Holy Scripture ought not to be made a quarry whence partisans hew arguments for views which they have already adopted, nor is that the light in which a commentator can allow himself to regard it. A reverent and profound study of the passage before us, with its context, leads to the conclusion that the words have no bearing at all on the question of marriage with a deceased wife’s sister, and thus it may be removed from the area and atmosphere of angry polemics. It is certain that the words translated a wife to her sister may be translated, in accordance with the marginal rendering, one wife to another. The objections made to such a version are arbitrary and unconvincing. It is in accordance with the genius of the Hebrew language to take “father,” “son, brother,” “sister,” in a much wider acceptation than is the ease in the Western tongues. Anything that produces or causes is metaphorically a “father;” anything produced or caused is a “son;” any things akin to each other in form, shape, character, or nature, are “brothers” and “sisters.” This is the name given to the loops of the curtains of the tabernacle (Exo 26:3, Exo 26:5, Exo 26:6), the tenons of the boards (Exo 26:17), and the wings of the cherubim (Eze 1:11, Eze 1:23). Indeed, wherever the expression, “a man to his brother,” or “a woman to her sister,” is used (and it is used very frequently) in the Hebrew Scriptures, it means not two brothers or two sisters, but two things or persons similar in kind. This does more than raise a presumptionit creates a high probabilitythat the expression should be understood in the same way here. But a difficulty then arises. If the right reading is, Neither shalt thou take one wife to another, does not the verse forbid polygamy altogether, and is not polygamy permitted by Exo 21:7-11; Deu 21:15-17; Deu 17:17? Certainly, if so important a restriction was to be made, we should expect it to be made directly, and in a manner which could not be disputed. Is there any way out of the difficulty? Let us examine each word of the Law. Neither shalt thou take one wife to another, to vex, to uncover her nakedness upon her in her life time. The two words, to vex, have not been sufficiently dwelt on. The Hebrew, tsarar, means to distress by packing closely together, and so, to vex, or to annoy in any way. Here is to be found the ground of the prohibition contained in the law before us. A man is not to take for a second wife a woman who is likely, from spiteful temper or for other reasons, to vex the first wife. Rachel vexed Leah; Peninnah vexed Hannah; the first pair were blood relations, the second were not; but under the present law the second marriage would in both cases have been equally forbidden, if the probability of the provocation had been foreseen. It follows that polygamy is not prohibited by the text before us, but that the liberty of the polygamist is somewhat circumscribed by the application of the law of charity. It follows, too, that the law has no bearing on the question of marriage with a deceased wife’s sister, which is neither forbidden nor allowed by it. Are we then to conclude that the Law of Moses leaves the case of the wife’s sister untouched? Not so, for the general principle has been laid down, None of you shall approach to any, that is near of kin to him, to uncover his nakedness, and, as we have seen, the expression, near of kin, includes relations by affinity equally with blood relations; as therefore the wife’s sister is in the canonists’ first degree of affinity (and in the second according to the civilians), it is reasonably inferred that marriage with her is forbidden under the above law, and this inference is confirmed by marriage with the other sister-in-lawthe brother’s wifebeing, as the rule, prohibited. It can hardly be doubted that marriage with the grandmother and with the nieceboth in the second degree of consanguinity according to the canonists, and the third degree according to the civiliansand incest with a daughter are forbidden under the same clause.
The present verse completes the Levitical code of prohibited degrees. The Roman code of restrictions on marriage was almost identical with the Mosaic tables. It only differed from them by specifically naming the grandmother and the niece among the blood relations with whom a marriage might not be contracted, and omitting the brother’s wife among relatives by affinity. In the time of Claudius, a change was introduced into it, for the purpose of gratifying the emperor’s passion for Agrippina, which legalized marriage with a brother’s daughter. This legalization con-tinned in force until the time of Constantius, who made marriage with a niece a capital crime. The imperial code and the canon law were framed upon the Mosaic and the Roman tables, and under them no question arose, except as to the marriage of the niece, the decreased wife’s sister, and the first cousin. Marriage with the niece was forbidden by Constantius, as we have said, in the year 355, on penalty of capital punishment for committing the offense, and marriage with a deceased wife’s sister was declared by the same emperor to be null. The canons of Councils and the declarations of the chief Church teachers are in full accordance with the imperial legislation, condemning these marriages without a dissentient voice. The only ease in which no consensus is found is that of the marriage of first cousins. By the earliest Roman law these marriages had been disallowed (Tacitus, ‘Annal.,’ Deu 12:6), but in the second century B.C. they had become common (Livy, 42:34), and they continued to be lawful till the year A.D. 384 or 385, when Theodosius condemned them, and made them punishable by the severest penalties possible. This enactment lasted only twenty years, when it was repealed by Arcadius, A.D. 404 or 405. No adverse judgment respecting the marriage of first cousins was pronounced by the Church until after the legislation of Theodosius, but it appears that that legislation was promoted at her instance, and from that time forward the tendency to condemn these marriages became more and more pronounced. See the canons of the Councils of Agde, Epaone, Auvergne, Orleans, Tours, Auxerre, in the sixth century, and of the Council in Trullo in the seventh century. The reformers of the sixteenth century in England, entrenching themselves, as usual, behind the letter of Scripture and the practice of the primitive Church, forbade marriages of consanguinity and affinity in the first, second, and third degrees according to the reckoning of the civil law, and in the first and second degrees according to the reckoning of the canon law, excepting those of first cousins, on which the early Christians pronounced no decisive judgment.
Lev 18:19
The marriage restrictions having been laid down, there follows in the five next verses the prohibition of five sexual impurities unconnected with marriage except by their subject-matter. The first is to approach unto a woman to uncover her nakedness, as long as she is put apart for her uncleanness, that is, either for seven days at the time of her ordinary illnesses (Lev 15:19), or any longer time that her illness might last (Lev 15:25), or for forty days after the birth of a man child (Lev 12:2-4), or for eighty days after the birth of a girl (Lev 12:5). The penalty for the offense within the seven days is death if committed willfully (Lev 20:18); if fallen into unknowingly, a ceremonial penalty of seven days’ uncleanness is incurred (Lev 15:24). It is twice referred to by Ezekiel as a gross sin (Eze 18:6; Eze 22:10).
Lev 18:20
The second prohibition is, Thou shalt not lie carnally with thy neighbour’s wifea prohibition already made in other words in the ten commandments. The punishment for adultery is death by stoning (Lev 20:10; Deu 22:22; Joh 9:5)a more severe penalty than was usually inflicted in other nations.
Lev 18:21
The third prohibition is, Thou shall not let any of thy seed pass through the fire to Molech. The words the fire are properly inserted, though not expressed in the original (cf. Deu 18:10; 2Ki 22:10). What was the nature and purpose of the idolatrous rite in question is, however, uncertain. It is generally assumed that reference is made to the practice of offering children in sacrifice to Molech, Deu 12:31, Eze 16:20, and Psa 106:37 being quoted in support of that view. But it is by no means certain that this was the case. It might have been a rite by which children were dedicated to Molecha baptism by fire, not resulting in the death of the child. Its mention here, in close connection with carnal sins, has led some to regard it as an impure rite; but this is a mistaken inference, for the prohibition of adultery naturally suggests the prohibition of a spiritual unfaithfulness. That it was some kind of idolatrous ceremony is shown by the addition of the words, neither shalt thou profane the name of thy God. But if the children were burnt to death in honour of the idol, from the beginning, we should expect to find a notice of the fact in less ambiguous language than the expression, pass through the fire, conveys, earlier than the days of Ahaz. It is easy to imagine that what began as a dedication ceremony may have become converted into an absolute sacrifice, retaining still its original designation. Molech was a Canaanitish and Phoenician deity, the name meaning King, just as Baal means Lord (see Selden, ‘De Diis Syris,’ Psa 1:6). Jarchi, quoted by Wordsworth, describes the idol as “made of brass, having the face of an ox, with arms stretched out, in which the child was placed and burnt with fire, while the priests were beating drums, in order to drown the noise of its shrieks, lest the fathers might be moved with pity thereby.” The place where the children were offered, in the later period of the Jewish history, was the valley of Hinnom (Jer 7:31; Jer 32:35; 2Ki 23:10).
Lev 18:22
The fourth prohibition forbids the sin of Sodom (see Gen 19:5; Jdg 11:22; Rom 1:27; 1Co 6:9; 1Ti 1:10). The penalty is death (Lev 20:13).
Lev 18:23
The fifth prohibition (see Herod; Lev 2:16). The penalty is death (Lev 20:15).
Lev 18:24-30
These verses contain a warning against the sins of incest and impurity already specified. The reason why the Canaanites were east out before the Israelites was that they were defiled in all these things, and the land was defiled by them. God visited the iniquity of these debased races, and the land itself vomited out her inhabitants on account of their abominations. The fate of the Canaanites was therefore a witness to them of what would be their fate if they did like them. Defile not ye yourselves in any of these things . Ye shall not commit any of these abominations, that the land spue not you out also, when ye defile it. Special penalties are appointed for particular sins further on. Here there are but two punishments denounced, one for individual sinners, the other national. The individual sinner is to be cut off from the nation by excommunication, For whosoever shall commit any of these abominations, even the souls that commit them shall be cut off from among their people. The nation, if it does not thus purify itself by cutting off from itself the authors of these corruptions, is to perish like the Canaanites. The words vomiteth (Lev 18:25) and spued out (Lev 18:28) are in that tense of the Hebrew verb which is generally called by grammarians a preterite, but this tense does not necessarily imply a past time; the time referred to depends on the context. The previous verbs, “I cast out,” “I do visit,” being present in sense, the two verbs, “vomiteth out (her inhabitants),” and “spued out (the nations that were before you),” are present also (see Introduction).
HOMILETICS
Lev 18:1-18
The restraints thrown about marriage by God’s Law
are not meant to confine within the narrowest limits that which is a necessary evil, but to guard a holy institution, and prevent its being corrupted by abuse. Manichaeanism and asceticism, which is essentially Manichaean in its character, denounce the body and the bodily affections as being in themselves bad; stoicism strives to crush out or eradicate natural feelings, to make place for a passionless calm. God’s Law and the doctrine of the Church declare that it is the abuse, not the use, of the body that is wrong; and, like the better forms of philosophy, occupy themselves with regulating, controlling, ruling man’s passions, instead of vainly attempting to kill them. “Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge” (Heb 13:4).
I. MARRIAGE WAS INSTITUTED AS THE PRIMEVAL LAW AT THE CREATION OF WOMAN. “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth” (Gen 1:27, Gen 1:28). “And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh” (Gen 2:23, Gen 2:24).
II. PARALLEL BETWEEN THE MARRIAGE LAW AND THE SABBATICAL LAW.
1. The sabbatical law, in like manner as the marriage law, was instituted at the creation (Gen 2:3).
2. Both laws took a special form for the patriarchal and Israelitish Churches.
3. In both cases an alteration was made by the authority of our Lord, the obligation of the laws still continuing as before. The form which the law of the sabbath took for the Jewish people may be seen in the seventh commandment and other Mosaic injunctions respecting the seventh day. The law of marriage likewise underwent a change from its original character, and instead of enjoining monogamy, it allowed polygamy; and “because of the hardness of men’s hearts,” it permitted divorce for light causes (see Mat 19:3-12). The manner of observing the sabbatical law was changed for Christians by the authority which cur Lord declared himself to possess for the purpose (Mat 12:8), and which the constant habit of the earliest Christians, of assembling on the first day of the week and regarding it as the commemoration of the Resurrection day, proves him to have exercised. In like manner, he restored the law of monogamy (Mat 19:8), and withdrew the license for divorce, except in the one case of adultery on the part of the wife (Mat 19:9). In respect to the Levitical restraints on marriage he made no change, as is again proved to us by the universal recognition of these obligations on the part of the early Christians.
III. ADDITIONAL SANCTITY WAS ADDED TO MARRIAGE BY CHRISTIANITY. In the Epistle to the Ephesians, St. Paul points out the analogy which exists between the relation of husbands to wives, and of wives to husbands, and the relation of Christ to the Church, and of the Church to Christ. “The husband is the head of the wife, ever as Christ is the head of the Church: and he is the saviour of the body. Therefore as the Church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the Church, and gave himself for it For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the Church: for we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the Church” (Eph 5:23-32). An inference has been drawn from these words that Christ instituted holy matrimony as a sacrament of the Christian Church. Such inference is altogether false. Marriage was not considered one of seven sacraments until the days of the Schoolmen; but the passage exhibits the holiness of marriage in a new light, and gives a new reason for its being regarded as holy. The “mystery” is the analogy which exists between married persons and Christ and the Church. St. Paul quotes the words of institution from the Book of Genesis, showing what a high estate matrimony is, and gives this further reason for its holiness, which had not previously been known to exist. Such a thought as this takes marriage out of the sphere of carnal things, refining, purifying, and sanctifying it in a manner not yet appreciated wherever celibacy is regarded as a higher and holier condition.
IV. THE CAUSES FOR WHICH MATRIMONY WAS ORDAINED. “First, It was ordained for the procreation of children, to be brought up in the fear and nurture of the Lord, and to the praise of his holy Name. Secondly, It was ordained for a remedy against sin, and to avoid fornication. Thirdly, It was ordained for the mutual society, help, and comfort, that the one ought to have of the other, both in prosperity and adversity” (Form of Solemnization of Matrimony). The third of these causes has been too often forgotten in the Christian Church, and the second has been too much dwelt upon; the consequence of which has been a low estimate of marriage, and therefore of woman. St. Paul’s words ought to show us that it is this characteristic which gives its Christian aspect to marriage.
V. DUTIES OF HUSBANDS AND WIVES TOWARDS EACH OTHER. On the one side, love and protection (Eph 5:25); on the other side, love and submission (Eph 5:24, Eph 5:33).
Lev 18:19-23
The preservation of the marriage relationship in its purity is the safeguard against sins of lust, which will be sure to invade a society wherever licentiousness or asceticism has dishonoured marriage.
Lev 18:24-30
Dissolute morals in respect to the relations of the sexes is always a symptom which precedes the ruin of an empire or the fall of a nation. It is both a sign and a causea sign of a general corruption, which will show itself elsewhere and under other forms; and a cause of the coming evils, as indulgence in bodily pleasures and. Sybarite excesses takes away the firmness of will and readiness to endure hardness which are necessary conditions of both soldiers and citizens doing their duty to the State. When a country is sunk in dissoluteness there is, generally speaking, no renovation for it except by the irruption of a new race, as of the Israelites in Canaan, or of the barbarous nations on the breaking up of the old Roman Empire. The moral reason of the extermination of the Canaanites was the danger of their licentiousness spreading, as has often been the case, to the conquerors (cf. Num 25:17, Num 25:18).
HOMILIES BY R.M. EDGAR
Lev 18:1-30
Unworldliness.
cf. Rom 12:2. The next element in the morality required of the Lord’s people is non-conformity to this world. We are such imitative creatures that we are prone to do as our neighbours do, without questioning the propriety of their conduct. Whenever we adopt the ordinary standard of life, without inquiring how it is related to the Divine standard, we are conforming to the worldly spirit. The worldly conduct may be much higher in one age than in another, and in one country than in another; but the essence of worldliness is unquestioning conformity to the standard of our neighbours.
In the present chapter we have a fearful picture of the morality, or rather immorality, of Canaan. It may be read in connection with Rom 1:18-32, as showing the depth to which unrestrained desire may descend. Not only do the Canaanites appear to have indulged in the most reckless licentiousness with nearest relatives, but also to have indulged in sodomy, and even to have descended to carnal intercourse with beasts. That is to say, they gave up their high vantage-ground as intellectual and moral beings, and descended to the level of brute beasts (cf. 2Pe 2:12). We would require to go to the dark places of heathenism, which are still “full of the habitations of cruelty” (Psa 74:20), to find an exact parallel at present for Canaan. The progress of civilization has smoothed the surface of society, however little it may have touched its heart. But what we must notice is that the principle of worldly conformity may be just as active in our boasted civilization, as in the darkest haunts of heathenism.
I. THE HIGHEST CIVILIZATION IS NO SUFFICIENT REASON FOR A CERTAIN LINE OF CONDUCT. The Israelites had been developed in Egypt, which was then at the head of civilization. It would be a very great temptation, therefore, to these liberated bondmen to walk according to the customs and ordinances of Egypt. They would be tempted to do many things on no higher ground than that they had seen them done in Egypt. No wonder, therefore, that the Lord admonishes them in these terms: “After the doings of the land of Egypt, wherein ye dwelt, shall ye not do” (Rom 1:3).
And yet is not this exactly the position taken up by many at this hour? They do many things “on the very highest authority.” The reason of the course, its moral value, is never thought of, but simply the precedent which can be produced for it. This spirit of” simian imitation” is worldliness pure and simple. The highest civilization is not necessarily moral, much less religious: why should I conform to the demands of a capricious code of laws, which may have no valid moral principle within them at all? God surely has not given us reflection and conscience to be ignored in such a way as this.
II. PREVAILING CUSTOM IS NO SUFFICIENT REASON EITHER FOR A CERTAIN LINE OF CONDUCT. The Israelites, in coming into Canaan, would find the inhabitants the freest and easiest possible in the matter of morals. No restraint appears to have been put upon their passions. They did whatever was right in their own eyes. Their lusts were their law. Now, were the Israelites to go into the land in the “jolly-good-fellow” style, they would be popular at once. The entrance into Canaan would in such a case have been an easy and triumphal march. Conformity to prevailing custom would have made the immigration a God-send to the beastly inhabitants. It would have given novelty to their desires. Hence God warns his people in the words, “And after the doings of the land of Canaan, whither I bring you, shall ye not do: neither shall ye walk in their ordinances” (Rom 1:3).
The snare of popularity prevails at present as powerfully as it did when Israel was about to enter Canaan. There is a great disposition with professedly religious people, “when at Rome, not to quarrel with the pope.” Conformity to prevailing custom is a popular role to play. It costs nothing, except indeed the sacrifice of principle, and it gains in the worldly sense much. But no thinking mind imagines it is a rule of human conduct which will stand a moment’s consideration. Why should I yield to what may be a senseless and even an immoral custom, simply because it is a custom? I have not been endowed with reason for such an irrational result as this.
III. WHEN MEN SACRIFICE THEIR MANHOOD TO WORLDLY CONFORMITY, THEY FIND EVENTUALLY THAT THEY HAVE TAKEN A SUICIDAL COURSE. The course of the Canaanites was a suicidal one. The land was spuing them out (Rom 1:28). The selfish, lustful lives they led, the brutalities they practiced, became their scourge, and they were fading away. The same result is found among the heathen nations. The sacrifice of manhood to bestiality must pay the penalty of eventual extinction.
And though at first sight the operation of the principle may be retarded by the higher morale of civilization, there can be no doubt that the suicidal character of worldly conformity is a real experience. An individual loses mental as well as moral power, who conforms without question to the worldly customs of his time, and thus sacrifices his manhood. The easy-going, popular individual, who does this, that, and the other, for fear of being thought singular, is found to have very little strength of mind to begin with, and less every day he lives. In fact, nature is constructed upon the principle that the despised talent of manhood is forfeited when not employed, and there is a clear descent in the scale of being.
IV. GOD HAS GIVEN US SUFFICIENTLY PLAIN STATUTES AND LAWS TO BE–INFORCE US IN OUR COMBAT WITH THE WORLD. “Ye shall do my judgments, and keep mine ordinances, to walk therein: I am the Lord your God. Ye shall therefore keep my statutes, and my judgments; which if a man do, he shall live in them: I am the Lord “(Rom 1:4, Rom 1:5). “And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God” (Rom 12:2). Transformation, “transfiguration” as we might call it, that is, a bringing of ourselves into conformity to a Divine ideal; this is what unworldliness consists in. We do not cease to be worldly when we surrender half a dozen suspicious pleasures. We cease to be “worldly” only when we refuse to accept of the prevailing worldly standard as our law of life, and seek earnestly to know “what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God.”
And to help us to this God has not only given us a book so plain and practical upon matters of daily life that he that runs may read; but he has also embodied his ideal in the perfect manhood of his Son. We have simply to ask the question, “What would Christ, were he in our circumstances, do?” and instantly we are enabled to decide on an appropriate and an unworldly course of action. It is this manly rule of life to which we are called. To bow down to the customs of even the best society or the highest civilization without inquiring how these customs stand towards the Divine
Law, is to sacrifice our birthright of manliness for a mess of the rudest pottage.R.M.E.
HOMILIES BY J.A. MACDONALD
Lev 18:1-30
Abominable doings.
This chapter contains laws against abominations practiced by the heathen, together with reasons why they must be avoided by the people of God. Foremost amongst these reasons is
I. THAT THEY ARE FORBIDDEN BY GOD. This is the highest reason, for:
1. He is the supreme Arbiter of men (Lev 18:5, Lev 18:6, Lev 18:24): “I am the Lord.”
(1) He is our Creator. His power over the work of his hands is absolute. It is our wisdom to confess this without gainsaying.
(2) He is our Governor. He has not abandoned his creation to mechanical laws. The providence of his intelligence is everywhere and ever active. This his people saw in the miracles of the Exodus.
(3) Moral beings are morally responsible to a God of holiness and truth. His will is law. It is truth. It is purity.
2. He is the covenant Friend of his people (Lev 18:1, Lev 18:4, Lev 18:30): “I am the Lord your God.”
(1) The covenant relationship is set forth in this declaration. It therefore suggests all the promises:, Blessings pertaining to this life; also to that which is to come. What glorious blessings!
(2) Gratitude is appealed to here. Love should constrain us. The obedience of love is the purest. It is most acceptable to God. It is most perfect; for the whole being is in it.
II. THAT THE HEATHEN HAVE PRACTISED THEM.
1. They were the doings of the Egyptians (Lev 18:3).
(1) The corrupt state of heart which prompted them, and which was aggravated by their repetition, was that from which the children of Israel suffered cruel and relentless persecutions and oppressions. The bitter experience they had of these abominations should lead them scrupulously to avoid them.
(2) If they had learnt to follow their vices, it is time to unlearn them, now that they have been delivered from Egypt. Providence furnishes men with opportunities favourable to repentance and reformation. We are answerable for these.
2. They were the doings of the Canaanites.
(1) Customs common to the heathen should be viewed with suspicion by the people of God. The practices of custom come to be called “ordinances” (see Lev 18:3). Ordinances of man must not be confounded with ordinances of God.
(2) We need admonition here. It is easy to flow with the stream; difficult to stem the torrent. We must brace ourselves to this. We should look to God to nerve our resolution.
III. THAT THE MATTER IS VITAL.
1. God leads his people into temptation.
(1) Thus he led his people into Egypt. Now he conducts them in amongst the Canaanites. “Shall there be evil in a city and the Lord hath not done it?” (see Isa 45:7; Amo 3:6).
(2) Yet is not God the Author of moral evil. Physical may exist apart from moral evil. Witness the afflictions of Job (see also Joh 9:1-3).
(3) God leads men into temptation, not that they may fall into it, but that they may learn to resist it, and so form a strong moral character.
2. There is life in the Law to those who can keep it.
(1) In so far as it is fulfilled, it brings the benefits of a wise and good code (Deu 4:8; Neh 9:13, Neh 9:14; Psa 147:19, Psa 147:20).
(2) But who can so fulfill it as to ensure eternal life? No one (see Luk 10:25-28; Rom 10:5).
(3) Therefore faith is declared to be the principle of justification (Heb 2:14). Upon this Paul founds his reasoning (Gal 3:10-14; Rom 1:16, Rom 1:17; Php 3:9).
3. Ruin is denounced upon the transgressor.
(1) Faith is the principle of a true obedience. The transgressor of the Law denies his faith and comes under the curse (Heb 10:38; Deu 27:26; Jer 11:3)
(2) For his sake the land is cursed (verse 25). So defiled may it become as to be unfit for the tabernacle of God. The curse upon the ground for man’s sake came in the form of a deluge of water; it will yet come in a flood of fire (Gen 3:17; Gen 5:29; 2Pe 3:7).
(3) The transgressor is cut off from among his people. The abomination in which he is held is vigorously set forth under the figure of the land vomiting and spuing out its inhabitants (verses 25, 28). So were the Egyptians ejected. So were the ancient Canaanites (see Gen 15:16; Rev 3:16). So in turn were the Israelites (Eze 20:11, Eze 20:13, Eze 20:21). We should not be highminded, but fear (Rom 11:19-21; Heb 4:11). “Lay the car of your faith to the gates of the bottomless pit, and hear the doleful shrieks and outcries of damned sinners, whom earth hath spewed out, and hell has swallowed, and tremble lest this be your portion at the last” (M. Henry).J.A.M.
HOMILIES BY W. CLARKSON
Lev 18:1-4
Two aspects of sin.
There are many ways in which sin may be regarded. Directed by these words, we may look at it in
I. ITS UGLY ASPECT AS SEEN IN HUMAN ILLUSTRATIONS. The children of Israel were warned to separate themselves in every way from “the doings of the land of Egypt” and from “the doings of the land of Canaan” (Lev 18:3). These were to be a beacon to them; they were things to be hated and shunned. To those who had not been brought down themselves to the same low moral level, these doings would appear the shameful things they werebase, corrupt, vile. It is well for us to glance at, though not to dwell upon, sin in its last and worst developments, in its final issues; to see and understand what it leads to and ends in. Look at intemperance, dishonesty, cruelty, cupidity, profanity, impurity, as these sins are seen in their full development and complete outworking; see how utterly vile and hideous they appear to those in whom any purity is left. You would not resemble these; you start and shrink at the very thought of it; then do not move one inch down the smooth decline, do not take one step along “the primrose path of dalliance” with temptation. If we would keep well away from the beginnings of evil, we shall find a strong inducement to purity and honour by one thought of “the doings of the land” of impurity and shame.
II. ITS EVIL ASPECT AS GATHERED FROM THE COMMANDMENTS OF GOD. “I am the Lord your God Ye shall not do Ye shall do my judgments, and keep mine ordinances, to walk therein: I am the Lord your God.” These solemn and weighty words introduce the prohibition of various evil lusts; these unholy passions were not only to be loathed and shunned because of the shamefulness of them in themselves and because of the evil consequences they would entail, but also and chiefly because they were imperatively disallowed by God. “I am the Lord ye shall not do these things,” etc. God’s decisive disapproval is enough for us; it is final; it should be all-prevailing. For:
1. His sovereignty suffices, without further thought. He is “the Lord our God.” Surely our Divine Creator, he from whom we came, in whom we live, without the continual exercise of whose power we should cease to be, to whom we owe all that we are and have, has sovereign right to decide concerning us, what things we may do and what things we shall shun. It is enough, it is more than enough, that the Lord our God says, concerning anything, “Ye shall not do it.”
2. Nevertheless, there is the further thought that God knows best what is good and evil. He who made us, who “knows what is in man,” who sees the end from the beginning, and knows what are the tendencies and issues of all things, can surely decide better than we can what are the desirable relations we should hold with our fellows; how near we may approach them; what may be our alliances and intimacies with them, etc.; which is the right and true path in which to walk.
3. And there is this additional thought that his Divine interest in us is equal to his Divine knowledge of us. We are sure that God will not deny us any really desirable thing; that he seeks our happiness and well-being; that if he limits our liberty or narrows our delights, it is purely because he is working out our true and lasting good.
Therefore, if we would not “condemn ourselves in those things which we allow” (Rom 14:22), we must not only shrink from those evils which show themselves in the “doings of the land” of ungodly men, but also consult the commandment of the Lord. We must ask ourselves what those actions and relations are which he has forbidden. We must remind ourselves of his sovereignty over us, his knowledge of us, and his good pleasure toward us; we must. also sedulously banish from our mind as well as put away from our life the evil thing to which we may be tempted.C.
Lev 18:5
Life in obedience.
The Apostle Paul, both in his letter to the Romans (Rom 10:5), and in that to the Churches of Galatia (Gal 3:12), brings this passage to prove that salvation under the Law was by obedience rather than by faith. We may approach the main thought of the text by two preliminary remarks on the relation of these two principles of life, showing the consistency of the Law and the gospel We maintain
I. THAT, UNDER THE LAW, MERE CONFORMITY OF CONDUCT WITHOUT FAITH WAS UNACCEPTABLE TO GOD. it is a mistake to suppose that God’s requirements of his ancient people were satisfied with a purely mechanical obedience. They were not only to “walk in his ways,” but they were also to “fear the Lord their God, and to love him and to serve him with all their heart and with all their soul” (Deu 10:12; see also Deu 6:5; Deu 11:13; Deu 30:16, Deu 30:20). They were not only to act righteously toward their neighbour, but to love him (Lev 19:18). They were to “afflict their souls” on the Day of Atonement and Reconciliation (Lev 16:29). There can be little doubt that it was the duty of the priests and Levites to instruct the Hebrew worshippers to present their sacrifice unto the Lord, believing and feeling that he was there to receive their offering and to accept their penitence and their faith.
II. THAT, UNDER THE GOSPEL, A LIVING FAITH IS CONSTANTLY ASSOCIATED WITH ACTIVE OBEDIENCE. We are not saved by works, but by faith in Jesus Christ (Rom 3:28; Rom 5:1; Eph 2:8, etc.). Yet the faith which saves is a “faith which worketh by love” (Gal 5:6; Jas 2:18, Jas 2:20, Jas 2:22, etc.).
But the primary truth which is taught in this passage is rather this
III. THAT SPIRITUAL OBEDIENCE IS THE SECRET AND THE SOURCE OF TRUE HUMAN LIFE.
1. It is the secret of all real life. What is human life? In what does it actually consist? The life of the brute consists in the performance of its animal functions, in its outward, sensible existence. But the life of a man consists in something higher. We live when our souls live, when we live before God and unto him; if a man will do God’s will and keep his statutes and his judgments, “he shall live in them;” he will find his true life in the doing and the keeping of these; “this is life eternal, to know thee,” etc. (Joh 17:3). To know God, to know him as he is revealed to us in Christ Jesus, to worship him, to rejoice in him, to love and to please him, to be gratefully and cheerfully obedient to his will in all things,this is human life; all else is immeasurably below it. There is nothing worth calling life apart from the holy and happy service of God; a spiritual not a servile obedience is the secret of life on earth.
2. It is also the source of the higher human life which is beyond. The Jew who kept God’s statutes not only found a true life in his obedience, but he also guided a true life through his obedience. God bestowed on him his Divine favour, conferred on him all those outward blessings which were then regarded as the highest token of the favour of the Eternal; he lived in the smile and the benediction of Jehovah. Our hope is brighter and more far-reaching than his. He had some glimmering of the blessedness beyond, but it was faint and feeble. We know that if our faith in a Divine Redeemer is manifested in a lasting spiritual obedience, we “shall live” a life of which the Jew had little thought, and of which we ourselves can only form some struggling anticipation. We know that if “we are faithful unto death,” we shall have “a crown of life.” The obedience of faith, continued to the end, will introduce us to the life which is
(1) one of celestial fullness;
(2) free from present care, sorrow, sin;
(3) everlasting.C.
Lev 18:6-23
Impurity-its extent and source.
There are times when and conditions under which it is both our right and our duty to speak on this subject. We may offend delicacy by speech, and must therefore be careful what we say. But we may neglect obligation and opportunity by silence, and must therefore use fitting occasion for speech. There is a time to warn the young against an evil which may slay them with a mortal wound. We may glance, and only glance, at
I. THE FEARFUL LENGTH TO WHICH IMPURITY MAY PASS. God made man male and female that, related to one another thus, they might be happy in one another’s fellowship; that husband, wife, and child might complete the harmony of human life. But for the confusing and disturbing element of sin, there would have been nothing but holy conjugal affection and happy human homes. How dark and sad a contrast to this does society present! How melancholy the thought that impurity should Dot only have tainted so many souls, but should have taken so may forms! that not only have the natural relations of the sexes been too unlimited, too unrestrained, but that sin of this description has taken unnatural, shocking, and abominable forms! that its dark and shameful manifestations are such as we hardly like to Dame, and do not dare to think of (Lev 18:22, Lev 18:23)! Only a holy compulsion will induce us even to make passing reference to such things. So low, to such dark depths, into such a “far country” of vileness does the sin of impurity extend.
II. THAT GUILTY INDULGENCE IS THE ONLY EXPLANATION OF THIS EVIL PROGRESS.
How can such things be? is the simple question of the pure heart. How by any possibility can human nature sink into such a gulf of depravity? How can we account for it that the soul which once knew the innocency of childhood finds an awful pleasure in such shameful deeds? The answer is undoubtedly here. The very possibility of it is a part of the penalty of the sins which have been committed. Sins of impurity leave a stain upon the soul; the seducer has not only to suffer the rebuke of God, the reproaches of the one he has wronged and ruined, and the stings of his own consciencesome day to be awakened, but he has to “bear his iniquity” in a depraved taste, in a stained and injured nature, in a lowered and baser appetite. In this, as in other matters, perhaps more fearfully than in most, “he that sinneth against God wrongeth his own soul” (Pro 8:36). Let the man who gives way to impurity remember that he is traveling on a downward course that ends in saddest depravation of soul, and that will leave him open to those more vile temptations which would disgrace and even disgust him now.
III. THE TRUE TREATMENT OF THIS DESTROYING SIN. Trace the evil back from its worst developments to its mildest form; from its fullest crime to its source in the soul. Incest, adultery, fornication, seduction, indecency, indelicate conversation, the impure thought. This last is the source of all. It is that which must be assailed, which must be expelled.
In this matter of the relation of the sexes, there are three main truths.
1. God gives to most of us the joy of conjugal love, and this is to be sanctified by being accepted as his gift (Jas 1:17). Where it is denied we must be well satisfied with other mercies so freely given.
2. Its lasting happiness is only assured to the pure of heart. With all others its excellency will soon fade and die.
3. Therefore let us, by all possible means, guard our purity:
(1) by avoidance of temptation (evil company, wrong literature);
(2) by energetic expulsion of unworthy thoughts;
(3) by realization of the presence of the heart-searching Holy One;
(4) by earnest prayer; let us “keep our heart beyond all keeping,” etc. (Pro 4:23).C.
Lev 18:24-30
The penalty of sin.
The disastrous consequences of iniquity are clearly and strongly expressed in these concluding words of the chapter. We have the truth brought out
I. THAT BY SIN WE CORRUPT OURSELVES. “Defile not ye yourselves in any of these things” (Lev 18:24); “that ye defile not yourselves therein” (Lev 18:30). Our Lord tells us that “out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications,” etc; and that “these things defile a man” (Mat 7:19, Mat 7:20). And Paul tells us that we “are the temple of God,” and that “if any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy” (1Co 3:16, 1Co 3:17). Those sins which a man commits against his own spirit or his own bodythose wrongs which a man does himselfend in positive and serious injury. They enfeeble, they degrade, they brutalize, they bring down a man’s tastes and appetites to the meanest levels, they lay and leave his nature open to the worst temptations. In the practice of vice a man sinks down daily until he becomes thoroughly corrupt, averse to all that is holy, prone to everything impure.
II. THAT BY SIN WE CONTAMINATE SOCIETY. “In all these the nations are defiled” (Lev 18:24); “and the land is defiled” (Lev 18:25, Lev 18:27). Societies as well as individuals become corrupt. Even one Achan defiled the whole camp of Israel and paralyzed its power. One incestuous member of the Corinthian Church infected and stained that Christian society. How much more will many evil-doers corrupt the community! It may not take a large number of unholy, impure, unrighteous souls to make a Church or society “defiled” in the sight of the Holy One, no longer a fit dwelling-place for his Holy Spirit, a community to be abandoned to itself.
III. THAT BY SIN WE INCUR THE HIGH DISPLEASURE OF ALMIGHTY GOD. “Ye shall not commit any of these abominations” (Lev 18:26, Lev 18:27, Lev 18:29), “of these abominable customs” (Lev 18:30). The Holy One, in his righteous indignation, threatens that “the land shall spue them out” if they indulge in such iniquities. No stronger language could be employed to indicate the uttermost conceivable detestation and abhorrence which God has of such sins as these described. “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Heb 10:31); and it is a fearful thing to have done or to have become that which God regards with Divine abomination, to be the object of his awful resentment and indignation; to have to feel that he, the Divine Father and the righteous Judge, cannot look on us without terrible aversion.
IV. THAT BY SIN WE ARE DETERMINING OUR DOOM. (Lev 18:29.) Whether by being “cut off from among the people” we understand excommunication and exile or death, the penalty is severe. It is certain that Lev 18:28 points to stern rejection and utter destruction.
1. It is certain that by open sin we expose ourselves to exile from the Christian Church, and even to banishment from all decent and honourable society. The Church, the family, and the social circle must exclude the wanton offender for the sake of their pure and innocent members.
2. Also that by continuance in deliberate sin, whether open or secret, whether of the body or of the soul, we shall be rejected from the city of God. “There shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination” (Rev 21:27).C.
HOMILIES BY R.A. REDFORD
Lev 18:1-30
Lev 18:5, “Ye shall therefore keep my statutes, and my judgments: which if a man do, he shall live in them: I am the Lord.”
I. THE TRUE MORALITY IS BASED UPON THE TRUE RELIGION.
1. Special need of insisting on this in times when men seek to make light of religious obligation.
2. Historical confirmation: Egypt, Persia, Greece, Rome,all corrupt because degenerate. No protection, as luxury, increases, from relaxation of manners save in religious safeguards.
3. The life of faith is life in commandments. The Lord is both the Object of faith and the Ruler of life. The commandments do not give faith or dispense, with it, but reveal, test, and approve it.
II. THE WORLD WITHOUT GOD IS A WORLD OF ABOMINATIONS AND DEATH. All God’s laws contribute to health and happiness. His judgments on the nations were the clearing away of moral filth and disorder. The state of the heathen is an indisputable evidence of man’s natural depravity and ruin. Intellect, physical prowess, wealth, learning,all were rendered useless, and worse than useless, by moral weakness.
III. JUDGMENT AND MERCY WENT HAND IN HAND IN THE DIVINE DISPENSATION. The offender was excommunicated that he might have opportunity for repentancewhich made a warning to all. The land was to be kept from defilement that it might be the land of God’s people. The sanctity of the bodily life, of personal purity, of domestic relationship, of the family, and so of the nation, are all made to depend on the sanctity of the first and deepest of all relationsthat between man and God. “I am the Lord.” The land is mine first, then yours. The Law is your safety and peace.R.
HOMILIES BY S.R. ALDRIDGE
Lev 18:1-5
Obedience enjoined.
A nation’s importance is not to be reckoned according to its size, but more according to the character of its people and of the great men who have belonged to it. That must ever be a distinguished nation which has had a Moses ruling over it, a man with whom God spoke face to face, instructing him by what rules to govern the people. Those rules form a code second to none in history for purity, justice, and completeness. At the head of a number of separate precepts stands the special injunction of the text, calling upon the Israelites to respect the entire Law.
I. A REMINDER THAT IN EVERY PLACE THERE ARE EVIL PRACTICES TO BE SHUNNED. The present position of every individual is an isthmus connecting the continent of the past and the future. Israel in the wilderness journeying from Egypt to Canaan was but like many between youth and manhood, school and business, activity and retirement. Such a transition state may be profitably used as a time of thought and resolution. In no position must we expect freedom from temptation. The conduct of the Egyptians and of the Canaanites must alike be avoided (Lev 18:3). And those who defer religious decision until a season of immunity from danger arrives, may tarry in vain. The wilderness has its lawless manners as well as the settled country. How necessary to be upon our guard lest we be corrupted by the customs of our neighbours! Happy the college, the mart, the home, that is less likely to contaminate than to purify!
II. COMPLIANCE WITH THE LAWS OF GOD IS THE BEST PRESERVATIVE AGAINST IMITATING SINFUL CUSTOMS. He runs quickest away from evil who pursues the good in front of him. Simply to retreat from danger, backing from it, is a slow and insecure method. We want more than negative righteousness, we need positive fulfillment of holy commands to ensure us against adopting odious habits. It is not safe to take men as our patterns of behaviour. “Be ye imitators of God as beloved children,” Egyptians and Canaanites were equally unfit to be followed. The Apostle Paul did not set up his own life as a model except in so far as he also imitated Christ (1Co 11:1). Obedience is here described in three ways, as doing the judgments of God, keeping his ordinances, and walking therein (Lev 18:4). Great is the privilege that moderns enjoy in having so many copies of God’s Word multiplied as to be easily accessible to all. Surely we ought to meditate therein day and night, that we may order our steps thereby.
III. OBEDIENCE MAY BE STIMULATED BY REFLECTION.
1. Upon the right of God to issue commands. “I am Jehovah” is his claim to attention as the Fount of law, and a claim which no thoughtful mind should reject. The ever-living Almighty Holy One possesses in himself every attribute that demands our homage. To withhold it is to violate congruity, to act in a manner out of harmony with what fitness requires.
2. Upon our acceptance of his lordship over us. “I am the Lord your God.” We have entered into covenant relationship with him, and we break the terms of agreement if we fail to keep his statutes. The plural form of “God” may, without forcing, be taken here to indicate that the Israelites had deliberately bound themselves to the one Jehovah as their “Gods,” instead of the idols of the nations round. God is our Father, how shall we be disobedient children? our King, how can we act as rebellious subjects? our Lawgiver, how can we dare to transgress his commandments?
3. Upon the blessedness attained by observance of God’s statutes. “Which if a man do, he shall live in them.” Man thought to increase his power by tasting forbidden fruit, but he lost his life, and only regained it in proportion as he returned to obedience. It is true that the impossibility of perfectly keeping the Law foreshadowed the necessity of another way of salvation, but according as the Israelites adhered to the Law in letter and spirit, so they experienced happiness and the favour of God, which is life indeed. We rejoice in the gospel plan of faith in Christ, not as making the Law inoperative, but as enabling us to fulfill its aim, to accomplish its real designsanctification of life; and therein delivered from thraldom, we enter upon the life eternal that comprehends all blessing. We listen to the Law now, not as if it were the stern prescription of a hard Taskmaster, but as the instruction of a loving, all-wise Friend, which the more closely we follow, the more prosperous our career will be. “Freely we serve, because we freely love.”S.R.A.
Lev 18:24, Lev 18:25
Abominations denounced.
Some chapters of law, as of history, are not pleasant reading. That they should have been found necessary is a proof of the fearful depravity into which man may fall, sinning against natural instincts, hurried away and blinded by passion so as to overstep the bounds of decency. The prohibitions of this chapter were designed to hallow marriage and the family relationship. Their observance would tend to benefit the entire nation, for the laws of God are framed with benevolent wisdom. To sin against them is to wrong one’s own soul.
I. THE DENUNCIATIONS AND THREATENINGS EVINCE GOD‘S HATRED OF ABOMINABLE CONDUCT. “That the land spue not you out also.” “The souls that commit them shall be cut off from among their people.” Strong is the language applied to sinful practicesthey are “wickedness” (Lev 18:17), “abomination” (Lev 18:22), “confusion” (Lev 18:23). The Law will have no compromise, admits of no alternative amongst God’s people, the command is, “Thou shalt not.” Wickedness is not to be tolerated even in the stranger (Lev 18:26); he is not obliged to conform to all the ceremonies, but he must rigidly abstain from every moral offense. The New Testament relaxes not one jot in condemnation of all that is impure and filthy in conduct and even language (see Rom 1:18, Rom 1:32; 1Co 6:9, 1Co 6:10; Eph 5:3-5; Rev 21:8).
II. THE DELAY BETWEEN SIN AND PUNISHMENT IS A MARK OF THE KINDNESS AND LONG–SUFFERING OF GOD. (See Peter’s argument in 2Pe 3:9.) In Gen 15:16 it was expressly declared, “the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full.” They were allowed four hundred years to repent, or to fill up the cup of their iniquity, and they chose the latter. This is the clearest answer to any who would impugn the justice of God’s dealing with the Canaanites in exterminating them with fire and sword. Oh, the folly of men who abuse precious time by laughing at solemn announcements of coming woe, instead of employing it in making their peace with God! By every moment that intervenes between the sinner and death God urges him to seek pardon and amendment.
III. THE INSTANCES RECORDED SHOW THE CERTAIN VISITATION OF SIN WITH GOD‘S DISPLEASURE. Delay is no guarantee of final immunity from punishment. The heathen were at last driven out of the land, and likewise the Israelites who succeeded felt the wrath of God on account of the shameful customs in which they indulged. God is impartial, and does not spare sin in his people or his enemies. As the denunciation shows God in principle and language, so the fulfillment of his threat demonstrates him in act, and is a further vivid evidence of his dislike of all wickedness. Nathan was God’s messenger to rebuke and threaten David, as afterwards John the Baptist denounced Herod for taking his brother’s wife. Just retribution foretells a day of judgment, when inequalities of punishment shall be righted and God’s equity triumphantly vindicated. Here we see sufficient to establish the fact of the existence of a moral government (Ecc 8:11-13).
IV. THE CLIMAX OF SIN IS REACHED WHEN NATURE HERSELF SEEMS TO ABHOR THE SINNER. Graphic is the picture of the land loathing its burden and vomiting forth its inhabitants. As a leprosy infected walls and garments, so the abominations of the heathen defiled the land itself that it stank. The results of immorality upon the state of society and of individuals have been appalling. Eventually everything has sunk into ruin, disintegration and corruption have prevailed. The population decreases by sickness and barrenness and murder. The arts and sciences decay, literature is blighted, philanthropy unknown. The text reminds us that a closer connection exists between man and inanimate nature than we sometimes think (see this also suggested in Rom 8:20 and Gen 3:17).
CONCLUSION. If the subject is painful, the lesson may be salutary. Sin is widespread. “Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.” We may be glad of the healthful influence of Christianity, rightly directing public opinion, and erecting it into a safeguard against evil. “Having these promises, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.”S.R.A.
Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary
SECOND SECTION
Holiness of the Marriage Relation
Leviticus 18
The keeping holy of marriage, of all sexual relations, and of all the relations of life in general.
Leviticus 18-20
A.THE KEEPING HOLY OF MARRIAGE AND OF ALL SEXUAL RELATIONS UNDER THE PENALTY OF THE CHEREM.LANGE
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PRELIMINARY NOTE
On the Prohibited Degrees and on the Marriage Laws of the Heathen
The law declaring under what conditions sexual intercourse is forbidden is given in the present chapter; the punishment of disobedience in the several cases is declared in Lev 20:10-21. The latter is naturally less full, leaving the punishment in some instances to be inferred from analogy; and in one case it is considered by some commentators that there is a slight extension of the law here given. See on Lev 20:20. The law covers all sexual intercourse whether by formal marriage or by simple concubinage; and when the wives of various persons are mentioned, the term includes their wives when living, and their widows when they were themselves dead. It is remarkable that it makes no exception in favor of such marriages as had occurred among the ancestors of the Israelites, as in the case of Jacob, from which they were themselves descended. (The marriage of Abraham with Sarah was probably with his niece, the word sister allowing of this latitude).
The whole law is expressed in reference to the man, since the inception of such relations rests with him; but it would be a mistake to suppose that a precisely parallel list might be drawn up also for the woman. Differences are introduced by the law of the Levirate marriage (an institution much more ancient than the time of Moses, see Genesis 38), and by the general relation of protector and protected; the law therefore applies to the woman only in the case of those relationships in which the man is forbidden to have intercourse with her. Some of the degrees which are prohibited implicitly are not expressly mentioned: thus connection with a daughter is not mentioned by itself, although necessarily involved in the prohibition of intercourse with a woman and her daughter in Lev 18:17; that with a step-mother is included in Lev 18:8, and is especially mentioned as the subject of one of the curses in Deu 27:23; that with a grandmother is not mentioned at all, either because it was considered unnecessary to do so, or else because it was sufficiently implied by the other prohibitions. The whole law is expressly grounded (Lev 18:2-3; Lev 18:24-27) upon the duty of avoiding the abominable customs of the Egyptians and the Canaanites, so that there was the less necessity for express mention of anything which was not practised by them.
The principle on which the prohibitions rest (Lev 18:6) is expressly declared to be nearness of relationship; and although the Hebrew expression employed for this (lit. flesh of his flesh) might in itself apply only to blood relations, yet it is distinctly extended in the law to relations by affinity also, though not always to the same degree. In the remoter degrees the relationship is affected by other considerations, so that in parallel cases, sometimes one connection is forbidden while the other is not mentioned. Generally, the whole list might be included in the single prohibition that no man might be connected with a woman who stood, or who might come to stand to him in the position of a ward; no one who could be included in the family of which he was head. In this connection the LXX. translation in Lev 18:6 is to be noted: . Such a description, however, would not be quite accurate, since the niece is not included in the list of prohibited degrees; and there are two prohibited cases which would not come under the description. These are the maternal aunt, who would form a part of the wifes fathers or brothers family; and the wifes sister, forbidden only during the life-time of the wife.
The prohibited degrees may be conveniently arranged under the three following heads:
a. Relations by Blood
1. Mother, Lev 18:7.
2. Aunt on either side, Lev 18:12-13.
3. Sister and half sister, Lev 18:9; Lev 18:11.
4. Daughter, Lev 18:17.
5. Grand-daughter, Lev 18:10.
b. Direct Relations by Affinity
6. Mother-in-law, Lev 18:17.
7. Step-mother, Lev 18:8.
8. Step-daughter, Lev 18:17.
9. Step-grand-daughter, Lev 18:17.
c. Indirect Relations by Affinity
10. Fathers brothers wife, Lev 18:14.
11. Brothers wife, Lev 18:16.
12. Daughter-in-law, Lev 18:15.
In addition to these there is a temporary prohibition of the wifes sister during the wifes own life.
Among the heathen these relationships were very differently regarded. Marriage with a sister was permitted among the Egyptians by express law in consequence of the legend in their mythology of the marriage of Osiris with his sister Isis (Diod. Sic. i. 27; Philo de Sp. Legg. near beginning), and this custom continued, at least in the royal family, quite down to the time of their conquest by the Romans (Dio. Cass. xlii. p. 205, E. ed., Hanover, 1606). With regard to marriage with a mother, direct evidence is wanting in regard to the Canaanites, but among the Modes and the Persians it was practised from the earliest times, as also among the Indians and the Ethiopians. (See the authorities in Knobel), and all these nations appear to have permitted also marriage with a daughter. Marriage with a sister, however, was unknown among the Persians until the time of Cambyses, (Herod. iii. 31). Marriage with a step-mother seems to have been universal among Oriental monarchs, and the inheritance of the fathers seraglio one of the marks of succession to his throne. Hence Solomons treatment of Adonijah is to be explained when he sought to have Abishag given to him (1Ki 2:13-25). Marriage with a wifes step-mother, however, is not forbidden, and a notable instance of it is in Davids inheriting the wives of his father-in-law Saul, spoken of as a mark of the Divine favor, 2Sa 12:8.
The marriages here forbidden are spoken of as crimes in the Canaanites for which they were about to be punished. While it is not, necessary to extend this to each particular, still it must be recognized that the prohibited degrees generally were such as could be understood by the light of nature or such dim tradition of the Divine will as might have been accessible to the Canaanites. Accordingly, it is well known that the prohibited degrees among the Greeks and Romans were for the most part the same as in the laws of Moses. Solon indeed permitted marriage with a half-sister by the father only, and Lycurgus with a half-sister by the mother only (Philo de Sp. Legg., pp. 601, F. El., Geneva, 1613); but the early Roman law went even farther than the Levitical in forbidding marriages between uncles and nieces, and between cousins german, which was only relaxed in the 2d cent, before our era (Liv. xlii. 34; Cic. pro Cluent. V. quoted by Clark). Similar laws, too, might be quoted from other nations, showing that those of the Egyptians and Canaanites were simply a license to passion, contrary to what they might have known to be right.
Marriage with a deceased wifes sister is clearly allowed under the Levitical law, not merely by not being prohibited; but being prohibited during the lifetime of the sister first taken to wife, it becomes doubly certain that it was permitted afterwards. It is even made still more clear by the reason assigned: the relations of two wives of the same man are not apt to be friendly, and Moses would not allow either that the natural affection of sisters should be subjected to this strain, or that the inevitable animosities of the harem should be increased by the previous familiar relation of sisters. On the other hand, the marriage with a brothers widow was forbidden, evidently because she became the ward of the surviving brother; and because also if the brother had died childless while she remained his wife, the survivor was bound to take her by a Levirate marriage. In either case her children were to be reckoned to the deceased brother, and hence the penalty for violating this precept in Lev 20:21 is that they shall be childless, i.e., that any children born to such a union should be reckoned in the genealogies, not to them, but to the deceased brother. The law therefore in this case must be considered as based upon questions of civil polity and not upon affinity. Hence it does not apply to the parallel case of the deceased wifes sister; for she could never have formed a part of her brother-in-laws household under the family system of the Hebrews. In the punishments denounced in Leviticus 20 against the sins here prohibited, it will be found that a distinction is made in the degree of guilt. One, and the larger class, is to be capitally punished (in one case even the bodies of both parties are to be burnt), while in the other class the penalty is simply that they shall be childless. It cannot be supposed that a perpetual miracle was to be maintained through all the ages of Israels history; but the meaning evidently is that the children of such marriages should be reckoned not to their actual father, but to the former husband of the woman. In the strong feeling of the Israelites in regard to posterity, this penalty seems to have been sufficient. (An instance of this use of the word childless is to be found in Jer 22:30 compared with 1Ch 3:17-18). It is not to be supposed that the more remote of the prohibited degrees were among the abominations for which the Canaanites were to be cut off; but on the other hand adultery and the other horrible sins mentioned in Lev 18:20-23 were undoubtedly among their customs.
Literature.Michaelis, Laws of Moses; Abhandlung ber die Ehegesetze Mosis; Saalschutz, Mos. Recht; Selden, uxor ebr. See also the numerous references in Calmet on this chapter. Also. John Fry, The cases of marriage between near kindred, etc. London, 1756.
Lev 18:1-30
1And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, 2Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, I am the Lord your God. 3After the doings of the land of Egypt, wherein ye dwelt, shall ye not do: and after the doings of the land of Canaan, whither I bring1 you, shall ye not do: neither shall ye walk in their ordinances 4[statutes2]. Ye shall do my judgments, and keep mine ordinances [statutes2], to walk therein: I am the Lord your God. 5Ye shall therefore keep 3my statutes, and 3my judgments: which if a man do, he shall live in them: I am the Lord.
6None of you shall approach to any that is near of kin4 to him, to uncover theirnakedness: I am the Lord. 7The nakedness of thy father, or [even5] the nakedness of thy mother, shalt thou not uncover: she is thy mother; thou shalt not uncover her nakedness. 8The nakedness of thy fathers wife shalt thou not uncover: it is thy fathers nakedness. 9The nakedness of thy sister, the daughter of thy father, or daughter of thy mother, whether she be born6 at home, or born abroad, even their7 nakedness thou shalt not uncoLev Lev 18:10 The nakedness of thy sons daughter, or of thy daughters daughter, even their nakedness thou shalt not uncover: for theirs is thine own nakedness. 11The nakedness of thy fathers wifes daughter, begotten of thy father, she is thy sister, thou shalt not uncover her nakedness. 12Thou shall not uncover the nakedness of thy fathers sister:8 she is thy fathers near kinswoman.4 13Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy mothers sister: for she is thy mothers near kinswoman:4 14Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy fathers brother,9 thou shalt not approach to his wife: she is thine aunt. 15Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy daughter in law: she is thy sons wife; 16thou shalt not uncover her nakedness. Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy brothers wife: it is thy brothers nakedness. 17Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of a woman and her daughter, neither shalt thou take her sons daughter, or her daughters daughter, to uncover her nakedness; for they are her near kinswomen: it is wickedness. 18Neither shalt thou take a wife to her sister,10 to vex her, to uncover her nakedness, beside the other in her life time.
19Also thou shalt not approach unto a woman to uncover her nakedness, as long as she is put apart for her uncleanness. 20Moreover thou shalt not lie carnally with thy neighbours wife, to defile thyself with her. 21And thou shalt not let any of thy seed pass through the fire to Molech [thou shalt not dedicate any of thy seed to 22Molech11], neither shalt thou profane the name of thy God: I am the Lord. Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination. 23Neither shalt thou lie with any beast to defile thyself therewith: neither shall any woman stand before a beast to lie down thereto: it is confusion.
24Defile not ye yourselves in any of these things: for in all these the nations are defiled which I cast out12 before you: 25and the land is defiled: therefore I do visit the iniquity thereof upon it, and the land itself vomiteth13 out her inhabitants. 26Ye shall therefore keep13 my statutes and my judgments, and shall not commit any of these abominations; neither any of your own nation, nor any stranger that sojourneth among you: 27(for all these abominations have the men of the land done, which were before you, and the land is defiled;) 28that the land spue not you out also, when ye defile it, as it spued13 out the nations that were before you. 29For whosoever shall commit any of these abominations, even the souls that commit them shall be cut off from among their people. 30Therefore shall ye keep mine ordinance, that ye commit not any one of these abominable customs [statutes2], which were committed before you, and that ye defile not yourselves therein: I am the Lord your God.
TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL
Lev 18:3 . Introducturus sum. Present for the future. Rosenmller.
Lev 18:3. . is variously and apparently arbitrarily rendered in the A. V. ordinance and statute, beside the occasional renderings, custom, manner and rite. There is no reason why the translation should not be uniform, and as statute is the more common, and hitherto in Lev. the uniform, rendering, this is adopted.
Lev 18:5. One MS. and the LXX. insert twice the word all. At the end of the verse the LXX. adds your God.
Lev 18:6. , lit. to any flesh of his flesh. The distinction between and is not understood. The derivative of the latter, , is used in Lev 18:17 (where only it occurs) of blood relationship. The margin of the A. V. gives Heb. remainder of his flesh according to the pointing, . In Lev 18:12-13, is used alone of near blood relationship.
Lev 18:7. That the copulative ought not to be rendered disjunctively as in the A. V. is evident from the latter part of the verse. LXX. has , Vulg. et.
Lev 18:9. , according to the Masoretic punctuation, is Hiphil, and must therefore be taken as active, agreeing with mother, and mean who hath borne children whether at home or abroad. The A. V., however, in common with all the ancient versions, has taken it as passive, , agreeing with daughter. For the rightfulness of this, Michaelis earnestly contends (Laws of Moses, Art. 114, 115). See Comment.
Lev 18:9. The Sam., 18 MSS. and the Syr. have the pronoun in the sing. The Vulg. omits it.
Lev 18:12. In the same construction in the following verse = for is supplied; it is found here also in 4 MSS. and in the versions generally.
Lev 18:14. The expletive conjunction is here supplied in the Sam., in 25 MSS., and some ancient versions.
Lev 18:18. There can be here no question of the exact literalness of the rendering of the text of the A. V.; that of the margin is not a translation, but a more than doubtful interpretation. It would be an absolute prohibition of polygamy, which is here out of the question, unless stress were laid, as Poole has done, upon the purpose of such marriage, to vex; but the word = to press, to bind together, will not justify this.
Lev 18:21. For , Sam. and LXX. read = to reduce to servitude. A similar idea, to dedicate, may be given to the Heb. word as it stands. Vulg. ut consecrator, and similarly all the ancient versions. So the word is used, Exo 13:12. As this is the first mention of Molech, and there is no word for fire, it is better to keep strictly to the original and translate dedicate. Rosenmuller, traducas. The corresponding expressions in Lev 20:2-4, have simply = to give, without the following verb. According to the Masoretic punctuation Molech is always (except 1Ki 11:7) written with the article , and is rendered here and Lev 20:2-5, by the LXX. , but Jeremiah 32 (Gr. xxxix.) 35, , 1Ki 11:7 (Gr. 5), simply , and 2Ki 23:10, .
Lev 18:26. The Heb. has here the pronoun in addition to the verbal suffix. It is omitted in the Sam. and in 3 MSS.
Lev 18:24-25; Lev 18:28. In Lev 18:24 is the Hiphil Part.= I am casting out, and in accordance with this the preterites (which has the conversive) of Lev 18:25 and of Lev 18:28 are to be understood.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
This chapter consists of an introductory exhortation, Lev 18:2-5; the laws against incest, Lev 18:6-18; the prohibition of other kind of unchastity and unnatural crimes, Lev 18:19-23; and a concluding exhortation, Lev 18:24-30. The whole marriage law, as a holy limitation, marks two mutually opposite extremes or forms of excess: first, sins against the blood relationship, or against the fear of desecrating the common source of life, the community of blood, Lev 18:1-18; secondly, sins of the dissolute disposition, the horrible passing over the life-line of pure marriage, or the new relationship, into the various forms contrary to nature, Lev 18:19-30. Lange.
Lev 18:2-5. This exhortation opens with reminding the people I am the lord your God, and closes with the abbreviation of the same formula: I am the lord. The same expression occurs again in the midst of it (Lev 18:4), and also at the opening of the law itself (Lev 18:6), in the midst of the third division of the chapter (Lev 18:21), and again at the close of the whole. It is designed to impress most strongly upon the minds of the Israelites that the observance of this law is a matter of covenant obligation. And this is enforced by the contrast (Lev 18:3) with the doings of the land of Egypt from which they had been delivered, and the doings of the land of Canaan whose nations were about to be cast out to make room for them. It closes with the promise that if a man do the Divine statutes and judgments, he shall live in them. Not merely, he shall not be cut off by the punishments denounced against the transgression of these laws in Leviticus 20; but he shall gain that true life of communion with God which accompanies the obedience to His commands. Comp. Eze 20:11; Eze 20:13; Eze 20:21; Luk 10:28. This whole legislation bears on its front the name of Jehovah, the God of Israel, Lev 18:2, in the more definite signification that the Israelites should keep themselves holy in their personality, i.e. true to themselves, suitably to their personality, as Jehovah is holy (Lev 19:2). But the legislation took its occasion in this: that Israel, as the people hallowed by God, should form an instructive and rebuking contrast to the shameful sexual life of the land of Egypt, whence they had just come out, and that still more shameful of the land of Canaan, whither they were going under the leadership of Jehovah. That this legislation was not able in later days to prevent transgressions, e.g. in the family of David itself, is explained even from the essential nature of law. From this a careful critic would decide for the high Mosaic age of the law rather than for the contrary.
That a most highly living intelligence pervades the section results from the various significant expressions: the judgments and statutes of Jehovah (Lev 18:4) become for the people the statutes and judgments (first law, and only afterwards the idea (Lev 18:5). [Patrick says: The Gemara Babylonica, mentioning these words, saith, it is a tradition of their doctors that by are to be understood such natural laws as all mankind are bound to observe, though there were no written commands for them, such as those against idolatry, and those about uncovering the nakedness of such near relations as are here mentioned, and murder, etc. And by such laws are meant as depended only on the pleasure of God, and obliged none but those to whom they were given, such as those about meats and garments and leprosy, etc. F. G.] That which is contrary to nature in the marriage of relations consists in this: that the man by his family life, which should be the foundation of new bonds of love and new families, mingles again egotistically with his own flesh ( ); and that by profane conduct he exposed the obscure and hallowed origin of his own life (uncovered the shame), and thus repeated the sin of Ham (for the shame of the wife of near kin is also the shame of the father, Lev 20:11). Therefore also it is necessary to explain the saying which if a man do, he shall live in them in its particular connection: all these directions tend to the furtherance of life, especially of the higher life, while the contrasted sexual relations produce death.
The case of adultery is not considered, since the reference is to widows when connections with those who have been married before are considered. The determining principle is that of community of blood (). But this is itself determined by the fundamental idea that man and wife are one. Hence it follows that the shame of the fathers wife is also the shame of the father himself (Lev 18:7-8). The shame of a grand-daughter was looked upon, since she was a descendant, as the shame of the grandfather himself (Lev 18:10). The shame of the sister in-law was thus also looked upon as the shame of the brother.
As to the guilt and punishment, the death-penalty stands according to Lev 20:11 sqq. for the carnal intercourse (not merely the marrying) with a fathers wife, with a daughter-in-law, with a half sister [and hence of course with a full sister]; the punishment was, indeed, death by fire when one took a woman and her daughter together (that is ). [This necessarily includes the case of a daughter, and of a wifes mother. Michaelis (Laws, Art. 102) considers as a forensic term used to express those forms of incest in which the woman is under the guardianship of the man, and derives the word from the Arabic in which Zimm means marriage, and Zimma the state of guardianship (Clientela), from the word Zamm, to connect. This sense is indeed appropriate for the very few places in which it occurs in the law (Lev 18:17; Lev 19:29; Lev 20:14 bis), but elsewhere it is used for any abominable wickedness (as Job 31:11) especially lewdness (Jdg 20:6). See Gesen. Thes.F. G.]. It is said indefinitely of the intercourse with a sister of the father or of the mother, they shall bear their iniquity (). [Lev 20:19. Michaelis (Art. 112, 2) observes in regard to these and the following kinds of prohibited marriages, that Moses tolerated their continuance, if once consummated. At least he nowhere enjoins a separation of the parties. It might be argued, indeed, that a forbidden marriage was utterly void, and therefore that its sin was constantly renewed as long as the parties continued to sustain towards each other the marriage relation; but certainly the penalty in the two following classes presupposes that they continued to live together.F. G.]. In contrast with this, it is said of him who slept with his fathers brothers wife, they shall bear their sin (); they shall die childless [Lev 20:20]. So also of the case when any one takes his brothers wife, that is (Levitical uncleanness), they shall be childless [Lev 20:21]. Thus the social punishment is not wholly absent here also, but the principal thing was the threat of the Divine punishment of these connections with childlessness. [On the meaning of this punishment, see the preliminary note.F. G.]. Since in all these cases the willingness on the womans side is assumed, the threat of the penalty is for both sides alike. It is worth while to notice also the circumstance that the penal statutes which refer to the marriage of relations are mingled with other penal statutes (Lev 20:13; Lev 20:15-16), a proof that, here in chap. 20 another point of view is brought forward. But if in regard to the prohibition of the marriage with a brothers widow childlessness was threatened, while later the prohibition could be changed relatively into a command in the ordinance of the Levirate marriage [the Levirate marriage took place only in case the brother died childlessF. G.]; still there is made definitely prominent a principal end of the legislation in the manifold threat of childlessness, which evidently extended also over the greater transgressions or reached the Cherem: marriage was to be protected, observed, and kept holy as the nursery for the raising of children, for new families, and truly for pure and hallowed families (comp. Com. on Jno.. p. 47 [Am. Ed., p. 111]).
It is well known that in the treatment of these prohibited degrees of marriage various motives have been given, among others the following: the diminution and prevention of families in the marriage of relations. This motive comes out strongly here. Also in the expression in Lev 18:5, he shall live by them. [A broader meaning may be given, as above, to Lev 18:5, and the threat of childlessness has already been explained (prel. note) as referring to the legal reckoning of the children. If childlessness could be proved to be a natural penalty of the inter-marriage of near blood relations, it would yet wholly fail to apply to cases of simple affinity, to which alone the penalty is attached in the law. Very striking is its inapplicability to the marriage with a brothers wife, for if such a natural law existed, the Levirate marriage would have been wholly useless.F. G.]. But no less is there another motive here implied: the respect of kinship, (respectus parentel), and even the forcible expression uncover the nakedness only brings out strongly the impiety which, in such cases, uncovers the fountains of its own life, which have been hitherto concealed by natural respect. [See this point discussed at length in Michaelis (Art. 107) who decides that it had no influence in the Mosaic legislation.F. G.]. And it is plain, that with this unnatural going back of men to the roots of their own existence in this perversion of marriage, which is the specific school of the future, into a retrogressive movement, it must immediately follow that family egoism will be at the same time ever more and more cherished; whereas the Theocracy, as the religion of the future, seeks to establish marriage on the basis of ever new conditions of love, for the purpose of building up a most intimate, fellowship in the human family.14 [See this motive also discussed and rejected by Michaelis, Art. 106.F. G.].
It is well known that the hierarchy and its theology has not only not explained ideally the law of the marriages of relations, has not only brought it over unchanged into the new covenant; but has also stiffened it still more by another calculation of the degrees of relationship, by the addition of spiritual relationships, and by the prohibition to marry the sister of a deceased sister15 [wife]. In regard to heathen marriage customs, see Knobel, p. 502 sqq.
That these marriage laws of Leviticus form a great and sharp contrast to the immoral customs of the Egyptians and the Canaanites expresses the very cause of this legislation. More in regard to the immorality of the heathen may be found in Knobel, p. 502 sqq., in Keil, p. 127 sqq. [Trans, p. 413 note, p. 418], and especially in the Historisch-politischen Briefen of I. v. Raumer, p. 29 sqq. It is particularly worthy of notice that the Arabian morals have the greatest resemblance to these morals of the law, which may perhaps be explained from their Semitic character. [But the legislation of the Japhetic Greeks and Romans, and of the Hindoos for the higher castes was even more strict, as noted by Lange below; and the doom pronounced upon the Canaanites certainly implies that their sins were such as might be recognized in any nation by the light of nature.F. G.]. The lascivious service of lust of the Egyptians, illustrated by Ptolemys marriage with his sister, and by the history of Cleopatra, would appear the more remarkable since the Egyptian customs and religion on all sides admonished of death; but perhaps, indeed, this fact depends upon a connection between sexual pleasure and the thought of death, as e.g., in war and camp life, such a connection is to be observed. Besides the Arabian customs, the harsher character of the Hindoo and of the Roman legislation is to be particularly noticed. Lange.
Lev 18:6-18. The phrase uncover the nakedness continued to be used to express sexual intercourse through many ages. Comp. Eze 16:36; Eze 23:18. The list of prohibited degrees begins appropriately with the mother. Her nakedness is described as the nakedness of thy father, since husband and wife constitute one flesh, Gen 2:24. Strictly speaking is used only with reference to the wife; but in the dishonoring of his wife the honor of the husband is violated also, and his bed defiled, Gen 49:4. Keil. Comp. Lev 18:8. Rosenmller explains the phrase as meaning the nakedness which is (or was) under the control of the father. The Targ. of Jonathan assumes an ellipsis, and renders a woman shall not cohabit with her father, nor a man with his mother, which is neither agreeable to the Hebrew, nor consistent with the fact that the whole law is addressed to the man. Aben Ezra, as quoted by Rosenmller, well expresses the arrangement: He begins with the father, who precedes the son, and declares forbidden all nakedness of the father and mother; the mother is placed first, then the nakedness of the wife of the father who is not the mother, then the sister who is the daughter of the father or of the mother. In Lev 18:8 thy fathers wife refers to another wife than the mother of the person addressed, and the term wife is of course broad enough to include the concubine. The sinfulness of this act, as in the case of Reuben (Gen 35:22; Gen 49:3-4) was understood long before the giving of the Mosaic law, and continued to be held in abomination among the Gentiles in Apostolic days (1Co 5:1); nevertheless it was one of the crimes of which Absalom was deliberately guilty (2Sa 16:22), and as already noticed, it was regularly practised by the monarchs of Persia.Thy fathers nakedness is used in the same sense as in Lev 18:7. Connection with a half-sister on either side being forbidden in Lev 18:9, that with a full sister, since she might, be described as a half-sister on both sides, is doubly forbidden. The expression born at home or born abroad has been variously interpreted. The true sense is undoubtedly that given by Rosenmller, a sister in whatever way she may be a sister, whether of the same or of different parents, whether legitimately or illegitimately born. Thus are included the daughter of either father or mother by either a previous or a subsequent marriage (and these cases would have been much more frequent under laws allowing of divorce and remarriage), or the daughter of the father by another wife; also illegitimate children of either. The marriage of Abraham and Sarah is often referred to as an instance in opposition to this law; but it is more probable that the word sister is there used in the broader sense, and that Sarah was really the niece of Abraham. Lev 18:10. Theirs is thine own nakedness.Because of their direct descent, intercourse with them would involve a sort of incest with ones self. Of course this would apply fortiori to the case of a daughter which is not specifically mentioned, but is included in the prohibition of Lev 18:17. The prohibition of Lev 18:11 of the half-sister on the fathers side seems already included in the broader one of Lev 18:9. Various explanations have been given to mark a difference between them, among which perhaps the best is that of Keil: that Lev 18:9 treats of the connection of a son by a second marriage with a daughter by a first marriage, while Lev 18:11 applies to the connection of a son by a first marriage with a daughter by a subsequent marriage; but this seems an undue limitation of Lev 18:9. Probably there was at the time some technical use of the terms which constituted a distinction which is now lost. According to Selden (Uxor Hebr. L. I. c. 4) Lev 18:11 admits of the translation The nakedness of thy fathers wifes daughter (but she who is begotten of thy father is thy sister) thou shalt not uncover; thereby meaning to forbid connection with the daughter of a step-mother, and marking this as a distinct prohibition from that of the half-sister. Intercourse with an aunt on either the fathers or the mothers side is forbidden in Lev 18:12-13, on the principle of near blood relationship; but there is no prohibition of marriage with the corresponding relation of niece. The reason of this distinction is not apparent. According to Exo 6:20, Moses was himself the offspring of the marriage of Amram with Jochebed, his paternal aunt. This would indicate that this prohibited degree is a matter of the Divine statute rather than of natural law, and was not therefore necessarily extended to the niece. In Lev 18:14 the prohibition is extended to the wife of the paternal uncle, as having become an aunt by her union with the uncle. It would not however follow from this that the law forbade the marriage of a woman with the husband of her aunt, since in consequence of the dependence of the family upon the male in the Hebrew polity, the corresponding relations upon the mothers side stood in a less intimate relation than those upon the fathers. In the reverse order, however, the prohibition is more stringent upon the woman than upon the man, since a woman is hereby forbidden to marry her husbands nephew, while the man is not forbidden to marry his wifes niece. The application of this principle to Lev 18:15 would seem at first sight to lead to the permission of the abominable marriage of a woman with her son-in-law; but this is guarded against by Lev 18:17. The prohibition of intercourse with a brothers wife in connection with the more ancient custom of the levirate marriage has already been explained in the preliminary note. It is particularly to be observed that the levirate marriage only took place in case the brother had died childless, and she was still his wife at his death, and that even then it was not so much a fresh marriage, as a sort of continuance of the marriage of the deceased by his nearest surviving representative. The prohibitions of Lev 18:17 have already been seen to complement several of the other prohibitions, and the principle which forbids the connection with both a mother and a daughter is extended also to the grand-daughter. On Lev 18:18 see preliminary note.
Keeping the seed sacred to its purpose, is as has been said the fundamental thought of our section. Hence over against the physico-spiritual sins against nature of marriage of blood relations is placed, as the other extreme, the violation of nature in desecrating the blood with beasts or demons. The first sin is, indeed, a violation of nature which can take place in marriage itself, the transgressing the unapproachableness of a woman in her sickness. But a sickness in sexual relation is certainly the condition of menstruation, Lev 18:19. [After the list of prohibited degrees, whether of consanguinity or of affinity, naturally follows the prohibition of other unlawful conditions of sexual intercourse. First is mentioned that of which there was the greatest danger of violation. The feminine uncleanness here named is the , including both the monthly uncleanness (Lev 15:33) and the uncleanness after childbirth (Lev 12:2). The violation of this is enumerated by Ezek. (Lev 18:6; Lev 22:10) among sins of a most serious character. Next comes adultery (Lev 18:20), then the giving of the seed to Molech (Lev 18:21), and finally sodomy (Lev 18:22), and bestial sins (Lev 18:23).F. G.]. The second sin is adultery: it defiles a man in three and four ways, since he commits treason against the teleology of his seed, against his personal dignity, against the sacrifice of his pleasure, and against his betrayed neighbor. On the punishment of adultery see Knobel, p. 506. [Both parties were to be put to death, Lev 20:10; Deu 22:22; Comp. Joh 8:5. Knobel further notes that other nations of antiquity were less rigorous; they generally punished the adulterer with a fine (Diod. 12, 21), but also more severely. Among the Egyptians the adulterer must submit to a thousand blows and have his nose cut off (Diod. 1, 78); among the Indians both pecuniary and bodily punishment as well as exile and death were commanded (Manu 8, 352 ss.); among the Greeks, the woman suffered repudiation and infamy, while the adulterer could be put to death or receive from the court a severe bodily punishment (Wachsmuth II. 1, p. 272). Knobel further mentions the punishments among the Moslems and the modern Orientals.F. G.]. The third sin is the sacrifice to Molech, here manifestly infanticide and falling away from the name of Jehovah at once. Knobel: By this is meant not a mere lustration by means of fire, but an actual burning. See Movers. Phonizier I., p. 328 sqq. On the Molech sacrifice, see the same, p. 506. Opposed to this, the deductions of Keil, that the expression here indicates only a lustration or a februation (P. 130, 131 [Trans. p. 416, 417]) can hardly be maintained. [The precise purport of this prohibition is very uncertain. In Deu 12:31, it is mentioned as a sin of the Canaanites that even their sons and their daughters they have burnt in the fire to their gods, and the Israelites are warned against imitating them. It is generally assumed by commentators that the deity there intended is Molech, and that by seedin our passage is meant children, and that thus both refer to the same thing. But here we have no mention of fire (see Textual Note 9), and it is at least doubtful if seed here means offspring. Although explanations are offered by the commentators of such an abrupt change of subject, yet it is far more in accordance with the context and the general purpose of the chapter to understand seed here simply of the semen. Too little is now known of the worship of Molech at this very ancient date to determine precisely the meaning of the expression. It is noticeable, however, that there is no other prohibition of the foul habit of masturbation, for which there seems to be need; may it not be conjectured that this act was known as giving ones seed to Molech, and was associated with the practices of idolatry? The sin, whatever it was, connected itself with the worship of a false god as is shown by the clause neither shalt thou profane the name of thy God. It was not only itself to be punished with death by stoning; but punishment was also denounced against any one who saw the sin committed and did not expose it (Lev 20:2-6). If the above conjecture is right, it was very natural that in after times this custom should have advanced, as it did, to the actual burning of children as a sacrifice to Molech (2Ki 23:10; Eze 16:20-21, etc.), though even this is explained by many of merely passing the children between two fires.F. G.]. The fourth sin is the especially abominable sin of Sodom, Pderastia, for which the Canaani es at last received the sentence, that their land should spue them out; nature herself could no more endure them. See 1 Kings, Commentary p. 56 [Trans. p. 75?] The fifth sin is the acme of abominableness, conjunction with a beast, and yet this was something that occurred, or else the law would not have spoken of it. According to Herodotus and Pindar, women at Mendes let themselves be mounted by a he-goat (Herod. 2, 46, etc.). Knobel. See similar examples given by the same. [The fearful prevalence of Sodomy, (which takes its name from a Canaanitish city), in the Rome of Apostolic days is evident from Rom 1:24; Rom 1:27, as well as from the classic authors. The practice of it seems to have been inveterate among the Hebrews, 1Ki 14:24. Lev 18:22. The ancient Persian law sternly condemned this offence (Vendid. viii. 10 ap. Knobel). Also the Hindoo law (Menu xi. 174, 175), and the Koran, vii. 7880. Lev 18:23. The story of Pasiph may furnish proof that the early Greeks abhorred this offence. The Hindoo law punishes it severely Menu xi. 17, Gentoo laws, p. 280. The Moslem law condemns it, Hedaya II., p. 27. Clark.F. G.]. The following inculcation of these prohibitions, Lev 18:24-30, contains the most expressive apology for the conquest of Canaan on the part of the Israelites; and that this was no partiality of Jehovah, is plain from the fact that He threatens the Israelites with entirely the same punishment in case they should sin in the same way, and moreover, that He enacts the death penalty for the single offender. Lange.
The poetic representation of the land as vomiting out its inhabitants is founded upon a truth which required that the laws of this chapter should be made binding upon the stranger that sojourneth among you as well as upon the Israelites themselves (Lev 18:26). The land which the ancestors of Israel were not allowed to possess, because the iniquity of the Amorites was not yet full (Gen 15:16), had now become filled with a mass of festering moral corruption. Its inhabitants were to be cast out and the holy people planted in their stead. It could not be allowed that the stranger should again introduce the pollutions which were now being so severely punished.
The only punishment here threatened for the violation of these precepts is first the national one, in case the sins became national, of being treated as their predecessors had been; and secondly, the individual punishment for individual offenders (Lev 18:29), they shall be cut off from among their people. They were to be excommunicated as violators of the holiness required of the covenant people. Israel, however, constituted a state as well as a church, and later, in Leviticus 20, the civil punishment of these crimes is fully prescribed. Here the legislator speaks of the sin rather than of the crime, and consequently of the spiritual rather than the civil penalty.
The preterites of Lev 18:25 (A. V. vomiteth out) and Lev 18:28 (A. V. spued out) must necessarily be determined in their sense by the whole context, and especially by the = I am casting out, of Lev 18:24. The whole transaction is represented as one in progress, as in Lev 20:23 (where the same participle is used), and from any fair consideration of these chapters in themselves it would be impossible to infer that the casting out of the Canaanites was already an accomplished fact. It is therefore quite unnecessary to speak of these preterites (Keil), as prophetic.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
I. We have here set forth (Lev 18:5) the principle which St. Paul declares (Rom 10:5; Gal 3:12) to be the fundamental principle of the whole law,that salvation depends upon obedience. On this ground he shows that man can never attain justification, since it is impossible for him to offer a perfect obedience. The law by a practical demonstration of this fact becomes our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ. Nevertheless, the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good (Rom 7:12), and the faith which leads to salvation is dead without the earnest effort at obedience. Hence God sets forth His laws as that which if a man do he shall live in them, and it has ever proved that the path of obedience is the path of life in every sense.
II. The family relationship is itself ordained by God. It is the birthplace of the children of Godthe first school, and generally the source of all chastity and good manners. Any injury inflicted on it would undermine the temporal and eternal welfare both of individuals and of the people. In this lies the abomination of incest. This is the reason of that natural horror of it which God has implanted in us. This is the reason that, among all nations, marriage within certain degrees was forbidden, although the laws of the most moral nations wavered in respect to the exact boundaries. Because this was the reason of the prohibited degrees, we see also why, in the family of the first men, when there was no difference between family and people, brothers and sisters might marry without sin. O. von Gerlach.
III. The Canaanites were to be punished for their offences against the marriage law. But they would not have been guilty if they had had no knowledge that what they did was wrong, (Rom 4:15; Rom 5:13). It is therefore evident that there must be a natural law or a tradition of primeval revelation which should have enabled them to recognize the sinfulness of their customs.
IV. Although the Mosaic legislation recognizes polygamy and divorce on trivial grounds, yet still it cannot be arrayed as in opposition to the higher law of Christian purity. On the contrary, like the laws of revenge and many others, these laws were restrictions leading the people as they were able to bear it towards the higher law of the Gospel. That they fell short of this was simply because God suffered it to be so temporarily because of the hardness of mens hearts.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
The chapter about the forbidden degrees of marriage has in its immediate form a much greater meaning for dogmatics, morals, and the legal and ecclesiastical ordinance of marriage, than it has for homiletics. The New Testament explanation and application of this law is so great a subject and work, that here we must refer to the literature relating thereto. But indirectly, these laws are a treasury also for homiletics. By the prohibition of the marriage of relations, God ever forms new sets of relationships. By this He brings to view the universal relationship which lies upon the foundation of human manifoldness and diversity. He manifests harmony in the contrasts of genealogies. He freshens anew the duty of love in a thousand ways; and freshens, too, marriage in a thousand ways through love. Sexual love, in its dignity, is here hallowed through the law. Strangers and aliens become, by this divine ordinance, relatives, brothers and friends; a holy web of love, in spite of single desecrations, spreads from town to town, from land to land, from people to people. The egoism of family, rank, and class, is a kind of heathenism which this law combats with a prefigurative force, and Christianity meets by its consecration of the state of betrothal on the foundation of Christian brotherly love and universal philanthropy. The expression of these prohibitions of marriage designates the transgressions without any anxious fear except to oppose with strong words the lack of fear in life, and to create a holy fear before the sources of life, the mysterious darkness of the continuous creation of man. When the ideality of the legal life fails, there is made prominent the marked unhallowed nakedness and rudeness of the sexual relations. The various forms and degrees of guilt are to be noticed. Over against the offences against the family life in too near relationship, come the horrors of the sexual crimes against nature (Lev 18:21 sqq. Comp. Romans 1). The flagrant violation of nature is emphasized by the threat that the violated nature, the horrified land, would itself undertake the punishment, and spue out such sinners. But the positive punishments also were not to be omitted (chap. 20). And it must not be overlooked that Jehovah introduces and closes these commands with the explanation of His name Jehovah, His holy personality. The establishment of personal dignity in a kingdom of true personal continuance in love, is the purpose of the law. Lange.
Besides its moral and social bearings, the Levitical law has another and most important aspect. It has been found historically that all great deviations from the faith bear fruit, sooner or later, in sensual sins; and conversely, all relaxation of the law of sexual purity has sustained itself by the denial or perversion of fundamental doctrine. The Levitical law was therefore a safeguard of the truth, and herein men received an essential part of their training, not merely for the high morality, but also for the high religious truth of the Gospel. We see at Corinth how danger to the one went hand in hand with danger to the other.
Footnotes:
[1]Lev 18:3 . Introducturus sum. Present for the future. Rosenmller.
[2]Lev 18:3. . is variously and apparently arbitrarily rendered in the A. V. ordinance and statute, beside the occasional renderings, custom, manner and rite. There is no reason why the translation should not be uniform, and as statute is the more common, and hitherto in Lev. the uniform, rendering, this is adopted.
[3]Lev 18:5. One MS. and the LXX. insert twice the word all. At the end of the verse the LXX. adds your God.
[4]Lev 18:6. , lit. to any flesh of his flesh. The distinction between and is not understood. The derivative of the latter, , is used in Lev 18:17 (where only it occurs) of blood relationship. The margin of the A. V. gives Heb. remainder of his flesh according to the pointing, . In Lev 18:12-13, is used alone of near blood relationship.
[5]Lev 18:7. That the copulative ought not to be rendered disjunctively as in the A. V. is evident from the latter part of the verse. LXX. has , Vulg. et.
[6]Lev 18:9. , according to the Masoretic punctuation, is Hiphil, and must therefore be taken as active, agreeing with mother, and mean who hath borne children whether at home or abroad. The A. V., however, in common with all the ancient versions, has taken it as passive, , agreeing with daughter. For the rightfulness of this, Michaelis earnestly contends (Laws of Moses, Art. 114, 115). See Comment.
[7]Lev 18:9. The Sam., 18 MSS. and the Syr. have the pronoun in the sing. The Vulg. omits it.
[8]Lev 18:12. In the same construction in the following verse = for is supplied; it is found here also in 4 MSS. and in the versions generally.
[9]Lev 18:14. The expletive conjunction is here supplied in the Sam., in 25 MSS., and some ancient versions.
[10]Lev 18:18. There can be here no question of the exact literalness of the rendering of the text of the A. V.; that of the margin is not a translation, but a more than doubtful interpretation. It would be an absolute prohibition of polygamy, which is here out of the question, unless stress were laid, as Poole has done, upon the purpose of such marriage, to vex; but the word = to press, to bind together, will not justify this.
[11]Lev 18:21. For , Sam. and LXX. read = to reduce to servitude. A similar idea, to dedicate, may be given to the Heb. word as it stands. Vulg. ut consecrator, and similarly all the ancient versions. So the word is used, Exo 13:12. As this is the first mention of Molech, and there is no word for fire, it is better to keep strictly to the original and translate dedicate. Rosenmuller, traducas. The corresponding expressions in Lev 20:2-4, have simply = to give, without the following verb. According to the Masoretic punctuation Molech is always (except 1Ki 11:7) written with the article , and is rendered here and Lev 20:2-5, by the LXX. , but Jeremiah 32 (Gr. xxxix.) 35, , 1Ki 11:7 (Gr. 5), simply , and 2Ki 23:10, .
[12]Lev 18:24-25; Lev 18:28. In Lev 18:24 is the Hiphil Part.= I am casting out, and in accordance with this the preterites (which has the conversive) of Lev 18:25 and of Lev 18:28 are to be understood.
[13]Lev 18:26. The Heb. has here the pronoun in addition to the verbal suffix. It is omitted in the Sam. and in 3 MSS.
[14]Comp. Winer, Art. Ehe. Herzogs Real-Encyclopdie, Ehe bei den Hebrern u. a. Lexica. H. Spoudlin, Ueber das Eheverbot wegen rerwandtschaft und das verbrechen des Incestes, Zurich, 1844. The same, p. Leviticus 13 : die richtige Begrundung von Augustin.
[15]Here comes into notice the illiberal article in the English law, which has already produced many tragic occurrences.
Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange
CONTENTS
This Chapter contains cautions against being seduced to the commission of heathenish practices. Particular laws are enjoined against various pollutions, such as unlawful marriages, unlawful lusts, and the like; and the ruin of the men of Canaan from the indulgence in those things, is mentioned as a means to deter others from the commission of them.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
The laws which are given in this Chapter, are strikingly introduced by the authority of the lawgiver. I am the LORD your GOD. That LORD, which by right of sovereignty ought to be obeyed. That covenant GOD, which by virtue of the relationship hath a special claim upon Israel. And let the reader observe how frequently, through the Chapter, this authority is repeated.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
V
THE GREAT DAY OF ATONEMENT
Lev 18
1. What requires Lev 16 to immediately follow Lev 10 ?
Ans. Both the chronological order and the context require it. The first verse connects chronologically and expressly with the death of Nadab and Abihu in Lev 10 . The contextual line of thought as repeatedly given is this:
(1) A place for the sinner to appear before Jehovah, given in Exodus.
(2) With what the sinner shall come or offerings and sacrifices, Leviticus 1-7.
(3) Through whom the sinner shall approach Jehovah, or the appointed priesthood, Lev 8 .
(4) Inauguration of the tabernacle service, Lev 9 .
(5) The divine punishment for breach of the order of this service, Lev 10 .
(6) The culmination of this service in the Day of Atonements. All other matters in the book are subsidiary to this climax. So that the chronological order and the contextual order require that Lev 16 shall be considered immediately after Lev 10 .
2. What is the importance of this section of Leviticus in the judgment of the Jews?
Ans. They counted it the most important part of the Pentateuch. It was called by pre-eminence “The Day,” “The Great Day of the Holy Year.” It was reckoned by them as the very heart and citadel of their law.
3. What is the relation of this chapter on the atonement to the prophets?
Ans. It is the basis of all the evangelical sections of the prophets and the Psalms.
4. How is it regarded by New Testament authors?
Ans. As the most expressive and vital of all the Old Testaments foreshadowings of the Messiah’s vicarious sacrifice and the atonement based thereon. Now, any book or section of the Bible that holds such a place in the Jewish thought, in the prophets and in the New Testament, must be of extraordinary importance.
5. What New Testament book elaborately expounds this chapter?
Ans. The letter to the Hebrews.
6. What can be said of the uniqueness of its ceremonials?
Ans. There is nothing like it elsewhere in the world, either in the Pentateuch or other parts of the Bible, and nothing corresponds to it in the worship of heathenism. The whole conception is impossible of human origin; the ordinance must have been, as our Lord frequently taught, a supernatural revelation, since no man could have ever thought it out, and only men aided by the Holy Spirit would be able to grasp it. Indeed, to this day and throughout their history, the unaided Jewish mind is unable to grasp the idea of a suffering Messiah, vicariously expiating the sins of the people. They did not on this point believe their own prophets. Isaiah in the commencement of that remarkable chapter (Isa 53:1 ) complains, “Lord, who hath believed our report?” and then gives his particulars of the suffering Messiah. The apostles themselves very slowly accepted it. In Mat 16 , just after his great confession, Peter rebuked Christ for distinctly declaring his death and said, “God forbid it,” and the disciples, even after the resurrection, clung with an almost incorrigible persistency to wrong conception of the things, so that Jesus said, “O fools and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have taught; how that the Messiah must needs suffer and that remission of sins should be preached in his name.” It has ever been the issue between the Jew and the Christian.
7. What do the radical critics urge against it?
Ans. (1) That the sense of sin and the need of expiation and of atonement based thereon, as expressed by this ordinance, could not have existed in the days of Moses. (2) They urge that later Jewish history contains no record of the observance of such a day of atonement. (3) They urge that only after their return from Babylonian captivity was such a sense of sin called for by this ordinance, developed in the Jewish mind. Now, I have put in three sentences the contents of about fifty books. This is the quintessence of radical criticism on Leviticus.
8. What is the reply thereto?
Ans. (1) The chief part of the objection of the radical critics is based on the assumption of a human origin of the ordinance, namely, that it must arise from an adequate human sense of sin. But this sense of sin the Jews never had in their whole history and least of all on their return from Babylonian captivity. The object of the ordinance was not to give man’s sense of sin, but God’s sense of sin, and thereby to develop in man the proper sense of sin. The Jews as a nation not only never had the sense of sin called for by this ordinance at the time that the radical critics affirm after the Babylonian exile, but they never will have it until the time, yet future set forth in Isa 66:8-9 ; Eze 36:16 ; Eze 7:14 ; Zec 12:10 ; Zec 13:1 . I could write many volumes of these passages of Scripture. They tell when the Jews will understand the day of atonement; they tell how it will be brought about by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.
(2) Reply to the second objection of the radical critics: It is true that the later Biblical history does not indeed specifically record an observance of this day and of thousands of other matters, since it was never intended to be complete history, but only an outline of salient points bearing on the future kingdom of God. But while there is no specific reference, yet very many references in the prophets and psalms necessarily pre-suppose this ordinance and its observance. Indeed they would be inexplicable without it.
(3) Reply to the third part of the radical criticism: The record of the ordinance here in its proper place not only expressly refers it to Moses at Mount Sinai, but gives what no postexile author would have thought of, viz.: the occasion of its introduction in the death of Nadab and Abihu, Lev 16:1 . There is not the slightest scrap of historical evidence to support the incredible feats which they attribute to nameless men of postexile times. They turn over all the great things of the Bible to people that nobody ever heard of, indeed Dillmann, a chief of their own tribe, is compelled to admit that the theory of postexile origin of this ordinance is “absolutely incredible.”
9. What is the object of the whole service on the Day of Atonement?
Ans. Atonement, based on vicarious expiation for all sins, the sins of Aaron and his house, the sins of the sanctuary itself, all the sins of all the people, whether the sins of ignorance or knowledge, and (2) redemption from Satan’s power.
10. What was the time allotted for the observance of this day?
Ans. Once a year and on the tenth day of the seventh month of the year.
11. Regardless of the day’s position in the week, how must it be classified? That is, whether is be Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, or Sunday; how must it be classed?
Ans. The tenth day of the month must be classed as the Sabbath of sabbaths, a high sabbath, in which the people must do no work.
12. What distinguishes it from all Jewish festivals?
Ans. The festivals were all joyous, but on this day the people must fast and afflict their souls. It must be a day of broken hearts and penitence or they must be cut off from the people. You don’t find that in connection with any other ordinance in the Old Testament.
13. How in this regard does the New Testament correspond?
Ans. An impenitent soul cannot take hold of Christ’s atonement. “Repent, repent; except ye repent ye perish.”
14. How else is the day’s service distinguished from all others?
Ans. (1) It was the only day in the year when the most holy place could be entered. (2) One man only could enter it that day, the high priest. (3) Before he could enter it, he must be divested of all his garb of glory used on the other days of service, and be clad in simple, spotless white as the commonest Levite. (4) No other priest or Levite could assist in the service of this day, the high priest alone must officiate throughout.
15. What is the New Testament correspondence to this?
Ana. Now, I won’t attempt to give it all, but I will give enough for you to think of:
(1) As here, once for the year; there, once for all the sacrifice dies and the atonement is made.
(2) As here once a year the high priest laid aside his garb of glory, so Jesus once for all laid aside his glory that he might in his humiliation expiate and atone for sins. And as the high priest assumed his garb of glory when atonement was made, so Jesus, after atonement, was glorified with the glory which he had with the Father before the world was.
(3) As the high priest alone officiated, so of the people there was none with Jesus in sacrifice and atonement. When he died, no angel to support him and not even the presence of God to cheer him. You might go on and add a great many other correspondences; as, here the high priest lifts the marvelous, triple-colored veil in order to approach the mercy seat in the most holy place, 60 Jesus through the veil, that is to say, his flesh, laid aside his flesh in order to approach the true mercy seat in heaven and there sprinkle his own blood on the mercy seat.
16. Where is there no New Testament correspondence?
Ans. Aaron, the typical high priest, had to offer the sacrifice for himself and his house and so qualify himself to be the mediator for the people, but as Jesus knew no sin and there was no guile in him, he did not have to make an offering for himself.
17. Apart from the sacrifice that the high priest offered for himself as preparatory to undertaking the work of the Day of Atonement, what are the sacrifices for expiation and atonements, and explain?
Ans. Two goats both as sin offerings, both for the sins of the people confessed on their heads; both are presented before the Lord.
18. Why two?
Ans. It takes two ideally considered as one to represent the two ideas of redemption: (1) Redemption toward God;
(2) Redemption from Satan.
19. How were they selected for their separate parts?
Ans. Lots were cast determining one for Jehovah and the other for Azazel.
20. Describe the disposition of the goat for the Lord.
Ans. The goat for the Lord was sacrificed for a sin offering and the blood was carried into the holy of holies and sprinkled on the mercy seat. This is the only time in the year that this was done. It was carried hot, fresh, smoking, past the veil into the most holy place and sprinkled on the not enter the most holy place. He stood before it, but only mercy seat. In all the ordinary sacrifices, the high priest did passed inside one time in a year. The body of that goat was then carried outside of the camp and burned, thus expiating sin Godward, thus satisfying the divine law, thus placating God’s wrath against sin and thus reconciling God to man.
21. What does that part teach?
Ans. (1) It teaches the infinite demerit of sin. (2) It teaches the absolute necessity of satisfying divine justice against sin in order to the salvation of the sinner. (3) It teaches that mercy cannot prevail at the expense of justice.
22. Describe the disposition of the other goat.
Ans. Now our record says very plainly that Aaron took the other goat and confessed on that goat also the sins of the people, and then he sent that goat to Azazel away out in the wilderness, by a safe person. He was to be turned over to Azazel in the wilderness, and that person then returned.
23. What was the first interpretation of the goat for Azazel?
Ans. There are only two theories worth considering; there are some others but they are so obviously untenable that they are not worth considering. There is one brought out by the King James Version that you find in a great many commentaries, and that is, that Azazel is to be considered abstractly and meaning “removal.” Hence, the first goat would be the goat for expiating sin, and the second goat would be the goat to symbolically show the removal of sin which had been expiated. In other words, the first goat was to express the means of expiation, and the second was to express the effect of the expiation; or, to apply it to Christ, that Christ’s dying expiates sin; Christ’s living after his resurrection removes sin as embodied in such scriptures as these, “As far as the east is from the west he has removed our sins from us.” Now these thoughts are all scriptural and very comforting, but whether that is the interpretation of this particular passage is the question.
24. What is the objection to this view?
Ans. (1) The first objection to this theory is that “Azazel” is a proper name as much as “Jehovah” is a proper name and not an abstract noun. (2) That “Azazel” is put there over against “Jehovah” and contra-distinguished from Jehovah. One goat for Jehovah and the other for Azazel, and a man must strain the meaning of the words to give Azazel here the idea of an abstract noun. (3) That this theory leaves out one great feature of redemption accomplished by atonement, and takes the bottom from under some of the most impressive of the prophecies, and of the New Testament teachings.
25. What, then, in the estimation of the author, is the true theory?
Ans. 1 remember an editor was staggered when I offered to present a true theory of Azazel in a sermon before the Southern Baptist Convention, and he advised me to leave Azazel out of the sermon. I said, “I will put him in and explain it and make the people believe it.” What, then, is the true theory? That on this Day of Atonement there is redemption Godward in the goat that died for sin, and that redemption based on expiation of sin toward God makes possible redemption from the power of the devil. But the devils only hold is that men are sinners. Now you expiate their sins, then Satan’s power fails, and his authority is over death, and death is the wages of sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But in the expiation of sin the penalty of the law, death, is removed, then the devil’s authority over death for the one whose sin is expiated, passes away.
26. What are the scriptural supports of this theory?
Ans. See the author’s sermon on “Three Hours of Darkness.” That carries through the entire Bible the power of Satan, and shows how in the Day of Atonement the power of Satan was broken. I can give you this conception of the thought: That first goat died, but he died unto the Lord for the expiation of the sins of the world, a very honorable position for a goat. You remember in one of Aesop’s Fables a wolf approaches a sheep and asked if it would not be eaten by the wolves, for it would be offered as a sacrifice on the altar of the gods anyway. To the wolf the sheep replied, “It is more honorable to die on the altar of the gods than to go down a wolf’s throat.” So that first goat, though he dies, had a glorious object in view.
Now, look at this living goat. In the first place, he is burdened with all the sins of the people, and he carries that burden himself away from the flock. He had to go into the wilderness to meet Azazel, who is the devil. He goes out there carrying these sins, but not sins unforgiven, they are sins forgiven; their forgiveness has Just been achieved by the death of the other goat, and therefore he can meet the devil.
If I were an artist, I would paint that fight in the wilderness; that brave little goat and Azazel in the form of a serpent as they fight it out to the death and the serpent bites the heel of the goat, but the goat crushes out the life of the serpent with his hoof. Hear its cries, “Who shall deliver me from the terrible one?” Hence in psalms we have the prayer that Christ offered on the cross. He prays for two things, for the sins of the world are on him. He says, “0 save me from the sword.” And the reply is given in Zechariah: “Awake, 0 sword, and smite the shepherd.” Then he complained not only of the sword but of the roaring lion, and he prays, “Save me from the lion,” and in that three hours of darkness, which was supernatural and which was “Devil Darkness,” Christ was alone, and met it as that little goat met Azazel in the wilderness. He bruised the serpent’s head because he carried with him the sins forgiven, in the goat that died unto God.
I said the two goats were ideally one. In giving object lessons, it takes two to present the complete thought just like it takes two or more parables to represent the kingdom of Heaven. But in the New Testament antitype, the person is the same; Christ is the sacrifice for sin represented by the goat that died unto God; Christ is the living goat that meets Satan in his realm, and triumphs over him; so that the great object in Lev 16 is to show that atonement is based on expiation of all sins and redemption from the power of Satan, the usurper, that held men captive because of sin.
27. What are the objections to this view and the reply thereto?
Ans. (1) That it sends the goat off to be sacrificed to demons. What is the reply to that part of the objection? That it is not so. That goat was not sent off to be sacrificed, but to whip in the fight and not die through the power of Satan. In the very next chapter you will find there is an express law against offering sacrifices to demons. (2) The second objection is that Azazel is not found elsewhere in the Bible. Neither are a great many of the names of Satan elsewhere mentioned than in a single passage. He had a great variety of names and each name represented a certain thought. For instance, as the adversary of God and man he is called Satan. That means an adversary; as a slanderer of God and an accuser of men he is called devil and means slanderer; as the chief of demons he is called Beelzebub; as a wily, slimy, sly tempter he is called the serpent, the Old Dragon; as the usurping king holding the world under his dominion while the world is covered with sin, he is Azazel. The Jewish tradition almost uniformly construes Azazel in Lev 16 to mean the devil, and you will find in their rabbinical writings this very name Azazel.
28. When must the high priest carry the blood of the sacrifice beyond the veil into the most holy place and sprinkle it on the mercy seat to make atonement?
Ans. On the same day that the sacrifice is slain, and while the blood is yet hot and has not had time to coagulate, or thicken.
29. What is the New Testament significance of this fact?
Ans. It shows us where Christ’s spirit went and what his spirit did between his death and his resurrection. Jesus died saying, “.Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit,” and the spirit of Jesus in the exercise of the functions of atonement, immediately on its dissolution from his body, went into the heaven of heavens, and there presented in the most holy place in heaven his expiating blood and with it made atonements for the sins of the people.
The importance of this truth cannot be overestimated. For instance, when you come to study that remarkable passage in the letter of Peter where it is said that Christ by his spirit went and preached to the spirits in prison, a great many commentators hold that on the death of his body, Christ’s spirit went to hell and there preached to lost souls that perished in the flood, preached the gospel of regeneration. The whole doctrine of such interpretation is utterly at war with the uniform teachings of what the high priest does on the Day of Atonement; that he must go to heaven and not to hell, and why he must go there, and what he must do. In the next case it contradicts the teaching that probation ends with death; that there is no such thing as carrying the gospel to those who died impenitent.
If you do not get the true conception of this Day of Atonements, you miss the center wheel upon which the idea of interpretation of Mosaic legislation revolves. If you do not get the true conception of that, it takes the bottom from under all the evangelical meaning of the deepest, most profound writings and teachings of Jesus Christ and his apostles; and particularly if you do not understand the Day of Atonement in Lev 16 , do not ever try to understand the letter to the Hebrews.
Now you are at liberty to adopt for your private opinion that first theory of Azazel if you want to. Some good people do, but I do not know that all the sound, modern interpreters, while they seem not to have gone as far with the thought as I have, say that Azazel means the devil, and that the goat was to meet the devil in the wilderness. And I am quite sure that it comes in more harmoniously than any other explanation of this part of the Word of God.
Here is an invaluable recipe for knowing when you have gotten the right interpretation of a passage. You may run it through the whole Bible without overturning any other doctrine. You may know you have the right interpretation when it articulates with the whole system of the divine truth without ever making ajar. If a man comes up with a wagon load of bones and begins to articulate them and he puts a hand where one of the feet ought to be, and he puts a rib over the shoulder, there is a skeleton but you don’t get any symmetry in your skeleton. You may know you have put some bones in the wrong place. This is a good rule for interpretation.
Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible
VII
THE LAW OF HOLINESS
Leviticus 17-22
This chapter covers Leviticus 17-22. The theme is the law of holiness. I will treat it catechetically.
1. Where must animals for food be brought and slain and why?
Ans. In such a camp as the Israelites camp, with 3,000,000 of people, the question of food was a grave question. The law required that every bullock, every sheep, every beef, every goat, that was to be eaten, be brought to one place to be slain, and that one place was the gate, or the door, of the tabernacle, the outer court of the tabernacle; and the reason for the law was that the priest had to inspect and approve of the method of slaughtering animals, for both sanitary and spiritual reasons. The first part, the sanitary reason, is employed today in the city regulations concerning slaughterhouses. The wisest precautions must be adopted with reference to cleanliness, to avoid the breeding of pests or pestilences.
The second and most important reason was that the priest should see that the law concerning blood was observed. They were expressly forbidden to eat any animal food from which the blood had not been drained, and this applied to animals where they killed them in the wilderness, as deer and those animals used for food; they must draw the blood off; as soon as the animal was killed, the blood must be drawn.
2. Give Old Testament and New Testament law prohibiting the eating of blood, and why is it now binding?
Ans. The Old Testament law commences with the law of Noah, when he represented the whole race. While they were given permission in that law to eat every moving, living
thing, immediately after (Gen 9:4 ) there is this express stipulation, viz.: that the blood must be drawn out of the body, or it could not be eaten. It was a sin to eat blood when the law applied to the whole world. Now when we come to the New Testament (Act 15 ) we have this law. In the great council that was held in Jerusalem, James in closing that council says in his speech: “Wherefore my judgment is that we trouble not them who from among the Gentiles are turned to God; but that we write unto them to abstain from what is strangled, and from blood.” Now in drawing up the decree later in the same chapter, you have this: “We lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things, that ye abstain from blood, and from things strangled.” That is addressed to the Gentiles and says, “Fornications, from blood and things strangled.”
In Rev 2 , our Lord calls attention to this law, and states that one of the things that he has against one of the seven churches in Asia is that they violate that law. So my decision is that the reason for prohibiting the use of blood for food is not a mere Jewish regulation. We find it binding on the race before there was a Jew, and we find it binding after the kingdom of God was passed to the Gentiles. Two reasons are given, one is that the blood is the life; and another reason is that because it is the life, it is the blood with which expiation for sin is made. Outside of the regulation concerning eating, just described, and which is set forth in chapter 17, we now enlarge the law of holiness with a new question.
3. What is incest?
Ans. That comes in the first part of Lev 18 , and goes down to Lev 18:18 . In this we have a number of things that are classed as incest. I am not going to discuss that on account of the delicacy of the matter. I will say, in general terms, that any offense that violates the law concerning nearness of kindred, comes under the head of incest, no matter what it is. There are many cases of incest mentioned in the Bible.
4. What is the purpose of this law prohibiting incest?
Ans. The purpose of the law is to enforce the sanctity of the family and its relation; and the common sense as well as the common interpretation of all denominations regards that law as binding now, because it does not arise from any particular condition of the Jews, but arises from the nature of the family institution, and is just as applicable to one people as another, and to one time as another. There is nothing temporary in it. We have laws regulating this also: for instance, that a man should not marry his own sister, his own aunt, or his niece, anything that violates the law of kindred. Now incest in that chapter stops with Lev 18:18 .
5. What law prevailed in England to prohibit a man’s marrying his wife’s sister, even after his wife was dead?
Ans. I don’t know that the law is abrogated now, but I know it did prevail. If a man married into a large family, and the wife died, then he could not marry the sister of his wife. Is that law properly derivable from Lev 18:18 ? I will quote it. My judgment is that they misinterpret the Levitical law in embodying any of the law into the common law of England. A great many romances have been written on this subject. Lev 18:18 simply says this: “Thou shalt not take a wife to be a rival of her sister in her lifetime.” Now you see that does not forbid the marrying of the wife’s sister after the wife dies. Yet the English law prohibited it, and not only prohibited it, but counted it as not marriage.
6. What is sodomy?
Ans. You can read that answer to yourself. That is a sin against the law of holiness, and is just as binding now as it ever was. That is, for a man to treat another man as if he were a woman, or a woman to treat another woman as if she were a man; that is sodomy. That was the sin that brought about the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, and it derives its name from Sodom.
7. What is bestiality?
Ans. From beast we get bestiality, that is, a man treating a beast as if the beast were a woman, and a woman treating a beast as if it were a man.
8. Have we in our statute books any laws against bestiality?
Ans. We certainly have, and with a very sharp penalty. I have known of some convictions under that law, and it left a lasting shame upon the one who committed the offense, besides the punishment by the state. Now that ends everything relating to sodomy, incest, and bestiality. The next question of the law of holiness is embodied in these words, upon which I ask a question: “Thou shall not cause thy seed to pass through the fire to Molech.”
9. What is meant by causing the seed to pass through the fire to Molech?
Ans. The answer is, the offering of one of your own children as a sacrifice to be burned with fire upon the altar of the heathen god, Molech. There is some difference of opinion yet as to whether these children were burned alive or slain before they were burned. The Carthaginians practiced this, and a great many heathen nations with which the Jews had to do practiced this. You find a number of cases of it in the Bible. Now I will give you an old-time description of it. A man would be in great trouble about something, and he felt that an ordinary sacrifice would not remove the curse from him. He would vow to offer his own offspring as a burnt offering to the god, Molech, in order to appease that deity, and remove the curse from his house. A furnace, shaped something like a man, but a most hideous and monstrous man, was built representing Molech, built of iron; it had arms held out, a huge, gigantic image of Molech, and under that furnace was a place for the fire, and that would heat that iron image red-hot, and then they would take the naked babe, and place it in the red-hot arms of the idol; and in order to drown the sounds of its screams of agony, the priests would beat their tom-toms, or huge drums, and the parents, disregarding the screams of the child, would go away believing that they were absolved from the curse that had come upon them.
10. What is the meaning and application of “Thou shalt not build a city in the blood of thy first-born”?
Ans. That originated from the curse pronounced upon the men who should attempt to rebuild Jericho after it had been destroyed. The law was: “Whoever shall rebuild that city shall lose his first-born.” Then comes the great direction “Thou shalt not build the city in the blood of thy first-born.” From that I once deduced a prohibition speech, in the case where the city demanded the retention of the liquor traffic to promote commercial interest. “Thou shalt not build a city in the blood of thy first-born,” I quoted, saying, “You seek to promote commercial prosperity through the liquor traffic. Maybe your son will be the first to perish, maybe your daughter will become the wife of a drunkard, and your grandchild inherit a drunkard’s habits, and you are building a city in the blood of your children.”
11. What is meant by enchantments, and why forbidden?
Ans. The law says, “Thou shalt not use any enchantments.” It means, thou shalt not have recourse to any forms of seeking information or avoiding trouble that bring relief from any source but God. When I was a little boy, I knew an old Negro ninety years old who used enchantments. She would go out and gather herbs on the dark of the moon; she would catch a lizard or a snake, maybe get the eye of a newt, and put them in a pot with the herbs and boil them, compounding the enchantment, and if she could mingle a few drops of that in the water people would drink, she would “hoodoo” them. Those of you who have read Shakespeare’s Macbeth remember how the witch would take the eye of a mole, the toe of a frog, the blind worm’s sting, and boil them in order to concoct the enchantment. A great many Negroes up to the present day carry a rabbit’s foot in their pockets, or hang a horseshoe over the door of a house newly built, to keep off enchantments. The simplest form of enchantment is taking a cup of coffee before it is settled, and pour off the coffee and leave the grounds in the cup; then turning the cup over, the grounds left on the inside of the cup run down, and they forecast what is going to happen from the coffee grounds.
12. The next question is similar to this: What is meant by familiar spirits, and why forbidden?
Ans. This beats the coffee grounds and the enchantments. It has retained its hold over the human mind with more persons, perhaps, than any other sin except fleshly sins. Lots of people in Texas now believe it. “Having a familiar spirit” (Lev 19:31 ) means this: a certain person is a medium; a medium has the power to call up certain spirits from the dead, and obtain from these spirits information, and this information is sometimes conveyed by rapping on the table, one rap meaning “yes,” two raps “no”; then spelling out, one rap A, two raps B, and getting information that way. It has always been a horrible sin; it is just as much a sin today as it ever was. And the main point of the sin is expressed by Isaiah the prophet. In referring to it, he says, “Why seek ye to wizards, that chirp and mutter, and why should the living seek unto the dead? Seek unto me, saith the Lord.”
The sin of it consists, then, in disregarding God’s revelation, and endeavoring to obtain from the spirits of the dead, or from demons, information that God either has not given or withholds. He gives all the information that we need in his Book of Revelation. Sometimes this spiritualism or spirit rapping, or spirit slate-writing, or whatever the form of it, sweeps the country like an epidemic, and the most cultured people, some as a mere matter of curiosity or experiment, some for graver reasons, will go to this medium and endeavor to obtain from the spirits of the dead the messages of the dead, from the husband who has departed, or the child who has departed.
Now you may put this down as settled that if ever you want to do anything for anybody, you must do it while you are living, and while that person is living, and if you wait till the person dies you cannot ameliorate his condition. If you wait until you die, the opportunity to help the other person in any way is gone forever. Our Lord in Luk 16 settles that and many other questions. A rich -man who entered hell wanted the soul of Lazarus to go back and carry the message to his brothers in the other world, and it was forbidden; the rich man wanted the soul of Lazarus to bring him, on the tip of his finger, a drop of water in hell, and it was forbidden. Between the spirits of the righteous and the wicked after death a deep and impassable chasm yawns. One cannot pass to the other. Those are fundamental doctrines.
You can count this as a settled thing that there is no clear case in the Bible where the soul of one who was dead was ever permitted to come back to this earth with a message of any kind. And there are only two cases that have ever been quoted; the most notable one is what seems to have taken place when Saul sought to get information from Samuel through the witch of Endor, and when we come to that case, I will expound it in such a way that you will see that it is no exception. The other is that of Moses and Elijah on the Mount of Transfiguration. They appeared unto Christ, but they brought no message to any person on earth. On the contrary, the word to the apostles was: “Hear ye him.” You cannot get anything from Moses and Elijah. That belongs to Christ. The message is: “Revealed things belong to us and our children, but hidden things belong to God.”
13. This question covers Lev 20 : What are the respective penalties for these offenses?
Ans. You have Lev 20 to read, and I want you to answer it as you see it. How many punishable by death, and how many by excommunication that is, cut off from the people? Now we take them as we come to them: Incest, sodomy, bestiality, enchantments, seeking those that have familiar spirits; and from Lev 20 you must answer what the penalties are in each case, and in giving the penalties show how many of the death penalty, and how many of the penalty of being cut off from the people.
14. This covers Leviticus 21-22. These two chapters give the law of holiness as binding on the priesthood. Now these chapters are added, giving the law to the priest, and the question is, What difference in the application to priests, that is, the law of incest, sodomy, and the law of enchantments, seeking this and that from familiar spirits? In other words, what difference do you find between the application of these laws to priests, and to the common people?
Ans. The difference is that the penalty is harder on the priest and the law more stringent. The law is more stringent for a preacher, if he commit a crime; while what he does is the same to him as it is to any other man, yet by virtue of his office the sin is greater. Because of his high rank, he has brought more shame upon the cause of God than if the offense had been committed by a common person. That is the reason for it. Now there is in Leviticus 19 a great variety of special statutes, all of them important, but it is like taking each one of them as a text. It would mean as many texts as there are verses, but I will ask on Lev 19 two questions.
15. Of what are the special statutes in Lev 19 developments?
Ans. They are developments of the Ten Commandments.
16. State in your judgment the most striking of these statutes.
Ans. Read the Lev 19 , and you will see a great variety, and some of them will impress you more than others. I will leave this to you because I want to train your mind to decide some things for yourselves. For instance you will find this: “Thou shall rise up before the hoary head,” and you may just put it down that no man is a gentleman who does not respect an old man or an old woman. He simply isn’t a gentleman, in any consideration. I have seen boys in a streetcar hold a seat, with a tottering old grandmother standing up, holding to a strap. Now a Jew would be an outcast if he did such a thing, and he never does it among his own people. Sometime ago, a distinguished Japanese brought his family to America, and travelled across the continent from New York to San Francisco. He had been here before and knew the difference, but his little boy and girl did not know, and they were perfectly horrified at the irreverence shown in America to parents and old people. It was a most astounding thing to them. I knew of a Jew who lost a trade of great value rather than wake up his old father, who was taking a nap and had the key to the desk in his pocket. He said, “My father is old and his afternoon nap is precious. I will not disturb his afternoon nap in order to make a trade.” And to this day the Jews are ahead of the Americans in deference to the aged. And the Japanese are above us in that; far below us in many things, but ahead of us in that.
17. What is the formal introduction to this law of holiness that I have been discussing?
Ans. The formal introduction is found in the first five verses of Lev 18:1-5 “And Jehovah spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, I am Jehovah your God. After the doings of the land of Egypt, wherein ye dwelt, shall ye not do; and after the doings in the land of Canaan, whither I bring you, shall ye not do; neither shall ye walk in their statutes, ye shall do my judgments and keep my ordinances, to walk therein; I am the Lord your God. Ye shall therefore keep my statutes, and my judgments; which if a man do, he shall live in them; I am Jehovah.” That is the formal introduction, that answers the question.
18. What is the application to Israel at this time?
Ans. They had just come out of Egypt. They were just going into Canaan, and they were in covenant with Jehovah. The land they lived in was full of idolatry. The land they were just about to enter reeked with infamy, and the cry of its crimes went up to heaven. God said, “Their cup of iniquity is almost full,” and when it was full he said that he would spew them out of his mouth. Now he wanted his people not to be like them, and he said, “if you do as the Canaanites do, I will blot you out of the land.” And he did.
19. What deductions from these laws?
Ans. While there are many deductions, I call your attention to two:
(1) God holds the nation responsible just as he holds the individual, no matter what the form of government in that nation, an absolute or limited monarchy, aristocracy, or theocracy, or democracy. The government that violates the laws of God, that nation shall not go down to perdition as a whole, but its duration is limited, for Jehovah he is King of kings, and Lord of lords, and the government of the whole world is upon his shoulder, and no nation can long violate the laws of morality, truth and honesty, and survive. Upon the high walls of the city of ancient times was written: “Therefore, saith the Lord, their days are numbered,” and that city, no matter how regal, no matter how high its walls, how great its brazen gates, how strong its fortifications, the “Thus saith the Lord” came upon it on account of the iniquities, crumbled its walls to dust and made the site of that city the habitation of beasts, animals, and birds. As it was said of Babylon, “the lion shall whelp in thy palace.” God governs the nations. It is a great theme, one of the greatest of all. Beecher one time preached a great sermon on the government of God, and a young man asked him how long he was preparing that sermon. He said. “Forty years.”
(2) Now the second deduction: “As righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people.” It may be an English-speaking nation, it may be an Oriental nation, it may be an Arctic nation, no matter where the people are congregated into nations, righteousness exalteth that nation, and sin is a reproach to that people.
Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible
Lev 18:1 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
Ver. 1. And the Lord spake. ] See Trapp on “ Lev 7:22 “
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Leviticus Chapter 18
CHAPTER 3.
ISRAEL’S DUTY IN NATURAL RELATIONS,
Lev 18:1-5 .
Here Aaron and his sons appear. Jehovah communicated to Moses what he was to charge on the people in general. They had left the house of bondage behind with its idols and impurities; they were to enter Canaan where and when the cup of the iniquity of the Amorites was full. They were a people redeemed externally at least, sheltered from divine judgment even in Egypt by the blood of the paschal lamb, and delivered by divine energy through the Red Sea which swallowed up the world’s adverse power. Yet were they meanwhile in the wilderness, but with Jehovah their leader on march, and dwelling in their midst wherever they sojourned.
His dealings up to Sinai were in pure grace (spite of constant unbelief and complaint). If they murmured at the bitter water after three days of thirst, Jehovah smote none but showed Moses that which made them sweet. When they murmured for hunger, Jehovah gave them bread from heaven and in double measure on the sixth day to mark the sabbath of rest. When again they murmured for water, Moses at Jehovah’s call struck the rock at Horeb, and water flowed abundantly. Then Amalek came and Joshua fought, but Israel, however assured, prevailed only while the hands of Moses were held up. The beautiful pledge of the Kingdom closes in righteous order. All changes in Exo 19 ; for Israel, instead of owning their utter weakness and pleading the promises of grace, boldly undertake to stand on their obedience of the law, i.e. on their own righteousness: the sure proof that they knew aright neither God nor themselves, the sad token of ruin ever to grow worse and worse.
Still there they were His people as no other nation was. His choice and their redemption were as plain facts as the judgment He had executed for their deliverance on the greatest of the then kingdoms of the earth. As such Jehovah had brought Israel to Himself; but confiding in themselves, they had accepted the condition of keeping His covenant for their standing and blessing. This became the basis of their obligations. They were in relationship with Him as His people on earth, with His law as the rule which bound them in all respects. Obedience is a duty; but to rest life or blessing on it was fatal. Law thus became for sinful man a ministry of death and condemnation.
” 1 And Jehovah spoke to Moses, saying, 2 Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them, I [am] Jehovah your God. 3 After the doings of the land of Egypt wherein ye dwelt, ye shall not do; and after the doings of the land of Canaan whither I bring you, ye shall not do; neither shall ye walk in their customs. 4 Mine ordinances shall ye do and my statutes shall ye observe to walk therein: I [am] Jehovah your God. 5And ye shall observe my statutes and my judgments, by which the man that doeth them shall live: I [am] Jehovah” (vers. 1-5).
It is of all moment to apprehend that on this ground no sinner can live: he needs to be justified by faith in Jesus the only Saviour. For this reason the apostle in Gal 3:11 , Gal 3:12 quotes the last of these verses to set the position under law in contrast with faith. “But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God is evident; for the just shall live by faith. And the law is not of faith; but he that doeth them shall live by (or, in virtue of) them.” Indeed he had already in ver. 10 laid down the still more sweeping sentence that “as many as are by (or, on the principle of) works of law are under curse,” founding it on Deu 27:26 . Let the reader weigh the striking fact here recorded. Silence is kept as to the blessings declared on mount Gerizim: all these were in vain. But the curses on mount Ebal stand in all their solemnity.
The law was given, not for sinful man to gain life thereby, but to learn that in such a way it was impossible. Law can only curse sinners, and sinners Israel and all men are. By faith the elders, like ourselves, obtained witness of being righteous; for faith ever rests, not on self but Christ, as Abel did and every saint that followed him. Before the law God gave promises of unconditional favour to the fathers; but the children forgot them, and boldly undertook to live by obeying the law, and so, when they transgressed and rebelled as they did’ increasingly incurred the curse. Such as looked on to the coming Messiah, renouncing self-confidence, and owning their sins, were justified by God’s grace, even as the fathers. For when man fell, God revealed the Seed of woman as Satan’s destroyer, the resource and object of faith.
The law was as absolutely right, as man and favoured Israel were thoroughly wrong. On the ground of law sinful man could only meet with death and condemnation. But man is blind both as to God and as to himself, and having no confidence in His grace, willingly accepts earning life by his well-doing. As he did not believe, he must learn to his cost that in the things of God he is as weak as he is ungodly (Rom 5:9 ). Through law is not acquirement of righteousness but knowledge of sin (Rom 3:20 ). The law also works out wrath, and thereby the offence abounds. As the sting of death is the law, so is the law the power of sin. But Christ only is the Saviour whom God made sin for us in His atoning death; which glorified God even as to sin, and left Him free to display His grace to the uttermost for all that believe on His Son.
Hence the Christian rests in a new righteousness, not man’s as Israel pretended to and are now suffering the consequence of their failure, and yet more for rejecting their own Messiah. It is now God’s righteousness apart from law that is manifested, God’s righteousness through faith of Jesus Christ unto all (Gentile no less than Jew), and upon all that believe (whoever they be and whatever they may have been); for there is no difference, let the unbelieving pride of man conceive what it will on its own behalf. For all sinned and do come short of God’s glory: being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus whom God set forth a propitiatory through faith in His blood, unto showing forth His righteousness because of the passing over (or, prtermission of) the sins that had been before in His forbearance; for showing His righteousness in the present time that He might be just and justifier of him that is of faith in Jesus (Rom 3:21-26 ). Thus was boasting excluded. The Christian confesses his ruin by sin and his own sins, but has faith in Him Who suffered once for sins that He might bring us to God (1Pe 3:18 ).
Hence too Christian responsibility is not less real than the Israelite’s, but is wholly different. He has life eternal in Christ Who gives it to him; he comes not into judgment which Christ bore for him; and he has passed from death into life. The blood of Christ has cleansed him from every sin, so that he knows himself white as snow in God’s sight. He is God’s son through faith in Christ Jesus, and sealed with the Holy Spirit given to him, crying, Abba, Father. He is a member of Christ’s body in union with the heavenly Head. All this and more create a responsibility not only altogether distinct from that of Israel, but far beyond what the saints had before Christ’s redemption and the gift of the indwelling Spirit. For duties depend on relationship; and as the Christian is by grace brought into an entirely new place in Christ, so are we expressly regarded (Eph 2:10 ) as created in Him for good works, prepared before that we should walk in them. The measure and character of Israel’s place, excellent as it was, is wholly short of and quite different from ours.
But we may notice in the prefatory words of our chapter how Israel were warned against the doings of both Egypt and Canaan. They were far from deriving a single good institution from the one they left or the other among whom they came. Jehovah’s ordinances and statutes they were to observe and walk in: the man that did these should live. When in fact they turned from Him in disobedience, the evil ways of those both were their utter ruin.
CHAPTER 4.
ABHORRENT MIXTURE OF RELATIONS.
Lev 18:6-18 .
The divine prohibition in this portion of our chapter refers to near relations and rests simply on the divine will and authority: “I am Jehovah.” Marriage was not, save at the beginning, to unite “one’s own flesh,” naturally united or near already.
“6 None of you shall approach to all (or, any) flesh of his flesh to uncover nakedness: I [am] Jehovah. 7 The nakedness of thy father, and the nakedness of thy mother, shalt thou not uncover (she [is] thy mother); thou shalt not uncover her nakedness. 8 The nakedness of thy father’s wife shalt thou not uncover: it [is] thy father’s nakedness. 9 The nakedness of thy sister, daughter of thy father, or daughter of thy mother, born at home or born abroad, their nakedness thou shalt not uncover. 10 The nakedness of thy son’s daughter or of thy daughter’s daughter, their nakedness thou shalt not uncover; for theirs [is] thy nakedness. 11 The nakedness of thy father’s wife’s daughter, begotten of thy father (she [is] thy sister), thou shalt not uncover her nakedness. 12 The nakedness of thy father’s sister shalt thou not uncover; she [is] thy father’s own flesh. 13 The nakedness of thy mother’s sister shalt thou not uncover; for she [is] thy mother’s own flesh. 14 The nakedness of thy father’s brother shalt thou not uncover; thou shalt not approach his wife: she [is] thine aunt. 15 The nakedness of thy daughter-in-law shalt thou not uncover (she [is] thy son’s wife); thou shalt not uncover her nakedness. 16 The nakedness of thy brother’s wife shalt thou not uncover; it [is] thy brother’s nakedness. 17 The nakedness of a woman and her daughter shalt thou not uncover; thou shalt not take her son’s daughter, nor her daughter’s daughter, to uncover her nakedness (they tare] her own flesh): it [is] wickedness. 18 And thou shalt not take a wife to her sister, to vex [her] (or, be a rival), to uncover her nakedness, beside her during her life” (vers. 6-18).
The opening is singularly emphatic, ”Man, man, etc.” This the Septuagint follows closely. Man’s attention is called for. Marriage is only honourable where God’s will is observed. Heb 13:4 in no way sanctions or sanctifies a forbidden union. The true rendering is, Let marriage be honourable (not “among all” as the Revisers say, but) “in all things,” and the bed be undefiled. The construction is alike before and after. It is an injunction, not an affirmation as in the A.V. with Wiclif, Cranmer, and the Geneva translators. The Rhemish is an ungrammatical evasion, meant to correspond with the Vulgate, which would seem to take the Greek like the Peschito, Wiclif, etc. Tyndale alone was right. Against unions or licences, such as are here indicated, Jehovah sets His face. His name from beginning to end of the chapter is the solemn warrant against them all. If an Israelite allowed passion to carry him away, it was rebellion against Jehovah and at his own peril.
But in these near relationships marriage was unnatural and dishonourable in the measure of the nearness. And that intercourse which was proper to the married tie, forbidden in every case outside it, was here sinful and shameful in the highest degree, whether in the superior place of father or mother, and the nearest on either side, or in the equal one of sister howsoever born, or in the inferior one of daughter-in-law. And who would be bold enough to deny that the corresponding ones, not here specified, are not really implied? It is the man who is here prohibited: surely the woman is so no less. Further, the prohibition goes beyond blood-relations and extends in like degree to those by marriage connection. Of great moment it was to cultivate the warmest affection between all that stood together in near kin or connection. But still more was it essential that their mutual love should be ordered in all purity.
There was a marked exception requisite to keep up tribal inheritance in Israel, which though existing elsewhere applied to no other people as to them, still less to a Christian; a Levirate or brother in-law marriage. It was when a man died childless, and his brother or next of kin was called to raise up seed to the deceased, the aim being to bind up the family line and the inheritance; so much this, that if the nearer kinsman refused, the widow was entitled publicly to loose his shoe and spit in his face.
Verse 17 shows that the prohibition goes beyond this to the incongruous and unnatural intercourse with a woman and her daughter, or her son’s daughter or her daughter’s daughter, though all strangers to him. And verse 18 forbids an Israelite to have two sisters together, for the reason assigned. Christianity goes to the root of the matter by recalling, as our Lord did, to what was at the beginning when God made one man and one woman. If a man lost his wife by death, he was not only free to marry another but might find it his duty for the children’s sake or his own.
CHAPTER 5.
OTHER ABOMINATIONS FORBIDDEN.
Lev 18:19-30 .
But there is uncleanness through other. causes, and viler abominations contrary to nature, against which Jehovah warns. It may be painful to read; but it is wholesome to learn what human nature fell into among heathen races so civilized as in Egypt and Canaan; and God knew that His people, when slighting His word, might follow them both.
” 19 And thou shalt not approach a woman in the separation of her uncleanness to uncover her nakedness. 20 And thou shalt not lie carnally with thy neighbour’s wife to become unclean with her. 21 And thou shalt not give of thy seed to let them pass through [the fire] to Molech, nor shalt thou profane the name of thy God: I [am] Jehovah. 22 And thou shalt not lie with mankind as one lieth with womankind: it [is] abomination. 23 And thou shalt not lie with any beast to become unclean therewith; and a woman shall not stand before a beast to lie down “herewith: it [is] confusion. 24 Make not yourselves unclean in any of these things; for in all these have made themselves unclean the nations which I cast out from before you. 25 And the land hath become unclean: and I visit the iniquity thereof upon it, and the land vomiteth out its inhabitants. 26 But ye shall] observe my statutes and my judgments, and shall] not do any of all these abominations, – the home. born and the stranger that sojourneth among you 27 (for all these abominations have the men of the land done, who [were] before you, and the land hath been made unclean); 28 that the land vomit not you out also, when ye make it unclean, as it vomited out the, nation that was before you. 29 For whosoever shall do any of these abominations, the souls that do [them] shall be cut off from among their people. 30 Therefore shall ye observe my charge, that ye do not [any] of these abominable customs which were done before you; end ye shall not make yourselves unclean therein: I [am] Jehovah your God” (19-30).
Here is a somewhat different character of defilement, but leading on to still viler abominations, on none of which need one dwell, though assured God is wise and holy in every word He lays down. Indeed the Epistle to the Hebrews (13: 4) calls the Christian Jews, and in principle all concerned, to take heed, in terms which take in verses 19, 20 of our chapter. Marriage is to be honourable in all respects, as well as among all of course. Christian light and love is meant to pervade even the most intimate of relationships, and cleanse from every defilement of flesh and spirit; of Jews and of Gentiles we need to be reminded that the Lord is the avenger of all such wrongs.
Then we have a transition from wives to children, and that most inhuman rite in which parents were so blinded of Satan as to devote their offspring sacrificially to Molech or Moloch, and probably Malcham or Milcom. It was the tutelary God of the Ammonites; and Chemosh, the deity of the Moabites, differed little from it, Frst making the name signify “fire,” as Molech, etc., mean “King.” From Jer 19:5 it appears that Baal was worshipped thus. It was widespread under various idols over the earth; and how awful the fact that Solomon yielded to his heathen wives, and went after Ashtoreth, the licentious goddess of the Zidonians, and after Milcom or Molech the abomination of the Ammonites, and built a high place for Chemosh, that of Moab! The greatest science and learning, the highest civilization and luxury, can in no way hinder this, if they do not help it on; and the day hastens, when the Jews, now so staunch apparently against every idol, will fall under strange gods, and set up a man as God in His temple, drawing apostate Christendom into this fatal revolt, all the more guilty on the part of those called to worship the Father and the Son in Spirit.
This verse 21 is but one of many solemn prohibitions of a horror, which prevailed down to Josiah’s days, as Ahaz was a notable patron of it long before. Some have reasoned on “passing through the fire,” as here and elsewhere, to deny the burning of their seed: but this seems a kindly effort to soften the reality of the wickedness. It was the fullest, though not the only, profanation of the name of Israel’s God. Jehovah accepted a sheep or an ox, or even a much smaller sacrifice; Satan under these names demanded their sons.
The unnatural brutalities of verses 22, 23, are plain enough; but it may not be known how unblushingly they were perpetrated among the heathen, even by the Greeks and the Romans. What abomination! It is confusion, says Jehovah. Israel were not to render themselves unclean in any of these things, as in all these did the nations of Canaan which He cast out before them. How much guiltier, if so, would Israel be! The very land was made unclean. Therefore had He visited the iniquity on it. Earth vomited out its inhabitants; so that Israel must beware, not only for themselves, but for any stranger sojourning among them, lest the land should vomit them out, as it had the nations that dwelt there before Israel. For such evil was intolerable in His eyes, and yet more offensive in His own people than in any other; a truth forgotten soon among the Jews, as later in Christendom. “Therefore shall ye observe my charge that ye do not [any] of the abominable customs which were done before you, and that ye make not yourselves unclean therein: I [am] Jehovah your God.” It is by receiving the good that is from God, His word and above all His Christ, that souls are kept from evil.
Fuente: William Kelly Major Works (New Testament)
spake. See note on Lev 5:14.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Chapter 18
Here we find the term used over and over again, “For I am the Lord your God.” So God wants a holy people. He tells them how they are to walk with them. “For I am the Lord your God”, and actually laying out the importance of the fact that they are representing God to the world.
Now Paul the apostle speaks about how the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of the way the Jews were living. God was stressing the importance, “For I am Jehovah your God”. All through this chapter you’ll find that emphasis as God deals with them in the way that they should live, and dealing with moral issues in chapter eighteen.
Now as God deals with these moral issues, He is dealing basically with incestuous relationships, first of all, and forbidding any type of incestuous relationship. I think that the movie industry has had the most corrupting influence upon the world, than any other single source. I think the minds of men have been polluted more through the movie industry than anything else. I think that they have introduced more filth and corruption into the world than any other single source. There seems to be within the movie industry, a desire to show bizarre kinds of relationships. First of all, adultery, seeking to make it an acceptable practice. Then having satiated people with adulterous relationships that no longer gets a tingle, they started showing incestuous relationships. Homosexual relationships, seeking to make them accepted practices, then began to show bestiality, the relationship with animals. Horrible, filthy, polluting things.
Now the Bible says, “Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap” ( Gal 6:7 ). If you sow to the flesh, you’re gonna have the flesh reap corruption. You cannot look at those things without polluting yourself, without polluting your mind, because you are sowing into your mind these things. If these are the things you are sowing into your mind, sowing to your flesh, then of your flesh you’re gonna reap corruption.
Paul tells us of the heathen world having forsaken God, “Not wishing to retain God in their minds, God gave them over to minds that were reprobate” ( Rom 1:28 ). Then he begins to speak of the reprobate practices, homosexuality, and goes on then and lists a whole, horrible list of the reprobate practices of men who no longer wanted to have God in their conscience. Of course they didn’t want God in their conscience. Of course they’d like to think that we evolve from animals. They must get God out of their conscience because they could never live with a conscience with all of the horrible, filthy things that they have dreamed up in their minds and in their imaginations, and are portrayed on the film. Horrible acts.
As Paul lists for us in Romans, chapter one these horrible things that men did. He says something very startling at the end of the chapter, “Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity, whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenant breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful”( Rom 1:29-31 ).
Now go down that list again and just think of the movies. What kind of things do they depict in the movies? “Fornication, unrighteousness, wickedness, covetousness, murder, deceit, haters of God, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, without natural affection.” Those are the things portrayed. They say, “Well this is life, this is realism. This is how people live. We have a right to show it, because this is, this is real. This is real life, realism.” If that is so, God help us. We’re living in a horrible world. But the last verse is the clincher. “Who knowing the judgment of God that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do those things, but have pleasure in them that do them”( Rom 1:32 ). If you go to the show to find pleasure in watching murders, in watching fornication, in watching these things, if you go to the show to find pleasure watching other people do them, you are guilty taking pleasure in those that do them.
So God is speaking now, the moral laws, His people are to be a pure people. His people are to be a representative people before the world. You’re not to be as the world. Everybody’s doing it is no excuse for the child of God. You’re to be separate. You’re to be different from everybody. He is the Lord your God. Your life is to be separate and different. If it’s not, then what do you really have? Surely not a true relationship with God.
So the first thing that God is forbidding here is any type of incestuous relationships. Things that are all of a sudden become a popular subject in the Hollywood movies. After the showing of a few movies where fathers, abusing their daughters and all, they’ve made it almost a common thing. The young girls that are abused by their fathers today, the numbers are staggering. It’s horrible; it’s unthinkable, but that whole horrible door was opened by Hollywood. Oh yes, I know that it existed earlier, but it’s magnified through Hollywood.
Now they are coming out with a set of films on mothers having relationships with their sons. Horrible. Absolutely horrible. One of the shows on TV that we’re missing tonight has that theme. Thank God you’re missing it. What a corrupt, sinful world. But because Jehovah is your God, you’re not to be polluted by these things. You’re not to follow these practices; you’re to be different. The theme all the way through chapter eighteen, “For I am Jehovah your God.” You’ll find that He says it some fourteen times, as He emphasizes this truth.
Now they’re not to allow their children to pass through the fire, their seed to pass through the fires of Molech. Now God said, “The Egyptians did these things. The Canaanites are doing these things. I know that they’re doing it. For this reason I’m driving the Canaanites out of the land. I’m destroying them. You’re not to follow the practice of the Canaanites, the people in the land where you’re going.”
In verse twenty-seven, the prohibition of homosexual relationships.
Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind, it is an abomination ( Lev 18:27 ).
Now these, I know where I am, I’m just trying to frame the word for these characters who are trying to pass themselves off as ministers, and so forth, who are advocating homosexual relationships. Cal State Long Beach has a “Gay for Christ” club. Governor Brown just appointed and avowed homosexuals to the Superior Court in Los Angeles. Governor Brown is gonna be one of the featured speakers at the gay community center’s fund raising dinner in Los Angeles the end of this month. He’s beginning to identify himself so much with that community that it’s beginning to look like our governor needs to examine his own relationship with God. I think you got the message.
In verse twenty-three, bestiality forbidden.
Defile not yourselves [verse twenty-four] in any of these things: for in all of these the nations are defiled which I cast out before you: The land is defiled: therefore I do visit the iniquity thereof upon it, and the land itself vomiteth out her inhabitants ( Lev 18:24-25 ).
In other words the land itself is so sick of the corruption that is within, ultimately the land itself vomits out. I wonder, I wonder. Jesus, it was interesting said, when the Pharisees said, “Lord rebuke Your disciples”, when he was making a triumphant entry. He said, “I’ll tell you something, if these disciples were to all together hold their peace, these very rocks would cry out.” I wonder how much the land really knows. God said to Abel, or to Cain, “The blood of thy brother, the ground crieth out unto Me, where your brother’s blood was spilled.” Now God says, “The land vomited out the inhabitants of the people.” So sick were their practices.
You see there is a point of moral decay that once the nation reaches that point, it can no longer exist. It’s gone beyond the point of return and the nation can no longer exist; it’s gonna crumble, and fall. Let me tell you something. The United States is awfully close to that point. Now God in speaking of these things said to the nation of Israel, “If you will obey My commandments and do them, then I will make you great. But if you forsake them, then you’re gonna be cursed in the city, cursed in the fields, cursed everywhere you go.” God said, “Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people.” God’s cry against Israel and the reason why she had to fall was, “She had forsaken My laws, they have forsaken My commandments, and they’ve gone after their own ways.” I’m sure that as God looks at the United States today, His cry is much the same. “They have forsaken My ways, they have forsaken My laws, they’ve forsaken My commandments.” The land is about to vomit out its inhabitants because of the things that we have allowed, sitting back and doing nothing. So the land is defiled. “Therefore I visit the iniquity, and the land vomits out her inhabitants.”
Now verse twenty-eight,
That the land spew not you out also, when you defile it, as it spewed out the nations that were before you. For whosoever shall commit any of these abominations, even the souls that commit them shall be cut off from among their people. Therefore shall ye keep my ordinance, that ye commit not any one of these abominable customs, which were committed before you, and that ye defile not yourselves therein: for I am Jehovah your God ( Lev 18:28-30 ).
The repetition again. “
Fuente: Through the Bible Commentary
At this point in the enunciation of the laws of separation they assume a slightly altered character. So far, the fundamental matters of relationships to God have been the principal note. Now the habits of the life of separation are more particularly dealt with. The enactments here recorded especially recognize the perils which would surround these people on account of the habits and customs of the people by whom they would be surrounded in the land.
In view of these there was first a call to separation in general terms. Jehovah asserted Himself as being their God and distinctly forbade their conforming their actions to the doings either of Egypt or of Canaan, accompanying the commandment with a promise that if they obeyed Him they should live thereby.
Then followed the naming of certain evil practices of the people of these lands, certain abominations which had cursed the whole life of the peoples.
In this connection occurs a most important declaration, explaining the judgment of God upon the people of these lands. It is that the reason for such judgment is to be found in the practice of these abominations with terrible effects produced upon the peoples, so that they were utterly corrupt. All this emphasizes the paramount importance of the insistence on the necessity that the people of God should not be themselves d d e d by such practices.
Fuente: An Exposition on the Whole Bible
V. PRACTICAL HOLINESS IN DAILY LIFE
1. Different Unholy Relationships
CHAPTER 18
1. Separation and obedience (Lev 18:1-5)
2. Unholy relationships (Lev 18:6-18)
3. Vile and abominable practices (Lev 18:19-23)
4. Judgment threatened (Lev 18:24-30)
This section of Leviticus contains the words of Jehovah addressed to His people, whom He had redeemed and in whose midst He dwelt. They are to be a holy people. About thirty times in this section we find the solemn word I am Jehovah. Ye shall be holy: for I, Jehovah your God, am holy. This is Jehovahs calling for His people. Four times in the beginning of this chapter the Lord tells His people I am Jehovah (verses 2, 4, 5 and 6). His name was upon them and therefore they are to manifest holiness in their life and walk. This demand and principle is unchanged in the New Testament, in the covenant of grace. His people are exhorted to walk as obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance, but as He, who hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation, because it is written, Be ye holy for I am holy (1Pe 1:14-16). Brought nigh by blood, knowing the blessed relationship into which Grace of God has brought us, our solemn duty is to present our bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God. The Spirit of God, the Spirit of holiness and power, is bestowed upon us that we can walk in the Spirit and fulfill not the lusts of the flesh. Israel was not to walk after the doings of the land of Egypt which they had left, nor after the doings of the land of Canaan whither they were going. And the church is told the same thing in the New Testament. This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind, having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart; who being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness through greediness (Eph 4:17-19).
And Jehovahs words reveal all the degradations and vile abominations human nature, the nature of sin and death, is capable of. He is the searcher of hearts and Jehovah only can sound the depths of the desperately wicked heart of man. The incestuous relationships against which the Lord warns were commonly practised among the Gentiles. These unholy impure things are still common in the world, not alone among the heathen, but also in the so-called civilized world. The laxity of the marriage laws, divorces and other evils in the same line are the curse of our age. Polygamy is forbidden in verse 18. All that would destroy the sanctity of the family and bring in abuse is solemnly warned against and forbidden. In the New Testament the Spirit of God emphasizes the absolute purity of the family relation and how the Christian family is to be a witness of the holiness and love of Jehovah to make known the mystery of Christ and the church (Eph 5:22-32).
Molech worship is forbidden. Read 1Ki 5:7; 2Ki 23:10; Jer 32:35; Jer 7:31; Jer 19:5). The awful worship of Molech is described in these passages. The most unnatural crimes and vile things mentioned in verses 22-23 were connected with the idolatries of the nations which surrounded Israel. These things were practised in Egypt and in Canaan. Rom 1:18-32 gives the inspired history of the degradation of the Gentile world. Idolatry and moral degradation always go together. The fearful road of the apostasy in Christendom is no exception. Rejection of Gods revelation leads into idolatry (not necessarily idols of wood and stone) and moral declension. The days of Lot, the grossest licentiousness of Sodom, are predicted to precede the coming of the Son of man (Luk 17:26-32).
A solemn warning concludes this chapter. The inhabitants of Canaan were to be cast out on account of their vileness. Jehovah would not spare His people if they practised these things. They did commit all this wickedness. Israel cast out of the land, the homeless wanderer bears witness to the fulfillment of this solemn warning.
Fuente: Gaebelein’s Annotated Bible (Commentary)
Subdivision 1. (Lev 18:1-30; Lev 19:1-37; Lev 20:1-27.)
Precepts for the whole people.
1. The first section takes up what is fundamental to all relationship, from which duty arises to one’s neighbor. Relations of sex are the foundation of the family, as the family is the foundation of the state. The order is therefore perfect, as all Scripture is. The links thus formed are the strongest that exist amongst men naturally, and in their violation lead to the worst confusion.
(1) We have here first the exhortation to obedience; a law given in which is life. Of this naturally there can be no just question. Men’s vices are physically their destruction, and rob human life of all that makes it worthy of the name: “My son, forget not My law, but let thine heart keep My commandments: for length of days, and years of life, and peace shall they add to thee. . . . Fear the Lord, and depart from evil: it shall be health to thy navel, and marrow to thy bones” (Pro 3:1-2; Pro 3:7-8). It must of necessity be so, if God be over all, and the “Lord’s eyes are over the righteous.”
(2) In the next place, we find the limit imposed upon marriage in regard to blood-relationship. Here abundant reasons evidence that character of the divine law which has been announced above. The laws of heredity show that in a fallen race, the inheritance of disease to which all are liable is intensified where similar tendencies are found in both parents. In the need also of looking outside the circle of near relationship for partners, the selfishness of man finds a divine restraint, and the bonds which unite man with man at large are strengthened and multiplied. Besides which the intimacies of the home and family are guarded from abuse.
(3) Thirdly, impurities apart from the question of marriage are denounced, -confusions and abominations of which man can easily nevertheless be guilty, and of which in fact the heathen world was full.
(4) For these sins the land to which they were going was casting out its inhabitants; and they are warned that for such things if practiced, it would cast out them also. God’s righteousness is equal to all His creatures and Israel, now cast out of their land, are witnesses to it.
2. The nineteenth chapter shows the duties flowing from covenant-relationship: “I am Jehovah,” fifteen times repeated, is the declaration by which every commandment is enforced. Fellowship with a holy God must be in holiness: “Ye shall be holy; for I Jehovah your God am holy.”
There is a mingling together of various conditions which have for most forbidden attempt to divide the chapter into sections and where this has been made it is very little satisfactory. May there not be for us in this the lesson that the law as a whole is a web so woven as not to admit of separation, even as the righteousness it enjoins, if fulfilled, would be like the priest’s robe, woven without seam. There was but One who ever wore on earth this beauteous covering.
3. Then in the twentieth chapter we have the penalties by which the law just given is sealed, or actualized as law, for a law without penalty is none at all. The three divisions of the chapter are plain enough, but I cannot go more deeply into them.
Fuente: Grant’s Numerical Bible Notes and Commentary
Lev 18:1. It being one special design of God to preserve his people from the lewd and idolatrous customs of other nations, Moses now receives particular orders to prohibit the Israelites from many of those unnatural practices which were common among the ancient idolaters.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Lev 18:21. Molech, or Moloch, was the chief idol of the Sabians, and of the Ammonites. 1Ki 11:7; 1Ki 11:33. To this idol Solomon built a high place on mount Olivet. The form of the idol was a gigantic human figure, with his arms extended to receive something, but his head resembled a calf. His belly being heated red hot, the priests placed the infants of infatuated parents to be consumed in the arms of the idol, making a horrid noise with drums to deafen their cries, and forcing the parents to join the dance. It appears by comparing Jer 7:31; Jer 19:5, that Baal and Molech were one and the same god. The Israelites worshipped this idol under the appellation of Baal-peor, Numbers 25. and Psa 106:36-39, feasting at the very time they offered up their sons and daughters to devils. The same idol with some variations in its figure, was worshipped by the heathens, under the names of Mars, Saturn, and the Sun. Surely God for a time gave up the nations to strong delusions, as evidently appears from the millions of human beings immolated to the devil. And how lamentable to learn, from the Rev. Dr. Buchanan, that considerable numbers of deluded men in India are almost daily throwing themselves under the wheels of this imaginary divinity, and willingly embracing death for the expiation of sin, that they may enter heaven in spotless purity. Amo 5:26.
Lev 18:24. Defile not yourselves in any of these things, for with all of them are the nations defiled which I cast out. The iniquity of the Amorite was now full, the period of divine forbearance was expired, and the Canaanites became the objects of Gods abhorrence. The moral contagion had extended to all ranks of men, and therefore the land vomited them out. The Judge of all the earth does right. For these sins he burned the people of Sodom and Gomorrah; for these sins, as in the warning of Moses, the Lord sent the Chaldeans to burn Samaria, and afterwards to burn Jerusalem. The visitation extended to man, woman, and child: to spare them would have been a snare to the Hebrews. The Lord inspired Joshua fully, as a minister of vengeance, to execute his awful displeasure; he also aided him by raining sheets of hail on the guilty, and by staying the course of the sun. Jos 10:40.
REFLECTIONS.
A necessity having been imposed on the family of Adam, of Noah, and of Abraham, to intermarry; it became requisite for the divine law most explicitly to declare, that what was then allowed was totally inadmissible in national society. In this chapter therefore all marriages within the degree of cousins are forbidden, and all near approaches of kin are declared to be sinful in the sight of God. On this passage commentators have collected a cloud of testimonies from heathen writers of various ages, expressive of the illegality and shame attendant on incestuous marriages.
The object of these laws likewise is, to instruct mankind in domestic purity, and in that perfect modesty and decorum which the male and female relatives, closely connected in the same house, should observe one towards another. Neither word, gesture, nor conduct must be indulged to abridge the liberty, rights, and independence of the several branches of our families; and in particular, those of sisters, nieces, &c. Blots of this nature, though of the slightest degree, cannot be overlooked. One reason is assigned in the preface to the law; God would not have his people to resemble the Egyptians, and the Canaanites. His commands must be exalted above the laws and customs of the most enlightened heathens, though on these subjects most of the refined gentiles speak the language of revelation.
Intermarriages with neighbours, with strangers, or persons but slightly connected by consanguinity, are productive of good in various views. They are thought to promote the health and vigour of the human frame; they augment the peace and friendship of civil society, by enlarging the chain of family connection and relative ties; and they disperse the wealth of opulent houses from one to another, so as to make it become more useful to the public.
The Lord closes these laws by a declaration, that all marriages within the prescribed affinity, are wickedness; consequently the salvation of those who have thus rashly and falsely united their hands must be endangered. It is not therefore safe for them to continue together. Ministers should declare with a high voice, like John to Herod, It is not lawful for, thee to have thy brother Philips wife. The former husband or wife being dead, is no plea for superseding a permanent law. Vide Poli synop. crit.
As to the other awful crimes enumerated here, what shall mortals say? The very laws which heaven has enacted, seem to throw dark and dismal shades on the glorious purity of the sacred writings. Are there men who can be guilty of such atrocities! Is human nature capable of so deep a stain? And shall we henceforth own him for kinsman, brother or friend, who contaminates his soul and body with such foul offences. Let us rather pray that his body may suffer, if perchance his soul may thereby be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. The fire which consumed the inhabitants of Sodom; the hail, sword and vengeance, which destroyed the Canaanites, are still pursuing the guilty. The earth, abhorring their crimes, shall vomit them into the grave of corruption; and the indignation of heaven shall intoxicate their soul with everlasting shame and anguish. Let all young men especially endeavour to form the strictest habits of temperance and chastity, let no violence be offered to modesty and bashfulness, let a voice be heard from heaven in the hour of temptation, ye shall not commit any one of these abominable customs, that ye defile not yourselves therein: I am the Lord.
Fuente: Sutcliffe’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Leviticus 18 – 20
This section sets before us, in a very remarkable manner, the personal sanctity and moral propriety which Jehovah looked for, on the part of those whom He had graciously introduced into relationship with Himself and, at the same time, it presents a most humiliating picture of the enormities of which human nature is capable.
“And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, l am the Lord your God.” Here we have the foundation of the entire superstructure of moral conduct which these chapters present. Israel’s actings were to take their character from the fact that Jehovah was their God. They were called to comport themselves in a manner worthy of so high and holy a position. It was God’s prerogative to set forth the special character and line of conduct becoming a people with whom He was pleased to associate His name. Hence the frequency of the expressions – “I am the Lord.” “I Am the Lord your God.” “I the Lord your God am holy.” Jehovah was their God, and He was holy; hence, therefore, they were called to be holy likewise. His name was invoked in their character and acting.
This is the true principle of holiness for the people of God in all ages. They are to be governed and characterised by the revelation which He has made of Himself. Their conduct is to be founded upon what He is, not upon what they are in themselves. This entirely sets aside the principle expressed in the words, “Stand by thyself, I am holier than thou;” a principle so justly repudiated by every sensitive mind. It is not a comparison of one man with another; but a simple statement of the line of conduct which God looks for in those who belong to Him. “after the doings of the land of Egypt, wherein ye dwelt, shall ye not do; and after the doings of the land of Canaan, whither I bring you, shall ye not do; neither shall ye walk in their ordinances.” The Egyptians and the Canaanites were all wrong. How was Israel to know this? Who told them? How came they to be right, and all besides wrong? These are interesting inquiries; and the answer is as simple as the questions are interesting. Jehovah’s word was the standard by which all questions of right and wrong were to be definitely settled in the judgement of every member of the Israel of God. It was not, by any means, the judgement of an Israelite in opposition to the judgement of an Egyptian or of a Canaanite; but it was the judgement of God above all. Egypt might have her practices and her opinions, and so might Canaan; but Israel were to have the opinions and practices laid down in the word of God. “Ye shall do my judgements, and keep mine ordinances, to walk therein: I am the Lord your God. Ye shall therefore keep my statutes and my judgements; which, if a man do, he shall live in them: I am the Lord.”
It will be well for my reader to get a clear, deep, full, practical sense of this truth. The word of God must settle every question and govern every conscience. There must be no appeal from its solemn and weighty decision. When God speaks, every heart must bow. Men may form and hold their opinions; they may adopt and defend their practices; but one of the finest traits in the character of “the Israel of God” is profound reverence for, and implicit subjection to, “every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord.” The exhibition of this valuable feature may, perhaps, lay them open to the charge of dogmatism, superciliousness, and self-sufficiency, on the part of those who have never duly weighed the matter; but, in truth, nothing can be more unlike dogmatism than simple subjection to the plain truth of God; nothing more unlike superciliousness than reverence for the statements of inspiration; nothing more unlike self-sufficiency than subjection to the divine authority of holy scripture.
True, there will ever be the need of carefulness as to the tone and manner in which we set forth the authority for our convictions and our conduct. It must be made manifest, so far as it may be, that we are wholly governed, not by our own opinions, but by the word of God. There is great danger of attaching an importance to an opinion merely because we have adopted it. This must be carefully guarded against. Self may creep in and display its deformity in the defence of our opinions as much as in anything else; but we must disallow it, in every shape and form, and be governed, in all things, by “Thus saith the Lord.”
But, then, we are not to expect that everyone will be ready to admit the full force of the divine statutes and judgements. It is as persons walk in the integrity and energy of the divine nature that the word of God will be owned, appreciated, and reverenced. An Egyptian or a Canaanite would have been wholly unable to enter into the meaning or estimate the value of these statutes and judgements, which were to govern the conduct of the circumcised people of God; but that did not, in any wise, affect the question of Israel’s obedience. They were brought into a certain relationship with Jehovah, and that relationship had its distinctive privileges and responsibilities. “I am the Lord your God.” This was to be the ground of their conduct. They were to act in a way worthy of the One who had become their God, and made them His people. It was not that they were a whit better than other people. By no means. The Egyptians or Canaanites might have considered that the Israelites were setting themselves up as something superior in refusing to adopt the habits of either nation. But, no; the foundation of their peculiar line of conduct and tone of morality was laid in these words, “I am the Lord your God.”
In this great and practically-important fact, Jehovah set before His people a ground of conduct which was immovable, and a standard of morality which was as elevated, and as enduring, as the eternal throne itself. The moment He entered into a relationship with a people, their ethics were to assume a character and tone worthy of Him. It was no longer a question as to what they were, either in themselves or in comparison with others; but of what God was in comparison with all. This makes a material difference. To make self the ground of action or the standard of ethics is not only presumptuous folly, but it is sure to set one upon a descending scale of action. If self be my object, I must, of necessity, sink lower and lower every day; but if, on the other hand, I set the Lord before me, I shall rise higher and higher as, by the power of the Holy Ghost, I grow in conformity to that perfect model which is unfolded to the gaze of faith in the sacred pages of inspiration. I shall, undoubtedly, have to prostrate myself in the dust, under a sense of how infinitely short I come of the mark set before me; but, then, I can never consent to the setting up of a lower standard, nor can I ever be satisfied until I am conformed in all things to Him who was my substitute on the cross, and is my Model in the glory.
Having said thus much on the main principle of the section before us – a principle of unspeakable importance to Christians, in a practical point of view – I feel it needless to enter into anything like a detailed exposition of statutes which speak for themselves in most obvious terms. I would merely remark that those statutes range themselves under two distinct heads, namely, first, those which set forth the shameful enormities which the human heart is capable of devising; and, secondly, those which exhibit the exquisite tenderness and considerate care of the God of Israel.
As to the first, it is manifest that the Spirit of God could never enact laws for the purpose of preventing evils that have no existence. He does not construct a dam where there is no flood to be resisted. He does not deal with abstract ideas, but with positive realities. Man is, in very deed, capable of perpetrating each and every one of the shameful crimes referred to in this most faithful section of the book of Leviticus. If he were not, Why should he be told not to do so. Such a code would be wholly unsuitable for angels, inasmuch as they are incapable of committing the sins referred to; but it suits man, because he has gotten the seeds of those sins in his nature. This is deeply humbling. It is a fresh declaration of the truth that man is a total wreck. From the crown of his head to the sole of his foot, there is not so much as a single speck of moral soundness, as looked at in the light of the divine presence. The being for whom Jehovah thought it needful to write Leviticus 18 – 20 must be a vile sinner; but that being is man – the writer and reader of these lines. How plain it is, therefore, that “they that are in the flesh cannot please God.” (Rom. 8) Thank God, the believer is “not in the flesh, but in the Spirit.” He has been taken completely out of his old creation standing, and introduced into the new creation, in which the moral evils aimed at in this our section can have no existence. True, he has gotten the old nature; but it is his happy privilege to “reckon” it as a dead thing, and to walk in the abiding power of the new creation, wherein “all things are of God.” This is Christian liberty – even liberty to walk up and down in that fair creation where no trace of evil can ever be found; hallowed liberty to walk in holiness and purity before God and man; liberty to tread those lofty walks of personal sanctity whereon the beams of the divine countenance ever pour themselves in living lustre. Reader, this is Christian liberty. It is liberty, not to commit sin, but to taste the celestial sweets of a life of true holiness and moral elevation. May we prize more highly than we have ever done this precious boon of heaven – Christian liberty!
And, now, one word as to the second class of statutes contained in our section – namely, those which so touchingly bring out divine tenderness and care. Take the following: “and when ye reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not wholly reap the corners of thy field, neither shalt thou gather the gleanings of thy harvest. And thou shalt not glean thy vineyard, neither shalt thou gather every grape of thy vineyard; thou shalt leave them for the poor and stranger: I am the Lord your God.” (Lev. 19: 9, 10) This ordinance will meet us again in Lev. 23, but there we shall see it in its dispensational bearing. Here, we contemplate it morally, as unfolding the precious grace of Israel’s God. He would think of “the poor and stranger;” and He would have His people think of them likewise. When the golden sheaves were being reaped, and the mellow clusters gathered, “the poor and stranger” were to be remembered by the Israel of God, because Jehovah was the God of Israel. The reaper and the grape-gatherer were not to be governed by a spirit of grasping covetousness, which would bare the corners of the field and strip the branches of the vine, but rather by a spirit of large-hearted, genuine benevolence, which would leave a sheaf and a cluster “for the poor and stranger,” that they, too, might rejoice in the unbounded goodness of Him whose paths drop fatness, and on whose open hand all the sons of want may confidently wait.
The Book of Ruth furnishes a fine example of one who fully acted out this most benevolent statute. “And Boaz said unto her, (Ruth,) At meal-time come thou hither, and eat of the bread, and dip thy morsel in the vinegar. And she sat beside the reapers: and he reached her parched corn, and she did eat, and was sufficed and left. And when she was risen up to glean, Boaz commanded his young men, saying, Let her glean even among the sheaves, and reproach her not: and let fall also some of the handfuls of purpose for her, and leave them, that she may glean them, and rebuke her not.” (Ruth 2: 14-16) Most touching and beautiful grace! Truly, it is good for our poor selfish hearts to be brought in contact with such principles and such practices. Nothing can surpass the exquisite refinement of the words, “let fall also some of the handfuls of purpose for her.” It was, evidently, the desire of this noble Israelite that “the stranger” might have abundance, and have it, too, rather as the fruit of her own gleaning than of his benevolence. This was the very essence of refinement. It was putting her in immediate connection with, and dependence upon, the God of Israel, who had fully recognised and provided for “the gleaner.” Boaz was merely acting out that gracious ordinance of which Ruth was reaping the benefit. The same grace that had given him the field gave her the gleanings. They were both debtors to grace. She was the happy recipient of Jehovah’s goodness. He was the honoured exponent of Jehovah’s most gracious institution. All was in most lovely moral order. The creature was blessed and God was glorified. Who would not own that it is good for us to ‘be allowed to breathe such an atmosphere?
Let us now turn to another statute of our section. “Thou shalt not defraud thy neighbour, neither rob Him: the wages of him that is hired shall not abide with thee all night until the morning.” (Lev. 19: 13) What tender care is here! The High and Mighty One that inhabiteth eternity can take knowledge of the thoughts and feelings that spring up in the heart of a poor labourer. He knows and takes into account the expectations of such an one in reference to the fruit of his day’s toil. The wages will, naturally, be looked for. The labourer’s heart counts upon them; the family meal depends upon them. Oh! let them not be held back. Send not the labourer home with a heavy heart, to make the heart of his wife and family heavy likewise. By all means, give him that for which He has wrought, to which he has a right, and on which his heart is set. He is a husband, he is a father; and he has borne the burden and heat of the day that his wife and children may not go hungry to bed. Disappoint him not. Give him his due. Thus does our God take notice of the very throbbings of the labourer’s heart, And make provision for his rising expectations. Precious grace! Most tender, thoughtful, touching, condescending love! The bare contemplation of such statutes is sufficient to throw one into a flood of tenderness. Could any one read such passages and not be melted? Could any one read them and thoughtlessly dismiss a poor labourer, not knowing whether he and his family have wherewithal to meet the cravings of hunger?
Nothing can be more painful to a tender heart than the lack of kindly consideration for the poor, so often manifested by the rich. These latter can sit down to their sumptuous repast after dismissing from their door some poor industrious creature who had come seeking the just reward of his honest labour. They think not of the aching heart with which that man returns to his family, to tell them of the disappointment to himself and to them. Oh! it is terrible. It is most offensive to God, and to all who have drunk, in any measure, into His grace. If we would know what God thinks of such acting, we have only to hearken to the following accents of holy indignation: “Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them that have reaped have entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth.” (James 5: 4) “The Lord of Sabaoth” hears the cry of the aggrieved and disappointed labourer. His tender love tells itself forth in the institutions of His moral government; and even though the heart should not be melted by the grace of those institutions, the conduct should, at least, be governed by the righteousness thereof. God will not suffer the claims of the poor to be heartlessly tossed aside by those who are so hardened by the influence of wealth as to be insensible to the appeals of tenderness, and who are so far removed beyond the region of personal need as to be incapable of feeling for those whose lot it is to spend their days amid exhausting toil or pinching poverty. The poor are the special objects of God’s care. Again and again He makes provision for them in the statutes of His moral administration; and it is particularly declared of Him who shall, ere long, assume, in manifested glory, the reins of government, that “He shall deliver the needy when he crieth; the poor also, and him that hath no helper. He shall spare the poor and needy, and shall save the souls of the needy. He shall redeem their souls from deceit and violence; and precious shall their blood be in his sight.” (Psalm 72: 12-14)
May we profit by the review of those precious and deeply practical truths! May our hearts be affected, and our conduct influenced by them. We live in a heartless world; and there is a vast amount of selfishness in our own hearts. We are not sufficiently affected by the thought of the need of others. We are apt to forget the poor in the midst of our abundance. We often forget that the very persons whose labour ministers to our personal comfort are living, it may be, in the deepest poverty. Let us think of these things. Let us beware of “grinding the faces of the poor.” If the Jews of old were taught by the statutes and ordinances of the Mosaic economy, to entertain kindly feelings toward the poor, and to deal tenderly and graciously with the sons of toil, how much more ought the higher and more spiritual ethics of the Gospel dispensation produce in the hearts and lives of Christians a large-hearted benevolence toward every form of human need.
True, there in urgent need of prudence and caution, lest we take a man out of the honourable position in which he was designed and fitted to move – namely, a position of dependence upon the fruits, the precious and fragrant fruits, of honest industry. This would be a grievous injury instead of a benefit. The example of Boaz should instruct in this matter. He allowed Ruth to glean; but he took care to make her gleaning profitable. This is a very safe and a very simple principle. God intends that man should work at something or another, and we run counter to Him when we draw our fellow out of the place of dependence upon the results of patient industry, into that of dependence upon the results of false benevolence. The former is as honourable and elevating as the latter is contemptible and demoralising. There is no bread so sweet to the taste as that which is nobly earned; but then those who earn their bread should get enough. A man will feed and care his horses; how much more his fellow, who yields him the labour of his hands from Monday morning till Saturday night.
But, some will say, “There are two sides to this question.” Unquestionably there are; and, no doubt, one meets with a great deal amongst the poor which is calculated to, dry up the springs of benevolence and genuine sympathy. There is much which tends to steel the heart, and close the hand; but, one thing is certain – it is better to be deceived in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred than to shut up the bowels of compassion against a single worthy object. Your heavenly Father causes His sun to shine upon the evil and on the good; and sendeth rain upon the just and upon the unjust. The sure sunbeams that gladden the heart of some devoted servant of Christ are poured upon the path of some ungodly sinner; and the self-same shower that falls upon the tillage of a true believer, enriches also the furrows of some blaspheming infidel. This is to be our model. “Be ye, therefore, perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” (Matt. 5: 48) It is only as we set the Lord before us, and walk in the power of His grace, that we shall be able to go on, from day to day, meeting with a tender heart and an open hand every possible form of human misery. It is only as we ourselves are drinking at the exhaustless fountain of divine love and tenderness, that we shall be able to go on ministering to human need unchecked by the oft-repeated manifestation of human depravity. Our tiny springs would soon be dried up were they not maintained in unbroken connection with that ever-gushing source.
The statute which next presents itself for our consideration, exemplifies, most touchingly, the tender care of the God of Israel. “Thou shalt not curse the deaf, nor put a stumbling-block before the blind, but shalt fear thy God: I am the Lord.” (Ver. 14) Here, a barrier is erected to stem the rising tide of irritability with which uncontrolled nature would be almost sure to meet the personal infirmity of deafness. How well we can understand this! Nature does not like to be called upon to repeat its words, again and again, in order to meet the deaf man’s infirmity. Jehovah thought of this, and provided for it. And what is the provision? “Thou shalt fear thy God.” When tried by a deaf person, remember the Lord, and look to Him for Grace to enable you to govern your temper.
The second part of this statute reveals a most humiliating amount of wickedness in human nature. The idea of laying a stumbling-block in the way of the blind, is about the most wanton cruelty imaginable; and yet man is capable of it, else he world not be warned against it. No doubt, this, as well as many other statutes, admits of a spiritual application; but that in nowise interferes with the plain literal principle set forth in it. Man is capable of placing a stumbling block in the way of a fellow-creature afflicted with blindness. Such is man! Truly, the Lord knew what was in man when He wrote the statutes and judgements of the Book of Leviticus.
I shall leave my reader to meditate alone upon the remainder of our section. He will find that each statute teaches a double lesson – namely, a lesson with respect to nature’s evil tendencies, and also a lesson as to Jehovah’s tender care.*
{*Verses 16 and 17 demand special attention. “Thou shalt not go up and down as a talebearer among thy people.” This is a most seasonable admonition for the people of God, in every age. A talebearer is sure to do incalculable mischief. It has been well remarked that a talebearer injures three persons – he injures himself, he injures his hearer, and he injures the subject of his tale. this he does directly; and as to the indirect consequences, who can recount them? Let us carefully guard against this horrible evil. May we never suffer a tale to, pass our lips; and let us never stand to hearken to a talebearer. May we always know how to drive away a backbiting tongue with an angry countenance, as the north wind driveth away rain.
In verse 17, we learn what ought to take the place of tale bearing. “thou shalt in anywise rebuke thy neighbour, and not suffer sin upon him.” In place of carrying to another a tale about my neighbour, I am called upon to go directly to himself and rebuke him, if there is anything wrong. This is the divine method. Satan’s method is to act the talebearer.}
Fuente: Mackintosh’s Notes on the Pentateuch
Lev 18:1-5. General Warning against Conformity to Indigenous Practices.The phrase I am Yahweh is characteristic of Ezek. and H, occurring twenty-one times in Leviticus 18-20. If a command is understood as coming from Yahweh, it is thereby authoritative, but the legislation is also doing explicitly what is implied in all the codes, viz. indicating traditional customs as the express order of Yahweh.
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible
FORBIDDING SEXUAL SINS (vv. 1-30)
Chapter 17 has dealt with sin directly against God; now chapter 18 speaks of sin in relationship with other creatures, primarily humans, but also animals (v. 23). Moses was commanded to speak to the children of Israel, giving them God’s message, I am the Lord your God (v. 2). This positive message itself should lift people’s hearts far above the level of all the evil that surrounds them. Yet most of what follows is negative, telling Israel what they were not to do.
First, the evil practices they had seen in Egypt they were told not to do. Secondly, when they entered the land of Canaan they were not to do as the Canaanites did (vv. 2-3). The world was living in moral corruption, as it still is today, and the believer is not to conform to this kind of thing. They had come out of Egypt, as believers today have left the world that ignores the living God. Let them then take no part of the world with them. They were going to Canaan, but the Canaanites were living in corruption fully as bad as Egypt, for Canaan is typical of Christendom, where the profession of Christianity is accompanied by many glaring abuses of Christianity. These are circumstances distressing to one who has been called by God to a path of obedience to Him, but we should regard circumstances as a proving ground. Israel was tested in Canaan, and we cannot escape testing, but we have the Word of God to guard us and to strengthen us (vv. 4-5).
Any sexual relation with a blood relative is firmly forbidden (vv. 6-18). Even secular governments recognize the morality of this, so that incest is illegal. Abraham, married his half-sister (Gen 20:11-12), but this was early in human history, when there was not the same danger of children being badly affected. The laws of heredity show that in a fallen race, the inheritance of disease to which all are liable is intensified when similar tendencies are found in both parents (Numerical Bible Genesis page 349). Time only increases the weakness that such disease brings in any genetic line, and of course this would be doubly increased by the marriage of two from the same line.
This evil defiled the assembly at Corinth when a man took his father’s wife, that is, his stepmother (1Co 5:1). The assembly was told that such sin was not even named among the nations, and the man was put out from the assembly (v. 12). Only when the sin was judged and discontinued was the man restored (2Co 2:6-8).
These laws deal with matters that are morally wrong and are still wrong today. Though the believer is not in any sense under law, but under grace, this does nor mean that he is free to break over bounds of morality. Rather, it means that grace gives him both the desire and the ability to carry out the righteousness required by the law, without considering himself under the law’s authority (Rom 8:3-4).
Adultery is just as evil as is incest (v. 20), and similarly forbidden. Verse 21 adds that Israelites were forbidden to offer their children to Molech. Though people spoke of this as a sacrifice, the practice did not spring from unselfish love for Molech, but from the selfish evil of wanting to get rid of a child. How evil it is today that many want to get rid of a child before it is born! Molech was an image with its arms outstretched, and people would place their children in its arms, while a fire was lit beneath. Then with drums and noisy music the cries of the child were drowned out as it was burned to death. Thus this religious wickedness sanctified the torture and murder of an unwanted child!
Closely related to this is the strong prohibition of the abominable practice of homosexuality (v. 22). God has provided the honorable institution of the marriage of a man and woman, yet people dare to abuse the very best that God has given, because of utter selfishness. We know too that such things bring painful repercussions (Rom 1:26-27. God is not mocked. People may feel they get away with evildoing, but whatever one sows he will also reap (Gal 6:7).
It was even necessary that Israelites should be warned against the repulsive wickedness of having sexual relations with an animal (v. 23). But this, along with the other evils before mentioned, was practiced among the nations that God was to dispossess from Canaan (v. 24). In fact, it was because of the gross defilement of the land by these things that God was punishing the inhabitants by death or expulsion. If anyone in Israel were to be found guilty of such things, this would incur the death penalty also.
Just as this chapter begins, so it ends by the positive declaration, I am the Lord your God (v. 30). If Israel would only rightly recognize this wonderful, positive blessing, this would preserve them from all the negative evils of this chapter.
Fuente: Grant’s Commentary on the Bible
2. Holiness of the marriage relationship ch. 18
Emphasis shifts in this chapter from ceremonial defilement (ch. 17) to moral impurity. The Lord wanted His people to be holy in their behavior and character as well as in less important ritual observances (cf. Mat 23:28; Rom 2:28-29). The order of the laws in chapters 18-20 may be significant. They set out foundational principles of social morality. Marriage is the cornerstone of all human society.
This chapter reflects the basic structure of a suzerainty treaty with some omissions. It begins with a warning concerning the vile practices of the Egyptians and Canaanites as well as an exhortation to obey God (Lev 18:1-5). It concludes by alluding to consequences that would overtake the Israelites if they disobeyed Him (Lev 18:24-30).
"There is a strong polemical thrust in these laws. Seven times it is repeated that the Israelites are not to behave like the nations who inhabited Canaan before them (Lev 18:3 [2x], 24, 26, 27, 29, 30). Six times the phrase ’I am the Lord (your God)’ is repeated (Lev 18:2; Lev 18:4-6; Lev 18:21; Lev 18:30)." [Note: Wenham, The Book . . ., p. 250.]
The phrase "I am the Lord" becomes a characteristic refrain in Leviticus at this point. It also appears frequently in Exodus and Numbers.
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
The statement "I am the Lord" reminded the people of their covenant relationship with and responsibility to Yahweh. [Note: Cf. Walther Zimmerli, I Am Yahweh, pp. 2-5.] It was because He is who He is that they were to be who He wanted them to be. It was a constant reminder to the Israelites of who they were and whom they served.
"Fundamentally God is holy because He is unique and incomparable. Those whom He calls to servanthood must therefore understand their holiness not primarily as some king [sic] of ’spirituality’ but as their uniqueness and separateness as the elect and called of God. But holiness must also find expression in life by adhering to ethical principles and practices that demonstrate godlikeness. This is the underlying meaning of being the ’image of God.’" [Note: Merrill, p. 58.]
The promises of life for obedience (Lev 18:5) held out a positive motivation for what follows.
"No, Lev 18:5 does not teach salvation by works. It teaches that the OT believers who trusted God and obeyed him from the heart received life abundant both here and hereafter. Actually, Paul was saying, ’The Pharisees and the Judaizers teach that the law offers salvation by works, but that is a misuse of the law that cannot contradict the promise of grace’ (cf. Gal 3:12; Gal 3:17)." [Note: Harris, p. 598.]
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
THE LAW OF HOLINESS: CHASTITY
Lev 18:1-30
CHAPTERS 18, 19, and 20, by a formal introduction {Lev 18:1-5} and a formal closing, {Lev 20:22-26} are indicated as a distinct section, very commonly known by the name, “the Law of Holiness.” As this phrase indicates, these chapters-unlike chapter 17, which as to its contents has a character intermediate between the ceremonial and moral law-consist substantially of moral prohibitions and commandments throughout. Of the three, the first two contain the prohibitions and precepts of the law; the third (chapter 20), the penal sanctions by which many of these were to be enforced.
The section opens (Lev 18:1-2) with Jehovahs assertion of His absolute supremacy, and a reminder to Israel of the fact that He bad entered into covenant relations with them: “I am the Lord your God.” With solemn emphasis the words are again repeated, Lev 18:4; and yet again in Lev 18:5 : “I am the Lord.” They would naturally call to mind the scene at Sinai, with its august and appalling grandeur, attesting amid earthquake and fire and tempest at once the being, power, and unapproachable holiness of Him who then and there, with those stupendous solemnities, in inexplicable condescension, took Israel into covenant with Himself, to be to Himself “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” There could be no question as to the right of the God thus revealed to impose law; no question as to the peculiar obligation upon Israel to keep His law; no question as to His intolerance of sin, and full power and determination, as the Holy One, to enforce whatever He commanded. All these thoughts-thoughts of eternal moment-would be called up in the mind of every devout Israelite, as he heard or read this preface to the law of holiness.
The prohibitions which we find in chapter 18 are not given as an exhaustive code of laws upon the subjects traversed, but rather deal with certain gross offences against the law of chastity, which, as we know from other sources, were horribly common at that time among the surrounding nations. To indulgence in these crimes, Israel, as the later history sadly shows, would be especially liable; so contagious are evil example and corrupt associations! Hence the general scope of the chapter is announced in this form (Lev 18:3): “After the doings of the land of Egypt, wherein ye dwelt, shall ye not do: and after the doings of the land of Canaan, whither I bring you, shall ye not do: neither shall ye walk in their statutes.”
Instead of this, they were (Lev 18:4) to do Gods judgments, and keep His statutes, to walk in them, bearing in mind whose they were. And as a further motive it is added (Lev 18:5): “which if a man do, he shall live in them”; that is, as the Chaldee paraphrast, Onkelos, rightly interprets in the Targum, “with the life of eternity.” Which far-reaching promise is sealed by the repetition, for the third time, of the words, “I am the Lord.” That is enough; for what Jehovah promises, that shall certainly be!
The law begins (Lev 18:6) with a general statement of the principle which underlies all particular prohibitions of incest: “None of you shall approach to any that is near of kin to him, to uncover their nakedness”; and then, for the fourth time, are iterated the words, “I am the Lord.” The prohibitions which follow require little special explanation. As just remarked, they are directed in particular to those breaches of the law of chastity which were most common with the Egyptians, from the midst of whom Israel had come; and with the Canaanites, to whose land they were going. This explains, for instance, the fulness of detail in the prohibition of incestuous union with a sister or half-sister (Lev 18:9, Lev 18:11), -an iniquity very common in Egypt, having the sanction of royal custom from the days of the Pharaohs down to the time of the Ptolemies. The unnatural alliance of a man with his mother prohibited in Lev 18:8, of which Paul declared {1Co 5:1} that in his day it did not exist among the Gentiles, was yet the distinguishing infamy of the Medes and Persians for many centuries. Union with an aunt, by blood or by marriage, prohibited in Lev 18:12-14, -a connection less gross, and less severely to be punished than the preceding, – seems to have been permitted even among the Israelites themselves while in Egypt, as is plain from the case of Amram and Jochebed. {Exo 6:20} To the law forbidding connection with a brothers wife (Lev 18:16), the later Deuteronomic law, {Deu 25:5-10} made an exception, permitting that a man might marry the widow of his deceased brother, when the latter had died without children, and “raise up seed unto his brother.” In this, however, the law but sanctioned a custom which-as we learn from the case of Onan {Gen 38:1-30} -had been observed long before the days of Moses, both by the Hebrews and other ancient nations, and, indeed, even limited and restricted its application; with good reason providing for exemption of the surviving brother from this duty, in cases where for any reason it might be repugnant or impracticable.
The case of a connection with both a woman and her daughter or granddaughter is next mentioned (Lev 18:17); and, with special emphasis, is declared to be “wickedness,” or “enormity.”
The prohibition (Lev 18:18) of marriage with a sister-in-law, as is well known, has been, and still is, the occasion of much controversy, into which it is not necessary here to enter at length. But, whatever may be thought for other reasons as to the lawfulness of such a union, it truly seems quite singular that this verse should ever have been cited as prohibiting such an alliance. No words could well be more explicit than those which we have here, in limiting the application of the prohibition to the lifetime of the wife: “Thou shalt not take a woman to her sister, to be a rival to her, to uncover her nakedness, beside the other in her lifetime” (R.V). The law therefore does not touch the question for which it is so often cited, but was evidently only intended as a restriction on prevalent polygamy. Polygamy is ever likely to produce jealousies and heart burnings; but it is plain that this phase of the evil would reach its most extreme and odious expression when the new and rival wife was a sister to the one already married; when it would practically annul sisterly love, and give rise to such painful and peculiarly humiliating dissensions as we read of between the sisters Leah and Rachel. The sense of the passage is so plain, that we are told that this interpretation “stood its ground unchallenged from the third century B.C. to the middle of the sixteenth century A.D.” Whatever opinion any may hold therefore as to the expediency, upon other grounds, of this much debated alliance, this passage, certainly, cannot be fairly cited as forbidding it; but is far more naturally understood as by natural implication permitting the union, after the decease of the first wife. The laws concerning incest therefore terminate with Lev 18:17; and Lev 18:18, according to this interpretation, must be regarded as a restriction upon polygamous connections, as Lev 18:19 is upon the rights of marriage.
It seems somewhat surprising that the question should have been raised, even theoretically, whether the Mosaic law, as regards the degrees of affinity prohibited in marriage, is of permanent authority. The reasons for these prohibitions, wherever given, are as valid now as then; for the simple reason that they are grounded fundamentally in a matter of fact, -namely, the nature of the relation between husband and wife, whereby they become “one flesh,” implied in such phraseology as we find in Lev 18:16; and also the relation of blood between members of the same family, as in Lev 18:10, etc. Happily, however, whatever theory any may have held, the Church in all ages has practically recognised every one of these prohibitions, as binding on all persons; and has rather been inclined to err, if at all, by extending, through inference and analogy, the prohibited degrees even beyond the Mosaic code. So much, however, by way of guarding against excess in such inferential extensions of the law, we must certainly say: according to the law itself, as further applied in Lev 21:1-4, and limited in Deu 25:5-10, relationship by marriage is not to be regarded as precisely equivalent in degree of affinity to relationship by blood. We cannot, for instance, conceive that, under any circumstances, the prohibition of the marriage of brothers and sisters should have had any exception; and yet, as we have seen, the marriage between brother and sister-in-law is explicitly authorised, in the case of the levirate marriage, and by implication allowed in other cases, by the language of Lev 18:18 of this chapter.
But in these days, when there is such a manifest inclination in Christendom, as especially in the United States and in France, to ignore the law of God in regard to marriage and divorce, and regulate these instead by a majority vote, it assuredly becomes peculiarly imperative that, as Christians, we exercise a holy jealousy for the honour of God and the sanctity of the family, and ever refuse to allow a majority vote any authority in these matters, where it contravenes the law of God. While we must observe caution that in these things we lay no burden on the conscience of any, which God has not first placed there, we must insist-all the more strenuously because of the universal tendency to license-upon the strict observance of all that is either explicitly taught or by necessary implication involved in the teachings of Gods Word upon this question. Nothing more fundamentally concerns the well being of society than the relation of the man and the woman in the constitution of the family; and while, unfortunately, in our modern democratic communities, the Church may not be able always to control and determine the civil law in these matters, she can at least utterly refuse any compromise where the civil law ignores what God has spoken; and with unwavering firmness deny her sanction, in any way, to any connection between a man and a woman which is not according, to the revealed will of God, as set before us in this most holy, good, and beneficent law.
The chapter before us casts a light upon the moral condition of the most cultivated heathen peoples in those days, among whom many of the grossest of these incestuous connections, as already remarked, were quite common, even among those of the highest station. There are many in our day more or less affected with the present fashion of admiration for the ancient (and modern) heathenisms, who would do well to heed this light, that their blind enthusiasm might thereby be somewhat tempered.
On the other hand, these laws show us, in a very striking contrast, the estimate which God puts upon the maintenance of holiness, purity, and chastity between man and woman; and His very jealous regard for the sanctity of the family in all its various relations. Even in the Old Testament we have hints of a reason for this, deeper than mere expediency, -hints which receive a definite form in the clearer teaching of the New Testament, which tells us that in the Divine plan it is ordained that in these earthly relations man shall be the shadow and image of God. If, as the Apostle tells, {Eph 3:15, R.V} “every family in heaven and on earth” is named from the Father; and if, as he again teaches, {Eph 5:29-32} the relation of husband and wife is intended to be an earthly type and symbol of the relation between the Lord Jesus Christ and His Church, which is His Bride, -then we cannot wonder at the exceedingly strong emphasis which marks these prohibitions. Everything must be excluded which would be incompatible with this holy ideal of God for man; that not only in the constitution of his person, but in these sacred relations which belong to his very nature, as created male and female, he should be the image of the invisible God.
Thus, he who is a father is ever to bear in mind that in his fatherhood he is appointed to shadow forth the ineffable mystery of the eternal relation of the only-begotten and most holy Son to this everlasting Father. As husband, the man is to remember that since he who is joined to his wife becomes with her “one flesh,” therefore this union becomes, in the Divine ordination, a type and pattern of the yet more mysterious union of life between the Son of God and the Church, which is His Bride. As brothers and sisters, again, the children of God are to remember that brotherly love, in its purity and unselfish devotion, is intended of God to be a living illustration of the love of Him who has been made of God to be “the firstborn among many brethren”. {Rom 8:29} And thus, with the family life pervaded through and through by these ideas, will license and impurity be made impossible, and, as happily now in many a Christian home, it will appear that the family, no less truly than the Church, is appointed of God to be a sanctuary of purity in a world impure and corrupt by wicked works, and, no less really than the Church, to be an effective means of Divine grace, and of preparation for the eternal life of the heavenly kingdom, when all of Gods “many sons” shall have been brought to glory, the “many brethren” of the First Begotten, to abide with Him in the Fathers house forever and ever.
After the prohibition of adultery in Lev 18:20, we have what at first seems like a very abrupt introduction of a totally different subject; for Lev 18:21 refers, not to the seventh, but to the second, and, therewith also, to the sixth commandment. It reads: “Thou shalt not give any of thy seed to make them pass through the fire to Molech, neither shalt thou profane the name of thy God.”
But the connection of thought is found in the historical relation of the licentious practices prohibited in the preceding verses to idolatry, of which this Molech worship is named as one of the most hideous manifestations. Some, indeed, have supposed that this frequently recurring phrase does not designate an actual sacrifice of the children, but only their consecration to Molech by some kind of fire baptism. But certainly such passages as 2Ki 17:31 Jer 7:31; Jer 19:5, distinctly require us to understand an actual offering of the children as “burnt offerings.” They were not indeed burnt alive, as a late and untrustworthy tradition has it, but were first slain, as in the case of all burnt sacrifices, and then burnt. The unnatural cruelty of the sacrifice, even as thus made, was such, that both here and in Lev 20:3 it is described as in a special sense a “profaning” of Gods holy name, -a profanation, in that it represented Him, the Lord of love and fatherly mercy, as requiring such a cruel and unnatural sacrifice of parental love, in the immolation of innocent children.
The inconceivably unnatural crimes prohibited in Lev 18:22-23 were in like manner essentially connected with idolatrous worship: the former with the worship of Astarte or Ashtoreth; the latter with the worship of the he-goat at Mendes in Egypt, as the symbol of the generative power in nature. What a hideous perversion of the moral sense was involved in these crimes, as thus connected with idolatrous worship, is illustrated strikingly by the fact that men and women, thus prostituted to the service of false gods, were designated by the terms qadesh and qadeshah, ” sacred,” “holy”! No wonder that the sacred writer brands these horrible crimes as, in a peculiar and almost solitary sense, “abomination,” “confusion.”
In these days of ours, when it has become the fashion among a certain class of cultured writers-who would still, in many instances, apparently desire to be called Christian-to act as the apologist of idolatrous, and, according to Holy Scripture, false religions, the mention of these crimes in this connection may well remind the reader of what such seem to forget, as they certainly ignore; namely, that in all ages, in the modern heathenism no less than in the ancient, idolatry and gross licentiousness ever go hand in hand. Still, today, even in Her Majestys Indian Empire, is the most horrible licentiousness practised as an office of religious worship. Nor are such revolting perversions of the moral sense confined to the “Maharajas” of the temples in Western India, who figured in certain trials in Bombay a few years ago; for even the modern “reformed” Hindooism, from which some hope so much, has not always been able to shake itself free from the pollution of these things, as witness the argument conducted in recent numbers of the Arya Patrika of Lahore, to justify the infamous custom known as Niyoga, practised to this day in India, e.g., by the Panday Brahmans of Allahabad; -a practice which is sufficiently described as being adultery arranged for, under certain conditions, by a wife or husband, the one for the other. One would fain charitably hope, if possible, that our modern apologists for Oriental idolatries are unaccountably ignorant of what all history should have taught them as to the inseparable connection between idolatry and licentiousness. Both Egypt and Canaan, in the olden time, -as this chapter with all contemporaneous history teaches, -and also India in modern times, read us a very awful lesson on this subject. Not only have these idolatries led too often to gross licentiousness of life, but in their full development they have, again and again, in audacious and blasphemous profanation of the most holy God, and defiance even of the natural conscience, given to the most horrible excesses of unbridled lust the supreme sanction of declaring them to be religious obligations. Assuredly, in Gods sight, it cannot be a trifling thing for any man, even through ignorance, to extol, or even apologise for, religions with which such enormities are both logically and historically connected. And so, in these stern prohibitions, and their heavy penal sanctions, we may find a profitable lesson for even the cultivated intellect of the nineteenth century!
The chapter closes with reiterated charges against indulgence in any of these abominations. Israel is told (Lev 18:25, Lev 18:28) that it was because the Canaanites practised these enormities that God was about to scourge them out of their land; -a judicial reason which, one would think, should have some weight with those whose sympathies are so drawn out with commiseration for the Canaanites, that they find it impossible to believe that it can be true, as we are told in the Pentateuch, that God ordered their extermination. Rather, in the light of the facts, would we raise the opposite question: whether, if God indeed be a holy and righteous Governor among the nations, He could do anything else either in justice toward the Canaanites, or in mercy toward those whom their horrible example would certainly in like manner corrupt, than, in one way or another, effect the extermination of such a people?
Israel is then solemnly warned (Lev 18:28) that if they, notwithstanding, shall practise these crimes, God will not spare them any more than He spared the Canaanites. No covenant of His with them shall hinder the land from spueing them out in like manner. And though the nation, as a whole, give not itself to these things, each individual is warned (Lev 18:29), “Whosoever shall commit any of these abominations, even the souls that do them shall be cut off from among their people”; that is, shall be outlawed and shut out from all participation in covenant mercies. And therewith this part of the law of holiness closes, with those pregnant words, repeated now in this chapter for the fifth time: “I am the Lord (Heb. Jehovah) your God!”