Leviticus 20
Death Penalty for Worshipping Molech 1–6
The Call to Holiness 7–8
Penalties for Specific Immorality 9–21
Exhortation to Separation and the Penalty for Consulting Spirits 22–27
Bible text: King James Version (1769 Blayney text) · Public domain
Study Notes for Leviticus 20
Verse 2
giveth any of his seed unto Molech — 18:21 forbids letting a child ‘pass through the fire to Molech’. The penalty binds the native Israelite and ‘the strangers that sojourn in Israel’ (ger) alike, and falls to ‘the people of the land’, who ‘shall stone him with stones’ (ragam). Josiah later ‘defiled Topheth’ to stop the practice (2 Kings 23:10).
Verse 3
set my face against that man — Karath, to cut off, is the LORD’s own sentence. The two reasons given are to ‘defile my sanctuary’ and ‘profane my holy name’. Ezekiel describes the same double offence: ‘when they had slain their children to their idols, then they came the same day into my sanctuary to profane it’ (Ezek 23:39).
Verse 5
go a whoring after him — Zanah is to play the harlot, and Scripture uses it of idolatry. The family is named with the man (mishpachah), and so are ‘all that go a whoring after him’. The Psalm applies the word to this very sin: Israel sacrificed ‘their sons and their daughters’ and ‘went a whoring with their own inventions’ (Ps 106:37–39).
Verse 6
familiar spirits — The sin of 19:31 now carries its sentence, again as going ‘a whoring after them’ (zanah, as in v.5). The penalty is stated in v.27. Saul ‘died for his transgression’ and for ‘asking counsel of one that had a familiar spirit’ (1 Chr 10:13); see his visit to Endor in 1 Sam 28:7.
Verse 7
Sanctify yourselves — Qadash is to make holy, and it is both commanded here and promised in v.8: ‘ye shall keep my statutes, and do them: I am the LORD which sanctify you.’ The call repeats 11:44 and 19:2, which Peter quotes: ‘Be ye holy; for I am holy’ (1 Pet 1:16).
Verse 9
curseth his father or his mother — Qalal is to treat as light, to curse, the verb of 19:14, ‘Thou shalt not curse the deaf’. Ex 21:17 gives the same sentence. Christ quotes it against those who set aside the command to honour parents: ‘He that curseth father or mother, let him die the death’ (Matt 15:4).
Verse 10
the adulterer and the adulteress — Naaph is the verb of the seventh commandment, used here of both parties, as in Deut 22:22, ‘both the man that lay with the woman, and the woman’. In John 8:3–5 the scribes and Pharisees bring only the woman ‘taken in adultery’, citing ‘Moses in the law’.
Verse 12
wrought confusion — Tebel is found only here and in 18:23, where it closes the law on beasts, ‘it is confusion’. The act with a daughter in law is forbidden in 18:15, ‘she is thy son’s wife’, and here both parties are put to death.
Verse 13
an abomination — To’evah is the word 18:22 uses of the same act, ‘it is abomination’. In the New Testament Paul lists ‘abusers of themselves with mankind’ among those who ‘shall not inherit the kingdom of God’ (1 Cor 6:9–10) and ‘them that defile themselves with mankind’ among those the law was given against (1 Tim 1:10).
Verse 14
it is wickedness — Zimmah is the word of 18:17, where the same union is forbidden, ‘it is wickedness’. Burning is the penalty for the daughter of a priest who plays the whore (21:9) and for Achan with the accursed thing (Josh 7:15). The sentence is carried out so ‘that there be no wickedness among you’.
Verse 20
they shall die childless — Ariri is childless, a word found only here, in v.21, in Gen 15:2 (Abram: ‘I go childless’) and in Jer 22:30. The sin is the one forbidden in 18:14, ‘thy father’s brother… she is thine aunt’. The text says the pair ‘shall bear their sin’ and gives this as the outcome.
Verse 21
an unclean thing — Niddah is the word for the impurity of a woman’s monthly separation (15:19–24; 18:19). The union is forbidden in 18:16, ‘it is thy brother’s nakedness’. The exception is a brother who dies with no child, where the surviving brother is to ‘take her to him to wife’ (Deut 25:5). John the Baptist told Herod the rule: ‘It is not lawful for thee to have her’ (Matt 14:4).
Verse 22
spue you not out — Qo is to vomit, used of the land only here and in 18:25, 28, where the land ‘spued out the nations that were before you’. The ‘statutes’ and ‘judgments’ are the pair of 19:37. Keeping them and staying in the land are tied together, as the land’s casting out of the nations shows (18:28).
Verse 24
a land that floweth with milk and honey — The description is the LORD’s promise from Egypt (Ex 3:8, 17). Badal, ‘separated’, is the verb of Gen 1:4, where God divided light from darkness; the same verb is used in vv.25–26 of the clean and unclean beasts and of Israel.
Verse 26
have severed you from other people — Badal is the same verb as in vv.24–25, with the clean beasts put apart from the unclean. The purpose is stated, ‘that ye should be mine’, as in Ex 19:5–6, ‘a peculiar treasure unto me… a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation’. Peter applies the words to the church (1 Pet 2:9).
Verse 27
a familiar spirit… a wizard — Ob and yiddeoni are the pair of 19:31 and v.6. The sentence is stoning (ragam), the verb of v.2, and ‘their blood shall be upon them’ is the formula of vv.11, 12, 13 and 16 as well, and v.9 has it as ‘his blood shall be upon him’. It covers ‘a man also or woman’, and Saul had earlier put such persons out of the land (1 Sam 28:9).