Chapter 20
This verse that goes with the paragraph below: 4 And if the people of the land do at all close their eyes to that man when he gives one of his children to Molech, and do not put him to death, [Lev 20:4 ESV]
If anyone gave his child to Molech, he was to be stoned. Anyone who refused to stone him was to be cut off from his people. God would be against those who allowed this sort of thing to go on. So there is no "live and let live" attitude about such practices. Looking the other way will have consequences. This says everyone must pick up a rock and throw it. So...if we equate sacrificing children to Molech with abortion, then we surely have a responsibility to do something about it. We are not under the law, I get that, but God does not have two sets of rules, either. It is not that one nation is ok to burn babies and other nations are not. This practice was and is universally heinous to God, and he expels those who refuse to do something about it.
Possible incendiary FB post.
Also this verse:
6 "If a person turns to mediums and necromancers, whoring after them, I will set my face against that person and will cut him off from among his people. [Lev 20:6 ESV]
This chapter seems to be continuing the list of behaviors that Israel will encounter in other nations but in which they are not to participate, much less adopt for their own nation.
For anyone who curses his father or his mother shall surely be put to death; he has cursed his father or his mother; his blood is upon him.
Leviticus 20:9 ESV
2023 - This whole section is worth looking at:
10 "If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death. [Lev 20:10 ESV].
11 If a man lies with his father's wife, he has uncovered his father's nakedness; both of them shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them.
12 If a man lies with his daughter-in-law, both of them shall surely be put to death; they have committed perversion; their blood is upon them.
13 If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them.
14 If a man takes a woman and her mother also, it is depravity; he and they shall be burned with fire, that there may be no depravity among you.
15 If a man lies with an animal, he shall surely be put to death, and you shall kill the animal.
16 If a woman approaches any animal and lies with it, you shall kill the woman and the animal; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them. [Lev 20:11-16 ESV].
Two things here. Note that there is not one penalty for the male and a different penalty for the female. If they participate in the same sins, a sin penalized by death, then BOTH are to die. This OT, and men and women are equal before the law. ONLY the Hebrews had such laws at this time. The OT, the Bible, God make no distinction between male and female before the law. Second, the penalty for ALL these sins is death. The unmistakable indication is that these sins are equally heinous to God. None is especially worse than the others in God's eyes. Sleeping with the neighbors wife is THE SAME as homosexual relations, the same as bestiality. ALL THE SAME. So we ought not go looking down our noses at people because their crimes are worse than ours. It is unlikely to be true, especially when lust in the heart is also considered.
11 If a man lies with his father's wife, he has uncovered his father's nakedness; both of them shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them. [Lev 20:11 ESV]
Given my recent "reinterpretation" from MSB that to uncover nakedness is a euphemism for sexual relations, this verse reads a bit differently. It could be that having sex with your father's wife - but who is not your own mother - is the same as having sex with your own father. Wonder if this is what really happened with Jacob's son who uncovered his father's nakedness? Seems much more likely.
2022 - No. It is just an expression of the time which meant that to have sex with one person is to make a fool of another. I think it may also be a reference to how when two get married, the two become one. Adultery in all its forms was prohibited. But in some cases, there was the added offense of becoming a third in what God meant to be two person relationship. It is always the wrong thing to do.
If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them.
Leviticus 20:13 ESV
This is the same punishment as sleeping with the neighbor's wife, though that sin is not labeled abomination.
This chapter is full of rules about sexual sin of all kinds. An MSB note says that these are the punishments for the sexual sins previously "outlawed" in 18:1-30.
2021, coming back to this as I read Num 5:11-31. In Numbers, an elaborate ritual is described for determining whether a woman has been unfaithful to her husband, if she wasn't actually caught en flagrant. If she is guilty, her womb will swell (no more children) and her thigh will "fall away". I do not know what this phrase might mean. But the point here, in Leviticus 20, is that all these prohibitions against adultery, save one, start with "If a man..." So it seems to me that the penalties resulting from a man's sin of adultery are different from those of a woman's sin of adultery. Also, here in Leviticus, we know who the guilty parties are, on both sides. In Numbers, the sin was secret, and the ritual is based on the suspicion of a husband. Only on suspicion. No witnesses. And no way to identify who the man involved was, unless the woman confesses it. If he cannot be punished with her, perhaps it was unfair for her to be stoned, while the guilty man kept his secret. That may be the key to this. The stoning occurred when all the facts were known. Becoming a curse, and never again bearing children, was the punishment if there were no witnesses, and because the ritual could determine that the woman was guilty, but not identify the other party.
This verse, giving God's reason for outlawing these things:
23 And you shall not walk in the customs of the nation that I am driving out before you, for they did all these things, and therefore I detested them. [Lev 20:23 ESV] These laws are about separating Israel, yes, but these things are also unholy, unacceptable to the God who created all men. He knows these things should not be done, and he knows the minds of those who do them. These things are all repugnant to God, and in no way serve or even acknowledge God's sovereignty.
26 You shall be holy to me, for I the LORD am holy and have separated you from the peoples, that you should be mine. [Lev 20:26 ESV]
Separation is also a big part of these rules. The world had already gotten pretty rotten again, and God separates a people out who can show the right way.
2023 - What does "cut off from his people" really mean? I did some internet research on this phrase. Many think it means put to death. I don't see that. It is something less severe than death. One article noted that many times it is God - not the Mosaic justice system - that carries out this punishment. So I see two possibilities. One would be that this persons inheritance does NOT go to his children. His land in Canaan is not inherited by HIS sons, but goes to others as if he had died childless. His name, his inheritance, would cease to exist in Israel. I sort of came up with this idea after reading other ideas. The other one that I read about that seemed possible is that being cut off means that one would not be allowed to be with his ancestors or descendants in heaven. This forever reunion would be denied to those who committed sins worthy of this penalty. This would seem to be a severe penalty, it would always be enforceable by God, and would accrue whether or not one ever "got caught" for the sin that brings this penalty. Either of these last seem pretty workable to me.
2025 - As Chapter 19, rules piled upon rules, but many of the ones in 19 are capital offenses. They don't just say not to do things, they say that those who choose to do them anyway are to be "stoned with stones". If I were looking for a loophole for this entire passage, I might rest on this verse:
22 "You shall therefore keep all my statutes and all my rules and do them, that the land where I am bringing you to live may not vomit you out. [Lev 20:22 ESV], You do these things, correctly and without compromise, so the land of Canaan will not spew you out, as it is spewing out the heathens who were there before you. Hmm...the heathens have forever and always been there first. It was Native Americans here, with their great spirits and their dolls and their medicine mean calling up magic. We ought not practice those false religions nor even revere and respect them. They are against God's Laws.
I just am not finding any...I hate to use the same phrase again, but I think it is the best phrase for this - intellectually honest justification for NOT practicing the rules given in these two chapters. The capital punishments for these crimes? Should we do that? For adultery and incest? The mind rebels at the thought of this...just as the minds of the Israelites who first received this law would have rebelled. But we're newer and smarter right, so when our minds rebel that means we shouldn't follow this law, rather than meaning we are so far from the holiness that God requires that we reject what is Holy and embrace the filth right in amongst us.
This is hard stuff here. But again, Bonhoeffer is right. Stop analyzing and DO WHAT IT SAYS!!!
2025 - I don't think God changes. If it was unholy for Israel it is unholy today, for us. I can maybe stretch out just a little on the corners of the hair and the tattoos as being commands to NOT be like the heathens in your area. No...I can't get there either. Would God say "You can do this if you just like it, but it will be counted as sin if you do it because someone who doesn't know me does it?" I reject that. If tattoos are ever wrong they are always wrong. We are too easy on ourselves while counting ourselves as fine good Christians. We are not. We can't claim holiness!