Leviticus 20:1

spake unto Moses, saying, 2 Again, thou shalt say to the children of Israel, Whosoever he be of the children of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn in Israel, that giveth any of his seed unto Molech; he shall surely be put to death: the people of the land shall stone him with stones. 3 And I will set my face against that man, and will cut him off from among his people; because he hath given of his seed unto Molech, to defile my sanctuary, and to profane my holy name. 4 And if the people of the land do any ways hide their eyes from the man, when he giveth of his seed unto Molech, and kill him not: 5 Then I will set my face against that man, and against his family, and will cut him off, and all that go a whoring after him, to commit whoredom with Molech, from among their people. 6 And the soul that turneth after such as have familiar spirits, and after wizards, to go a whoring after them, I will even set my face against that soul, and will cut him off from among his people. 7 Sanctify yourselves therefore, and be ye holy: for I am the LORD your God. 8 And ye shall keep my statutes, and do them: I am the LORD which sanctify you. 9 For every one that curseth his father or his mother shall be surely put to death: he hath cursed his father or his mother; his blood shall be upon him. Moses is here directed to say that again to the children of Israel which he had in effect said before, v. 2.

20:1-9 Are we shocked at the unnatural cruelty of the ancient idolaters in sacrificing their children? We may justly be so. But are there not very many parents, who, by bad teaching and wicked examples, and by the mysteries of iniquity which they show their children, devote them to the service of Satan, and forward their everlasting ruin, in a manner even more to be lamented? What an account must such parents render to God, and what a meeting will they have with their children at the day of judgment! On the other hand, let children remember that he who cursed father or mother was surely put to death. This law Christ confirmed. Laws which were made before are repeated, and penalties annexed to them. If men will not avoid evil practices, because the law has made these practices sin, and it is right that we go on that principle, surely they should avoid them when the law has made them death, from a principle of self-preservation. In the midst of these laws comes in a general charge, Sanctify yourselves, and be ye holy. It is the Lord that sanctifies, and his work will be done, though it be difficult. Yet his grace is so far from doing away our endeavours, that it strongly encourages them. Work out your salvation, for it is God that worketh in you.

XX. (1) And the Lord spake unto Moses.—It is difficult to account for the position of this chapter. Naturally we should expect it to follow Leviticus 18. If Leviticus 20 contains the penalties attached to the sins enumerated in Leviticus 18, we should expect it immediately to follow that chapter. It may, however, be that before enacting these severe punishments, the Lawgiver wanted to appeal to the high calling of the nation, to qualify them by the sublime precepts laid down in Leviticus 19 for obedience to the laws in Leviticus 18, and that in the chapter before us the civil punishments are set forth as an alternative for those who will not be guided by the spiritual sentiments enunciated in Leviticus 19.

CHAPTER 20 Le 20:1-27. Giving One's Seed to Molech.Israelites must not offer their children to Molech on pain of death, Leviticus 20:1-3; which if not inflicted by the magistrate, shall be by God himself, Leviticus 20:4,5. The same against running after soothsayers, Leviticus 20:6; against cursers of parents, Leviticus 20:9; against adulterer, Leviticus 20:10, or incestuous and unlawful copulation with women, men, or beasts, Leviticus 20:11-21. They must put a differencebetween clean and unclean, Leviticus 20:22-26. Soothsayers to be stoned, Leviticus 20:27. No text from Poole on this verse.

[Reformed Biblical] is, Those idols and idolatries will defile you and make you worse, but I only and my service will sanctify you and make you better. Leviticus 20:9 For, or, surely, as that particle, chi, is oft used, as Job_8:6 20:20. So there needs no dispute about the connexion, or what this is a reason of. Curseth; which is not meant of every perverse expression, but of bitter reproaches or imprecations. Or his mother; Heb. and put for or, as hath been noted before. ## His blood shall be upon him; he is guilty of his own death; he deserves to die for so unnatural a crime. Leviticus 20:10 Leviticus 20:11 Leviticus 20:12 By perverting the order which God hath appointed, and mixing the blood which God would have separated, and making the same offspring both his own immediate child and his grandchild, ## they have wrought confusion. Leviticus 20:13 Except the one party was forced by the other. See Deu_22:25. Leviticus 20:14 ## It is wickedness, i.e. abominable and extraordinary wickedness, as the singularity of the punishment showeth. ## Both he and they; either, or both or all of them, if they consented to it. Leviticus 20:15 Partly, for the prevention of monstrous births; partly, to blot out the memory of so loathsome a crime; and partly, th at by so severe a punishment of that creature which was only a passive instrument to man’s sin,

[Reformed Biblical] stoned, Lev_20:27. Leviticus 20:2 Here follow the punishments of the crimes forbidden in the former chapters. ## The strangers; not only such as were proselytes, but all others, these being gross immoralities, and such as the precepts of Noah reached to, and such as the laws of nature and nations obliged them to. And therefore the toleration of such actions was not only against reason of state, and the interest of the commonwealth of Israel, and dangerous to the infection and destruction of the Israelites by the imitation of such examples, but also against the light of nature and laws of humanity. ## Unto Molech, or to any other idol; for the reason of t he law equally concerns all. See Lev_18:21. Leviticus 20:3 ## I will set my face against that man, i.e. deal with him as an enemy, and make him a monument of my justice, either by punishing him immediately and eminently, when the magistrate cannot or will not do it, or by adding to his corporal punishments my curse upon his soul and name. See Lev_17:10. ## From among his people; from the number of his people, of what nation or kindred soever he was; or, from the land of the living. ## To defile my sanctuary, which was done by this wickedness, either because such persons did, for the cover of their idolatry, come into God’s sanctuary, as the rest did; see Lev_15:31; or because the sanctuary was, and was said to be, defiled by gross abominations c

THE CEREMONIAL LAWS OF GOD. ICO] [Exod.xxii. the Lord. "Thou shalt not," saith the Lord, " suffer witches sons, nor the sons for the fathers : but every one shall be slain for his own offence." Neither doth the law conceal the manner of killing : for it giveth the use of the sword, of stones, and of fire, into the magistrate's hands. And sometime it is left to the judge's discretion to punish the offender according to the circumstance of the crime committed, either in body or goods, in loss of limbs or life, in scourging with rods, or selling into bondage. In the twentieth chapter of Leviticus all the offences are almost reckoned up that are to be punished with present death. And in like manner the like are repeated in the eighteenth and twenty-first chapter of the same book. Witches and Agaiust witchos and soothsayers^ there is precise charge soot sayers. ^■^^^^ -^^ ^l^^ eighteenth of Deuteronomy. In the nineteenth of Leviticus this short precept is given: " Ye shall not seek after witches, nor observe your dreams: ye shall not decline to sorcerers, nor inquire of soothsayers to be defiled by them.'" Against such the lavv doth expressly give judgment of death and extreme punishment, Leviticus xx. In the twenty-second of Exodus this strait sentence is sharply pronounced: " Let not a woman live that is a witch." Heretics and Agaiust hcrctics, schismatics, apostates, and false prophets, yh^u""' the law giveth judgment in the thirteenth and eighteenth [1 Mathciuaticis, Lat. Sco Vol. i. p. 221, note 7.]

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