Leviticus 20

        God now returns to the subject of moral purity among the children of Israel which He first addressed in chapter 18. Where that chapter listed all of the immoral acts that are forbidden for God’s chosen people, this chapter prescribes the punishments for such acts. At first glance, this passage seems to go back and forth between the various types of sexual sin instead of simply grouping together all the verses that deal with a particular sin and its consequences. Upon closer examination, however, the organizational method being used in this chapter is according to the punishment for each category of offenses. Verses 9-16 list sins that merit the death penalty. Verses 17-19 are sins that that are punishable by being excommunicated from the community. Verses 20-21 list offenses that result in barrenness or childlessness.
            As with chapter 18, God again tells Moses the reason for such harsh punishments for these acts of gross immorality and idolatry: “And ye shall be holy unto me: for I the LORD am holy, and have severed you from other people, that ye should be mine.” (v.26) (Leviticus 19:2, 1 Peter 1:15-16) A secondary reason, also already given in chapter 18, is repeated in verse 23: “And ye shall not walk in the manners of the nation, which I cast out before you: for they committed all these things, and therefore I abhorred them.” (Leviticus 18:3, 24, Deuteronomy 9:5) God had already judged the nations of the promised land for their sin and rebellion against Him, and He is making it clear to Moses and the Israelites that they are not to repeat those sins among themselves after conquering that land. Therefore, God lays down strict and harsh punishment for any Israelite that violates these moral laws.
 
            Verses 1-5: If it wasn’t clear in chapter 18 just how much God abhorred child sacrifice, He makes it very plain here in chapter 20. Any man or woman that offers up their child to Molech is to be put to death. (v.2) (Leviticus 18:21, 2 Kings 23:10, 2 Chronicles 33:6, Jeremiah 7:31) This verse opens with the word “again”. There are many instances throughout scripture where certain phrases – or even whole verses – are repeated in different books and chapters. (Proverbs is the best example of this.) God has a habit of emphasizing specific commands or principles which He deems important for His children to remember. Throughout the last half of Exodus and all of Leviticus, we see the Lord repeating Himself as He gives His law to Moses. This isn’t because God thinks Moses didn’t hear or understand Him the first time. Rather, God is repeating Himself for emphasis. He wants to make it clear to Moses and the Israelites just how important certain things are to Him.
          Sexual purity and idolatry are at the top of that list. As we’ve already seen in Exodus, the Israelites – as well as us believers today – are very prone to stray and wander from God because of our sinful flesh. We can very easily and very quickly forget just how important it is to God that we abstain from all manner of sin and evil. There’s a good reason that Jesus compared us to sheep numerous times throughout the gospels. Sheep are dumb animals that, if left on their own, will get themselves into all manner of trouble and snares. We who are the fallen progeny of Adam are no different. Therefore, God must repeat Himself in His word so that we eventually grasp the importance of certain principles that will help us in our walk with Him.
         Verse 2 concludes with instruction for the method of execution for the guilty parents: stoning. This was the most common method used in the ANE for capital punishment. The entire Israelite community is to be the executioners. (“…the people of the land shall stone him with stones.”) As if that isn’t clear enough, God continues in verse 3: “And I will set My face against that man, and will cut him off from among his people;”. (Leviticus 17:10) This verse concludes with the statement “…profane My holy name.” God is equating the willful, deliberate murder of a human being with profaning His holy name. In other words, it’s a sin against God Himself. (Genesis 9:6)
          Furthermore, the Lord will not tolerate any Israelites that turn a blind eye to those that commit this heinous act. (v.4) Them also will He cut off from His chosen people. (v.5) This particular addendum is not found in chapter 18. It’s a very sobering thought when one considers our present age. How many of us will stand before God one day and answer for why we did nothing to speak out or demonstrate against the medical community that willfully performs abortions? How many of our leaders will be condemned by God because they purposely allowed for this vile and wicked practice?
 
          Verses 6 & 27: Anyone who seeks out mediums or soothsayers or anyone that practices divination or witchcraft of any kind will be permanently exiled from the congregation of Israel. (Leviticus 19:31, 1 Samuel 28:7) Anyone among the Israelites that practices such abomination will be put to death.
 
         Verses 7-8: God commands the children of Israel to abstain from those sins described in verses 1-6 and to strive for holiness because He is the Lord their God. (v.7) The command to keep His statutes is repeated once more. (v.8) (Leviticus 19:19, 37) By doing so, the Israelites would be sanctified unto the Lord. (Exodus 31:13, Deuteronomy 14:2, Ezekiel 37:28) The same holds true for us today. We who are saved are sanctified through daily obedience to God by striving for holiness in all areas of our life. The same commandments that he laid down here in the OT for the Israelites apply to us as well.
 
       Verses 9-16: This is a list of offenses that merit capital punishment. At the top of the list is cursing one’s parents, a violation of the fifth commandment. (v.9) (Exodus 20:12) “Such cursing meant more than uttering a word in anger. ‘To curse’ was the opposite of ‘to honor.’ To honor meant investing one’s parents with the weight of authority and attention that was due to them. To curse meant making light of their authority or treating them as despicable. In the process, one might invoke the ‘gods’ to afflict one’s parents.” (The Moody Bible Commentary) God does not take lightly the disrespect and dishonor of one’s parents. This sin springs directly from the root of pride and rebellion, both of which God hates. (Proverbs 6:16-17)
      Adultery (v.10), specific categories of incest (v.11-12, 14), homosexuality (v.13), and bestiality (v.15-16) all merited the death penalty. (Exodus 20:14, Leviticus 18:7-8, 15, 17, 20, 22-23, Deuteronomy 5:18, 22:22, 23:17, 27:20-21, Judges 19:22, John 8:4-5) Again, the word “confusion” is used in verse 12, and it means “perversion” in this context, same as in Leviticus 18:23. All of these types of sexual sin are perversions of God’s holy paradigm that was that was instituted in Genesis 2:23-24. I can’t help but wonder what our society would be like today if we arrested, tried and convicted anyone who was guilty of these sins? Would immorality and wickedness be so prevalent today if two men or two women could be executed by the state for engaging in sexual relations with one another? Or a man and woman sentenced to death for having an extramarital affair? Or a woman and the doctor who murdered her unborn baby both executed on live TV? Those punishments seem absurdly extreme and radical to us today, but that just shows how far modern society has strayed from God. Sin that was once shunned and abhorred by God’s people has become so commonplace today that we barely give it a second thought. Would we – both saved and lost alike – be so quick to run to sin if the consequences were as great and final today as they were at the time Moses was writing down this law? These laws laid down in chapters 18 and 20 clearly show how seriously God treats these perversions and profanities against Him and His holiness. His chosen people are to look at these sins with the same amount of hatred and intolerance as the Lord their God sees them.
             It's important to note here that the death penalty – and other punishments listed in this chapter – are only carried out upon the unrepentant. We must keep in mind the whole of the law as we read through these books of Moses. God stated clearly in the previous chapters of Leviticus that there is forgiveness for all these types of sins through specific offerings and blood sacrifices. So the fact that such harsh and final judgment is prescribed here implies that there will be some who will refuse to repent of their sin. In those instances, God’s wrath and judgment are justified and carried out accordingly by Moses and the other leaders.
           And, again, the same holds true for our world today. Those who refuse to turn from their sin and wickedness will face God’s justified and eternal wrath. Accordingly, those who repent and accept the shed blood of Jesus Christ as payment for their sins will be saved from that terrible wrath.
 
        Verses 17-19: There is a distinction drawn in the text here between the incest committed by a man and his daughter-in-law (v.12) or a man and his stepmother (v.11), and all other categories of incest. (Leviticus 18:9, 13, Deuteronomy 27:22) Only those first two seem to merit the death penalty, while all the others are punished by excommunication (“…cut off in the sight of their people…”) from the Israelite community. (v.17, 19) The reason for that distinction is not explained. Suffice it to say, because God said so. A man who sleeps with a woman who is in the midst of her monthly period will also result in permanent exile for both of them. (v.18) (Leviticus 15:24, 18:19)
 
            Verses 20-21: Incest between a woman and her nephew, as well as a man and his brother’s wife (while the brother is still alive), is punished by infertility. (Leviticus 18:14, 16, Matthew 14:3-4) This type of incest is different from the others described in verses 11, 12 and 14 in that the man and woman in this instance are not related by blood but through marriage instead. This also demonstrates the extent of God’s sovereignty over all of His creation. It is only by His hand that life is allowed to be conceived within the womb, a very sobering and awesome thing to consider and meditate upon.
 
          It’s good to pause here and address a subject that I have heard often on social media from atheists, skeptics, and other critics of Christianity and the Bible. It’s actually a criticism I used to have myself before I was saved, and it’s typically phrased as follows: “Where did Cain get his wife?” Immediately following expulsion from the garden of Eden, Adam and Eve were the only two people on the entire earth. We also know they had many children – both male and female – besides Cain, Abel and Seth. But scripture does not record their names or any other details about them. After telling us of the birth of Seth at the end of the chapter 4, Genesis 5 gives us a lengthy genealogy of Adam’s descendants, but it lists only the male heirs and the total years of each man’s life. That chapter gives no other explanation of where these men – especially Seth and Cain – got their wives.
            The answer, of course, is both simple and obvious: Seth and Cain married their sisters. It’s very plausible that Adam and Eve had a dozen or more children, and with the brothers and sisters marrying one another, and then their children marrying one another, it not only answers that question of where Cain got his wife, but also explains how the entire human race descended from only Adam and Eve. But with that answer comes the next obvious question, especially in light of the laws against incest that God laying down for the Israelites here in Leviticus. Why was marriage and sexual relations with one’s siblings or cousins acceptable for Adam and Eve’s children and grandchildren, but not three or four millennia later? Even after the Flood, when only Noah, his wife, his three sons and their wives were the only humans left on the entire planet, it was okay for the children of Shem, Ham, and Japheth to marry one another in order to repopulate the world.
            The answer here is also simple and obvious. It’s clear that the only way for Noah’s family to repopulate the earth was through incest, and therefore God allowed it. But now, two or three thousand years later, when the world’s population has reached a size that makes intermarrying among one’s family members no longer necessary, God declares that incest is against His law and punishable by either death or excommunication from the Israelite nation. It’s also closely tied with the condition of the human genome and the physical state of the world both before and after the Flood compared to the time of the Israelites’ exodus from Egypt and even compared to our world today. Remember that the consequence of sin for Adam and Eve – and all their progeny – is spiritual and physical death. Yet the physical world before the Flood, when it never rained, and the canopy of water was still locked in place above the earth, was a very different climate than the world after the Flood. Before the days of Noah, man lived for hundreds of years. After the Flood, that life span radically shortened. Abraham lived to be a hundred and seventy-five and his great-grandson, Joseph, died at a hundred and ten years old. Moses’ total years will be only a hundred and twenty. (Deuteronomy 34:7)
            The consequence of sin, right up to our modern age, means that our genetic structure and the general health of our DNA as a human race is nowhere near as robust and hardy as it was for Adam and Eve or Noah. Even a brief study of the kings and queens of England in the last five hundred years will prove just how weak the human genome has become. The offspring of incestual marriage now produces all kinds of genetic defects, besides being against God’s moral law, and thus it is forbidden today, just as it was for Moses and the Israelites.
            Not only that, but God also makes it clear here in Leviticus – and earlier in Exodus – that the heathen nations of the promised land are practicing all manner of sexual perversion, such as homosexuality and bestiality, besides incest. It can be easily inferred from the text that human morality has decayed to such an extreme state of depravity that it is now necessary for God’s chosen people to separate from that kind of immoral behavior. Therefore God is declaring a new age of dispensation in how he deals with His creation, and the new law states clearly and explicitly that marriage to one’s immediate family members – whether related by blood or through marriage – is forbidden.
 
         Verses 22-26: God reiterates to Moses His reason for these laws. The Israelites are a chosen people, called by Him to be separated from the pagan peoples of the promised land. (v.22-24.) (Exodus 3:17, 6:8, 13:5, 33:1) The Lord’s promise to Abraham of that land is part of His judgment against those heathen nations because of the abominations that they practice. God abhors them and their wickedness. (v.23) He charges Moses once more to make a distinction between the clean and unclean, the holy and the unholy, “…for I the Lord am holy, and have severed you from other people, that ye should be mine.” (v.26) (Exodus 19:5, 33:16, Deuteronomy 7:6, 14:2, 1 Kings 8:53) The holiness of God is not something to be taken lightly or casually dismissed. Those to whom He is Lord – whether the children of Israel at Mount Sinai or us today – are expected to live lives that reflect that holiness. To ignore that command or to do less than our best is to sin against Almighty God.