Leviticus 18:25

18:1-30 Unlawful marriages and fleshly lusts. - Here is a law against all conformity to the corrupt usages of the heathen. Also laws against incest, against brutal lusts, and barbarous idolatries; and the enforcement of these laws from the ruin of the Canaanites. God here gives moral precepts. Close and constant adherence to God's ordinances is the most effectual preservative from gross sin. The grace of God only will secure us; that grace is to be expected only in the use of the means of grace. Nor does He ever leave any to their hearts' lusts, till they have left him and his services.

And the land is defiled,.... The inhabitants of it, with the immoralities and idolatries before mentioned: therefore I do visit the iniquity thereof upon it; or punish the inhabitants that are on it for their sins: and the land itself vomiteth out her inhabitants; as a stomach loaded with corrupt and bad food it has taken in, nauseates it, and cannot bear and retain it, but casts it up, and never receives it again; so the land of Canaan is represented as loathing its inhabitants, and as having an aversion to them, and indignation against them, and as not being able to bear them, but entirely willing to be rid of them and throw them out of their places in it, never to be admitted more, being as nauseous and as useless as the cast of a man's stomach; see Revelation 3:16.

And the land is defiled: therefore I do {m} visit the iniquity thereof upon it, and the land itself {n} vomiteth out her inhabitants. (m) I will punish the land where such incestuous marriages and pollutions are tolerated. (n) He compares the wicked to evil humours and overeating, which corrupt the stomach, and oppress nature, and therefore must be cast out by vomit.

The land designed and consecrated for His people by Yahweh Leviticus 25:23 is here impersonated, and represented as vomiting forth its present inhabitants, in consequence of their indulgence in the abominations that have been mentioned. The iniquity of the Canaanites was now full. See Genesis 15:16 ; compare Isaiah 24:1-6 . The Israelites in this place, and throughout the chapter, are exhorted to a pure and holy life, on the ground that Yahweh, the Holy One, is their God and that they are His people. Compare Leviticus 19:2 . It is upon this high sanction that they are peremptorily forbidden to defile themselves with the pollutions of the pagan. The only punishment here pronounced upon individual transgressors is, that they shall "bear their iniquity" and be "cut off from among their people." We must understand this latter phrase as expressing an "ipso facto" excommunication or outlawry, the divine Law pronouncing on the offender an immediate forfeiture of the privileges which belonged to him as one of the people in covenant with Yahweh. See Exodus 31:14 note. The course which the Law here takes seems to be first to appeal to the conscience of the individual man on the ground of his relation to Yahweh, and then Leviticus 20 to enact such penalties as the order of the state required, and as represented the collective conscience of the nation put into operation.

(25) The land itself vomiteth out her inhabitants. —From the creation the earth shared in the punishment of man’s guilt ( Genesis 3:17 ), and at the restitution of all things she is to participate in his restoration ( Romans 8:19-22 ). The physical condition of the land, therefore, depends upon the moral conduct of man. When he disobeys God’s commandments she is parched up and does not yield her fruit” ( Deuteronomy 11:17 ). “The land is defiled” when he defiles himself. When he walks in the way of the Divine commands she is blessed ( Leviticus 25:19 ; Leviticus 26:4 ); “God is merciful unto his land and to his people” ( Deuteronomy 32:43 ). Hence, “the earth mourneth” when her inhabitants sin ( Isaiah 24:4-5 ), and “the earth is glad” when God avenges the cause of His people ( Psalm 96:11-13 ). It is owing to this intimate connection between them that the land, which is here personified, is represented as loathing the wicked conduct of her children and being unable to restrain them. She nauseated them. The same figure is used in Leviticus 18:28 ; Leviticus 20:22 ; and in Revelation 3:16 .

25. therefore I do visit the iniquity thereof upon it; and the land itself vomiteth out her inhabitants—The Canaanites, as enormous and incorrigible sinners, were to be exterminated; and this extermination was manifestly a judicial punishment inflicted by a ruler whose laws had been grossly and perseveringly outraged. But before a law can be disobeyed, it must have been previously in existence; and hence a law, prohibiting all the horrid crimes enumerated above—a law obligatory upon the Canaanites as well as other nations—was already known and in force before the Levitical law of incest was promulgated. Some general Iaw, then, prohibiting these crimes must have been published to mankind at a very early period of the world's history; and that law must either have been the moral law, originally written on the human heart, or a law on the institution of marriage revealed to Adam and known to the Canaanites and others by tradition or otherwise.

In the concluding exhortation God pointed expressly to the fact, that the nations which He was driving out before the Israelites (the participle משׁלּח is used of that which is certainly and speedily coming to pass) had defiled the land by such abominations as those, that He had visited their iniquity and the land had spat out its inhabitants, and warned the Israelites to beware of these abominations, that the land might not spit them out as it had the Canaanites before them. The pret. ותּקא ( Leviticus 18:25 ) and קאה ( Leviticus 18:28 ) are prophetic (cf. Leviticus 20:22-23 ), and the expression is poetical. The land is personified as a living creature, which violently rejects food that it dislikes. "Hoc enim tropo vult significare Scriptura enormitatem criminum, quod scilicet ipsae creaturae irrationales suo creatori semper obedientes et pro illo pugnantes detestentur peccatores tales eosque terra quasi evomat, cum illi expelluntur ab ea" (C. a Lap.).

[Reformed Biblical] Leviticus 25:12 ## It shall be holy unto you: so it was, because it was sequestered in great part from worldly employments, and dedicated to God, and to the exercise of holy joy and thankfulness; and because it was a type of that holy and happy jubilee which they were to expect and enjoy by and under the Messias. ## The increase thereof; such things as it produced of itself; for the year before nothing was sowed. Out of the field; whence they in common with others might take it as they needed it; but must not put it into barns. See Lev_25:5 Exo_23:11. Leviticus 25:13 Leviticus 25:14 Neither the seller by requiring more, nor the buyer by taking the advantage from his brother’s necessities to give him less than the worth of it. Leviticus 25:15 Or, ## of years of fruits, or, of fruitful years ; for there were some unfruitful years, to wit, such wherein they were not allowed to sow or reap, &c. Leviticus 25:16 Or, for the number of the fruits. The meaning is, he selleth not the land, but only the fruits thereof, and that for a certain time. Leviticus 25:17 Leviticus 25:18 Leviticus 25:19 Leviticus 25:20 A like objection, see Exo_34:23,24. Leviticus 25:21 i.e. Give ## my blessing. Commanding is oft used in Scripture either for the performance of promised blessings, as Deu_28:8 Psa_111:9 133:3, or for the execution of threatened judgments, as Isa_5:6 Amo_9:4; both being acts of God’s providential will, as the command is of his legislative will.

They were rather the preamble, as Calvin says, by which God prepared the minds of the people for obeying them, and in this sense they were frequently repeated to give emphasis to other laws, sometimes in full, as in Exodus 29:46 ; Leviticus 19:36 ; Leviticus 23:43 ; Leviticus 25:38 , Leviticus 25:55 ; Leviticus 26:13 , etc., sometimes in the abridged form, "I am Jehovah your God," as in Leviticus 11:44 ; Leviticus 18:2 , Leviticus 18:4 , Leviticus 18:30 ; Leviticus 19:4 , Leviticus 19:10 , Leviticus 19:25 , Leviticus 19:31 , Leviticus 19:34 ; Leviticus 20:7 , etc., for which the simple expression, "I am Jehovah," is now and then substituted, as in Leviticus 19:12-13 , Leviticus 19:16 , Leviticus 19:18 , etc.

There were three different circumstances possible, under which emancipation might take place. The servant might have been unmarried and continued so (בּגפּו: with his body, i.e., alone, single): in that case, of course, there was no one else to set at liberty. Or he might have brought a wife with him; and in that case his wife was to be set at liberty as well. Or his master might have given him a wife in his bondage, and she might have borne him children: in that case the wife and children were to continue the property of the master. This may appear oppressive, but it was an equitable consequence of the possession of property in slaves at all. At the same time, in order to modify the harshness of such a separation of husband and wife, the option was given to the servant to remain in his master's service, provided he was willing to renounce his liberty for ever ( Exodus 21:5 , Exodus 21:6 ). This would very likely be the case as a general rule; for there were various legal arrangements, which are mentioned in other places, by which the lot of Hebrew slaves was greatly softened and placed almost on an equality with that of hired labourers (cf. Exodus 23:12 ; Leviticus 25:6 , Leviticus 25:39 , Leviticus 25:43 , Leviticus 25:53 ; Deuteronomy 12:18 ; Deuteronomy 16:11 ).