Ye shall do My judgments Leviticus 18:1-5 Safety in the observance of God's laws Bp. Babington. This preface of some is taken generally to concern all the laws of God; the observation whereof is ever the sure safety of a state public or private, for it is not the munition of walls, leagues, and alliance with foreign princes, largeness of confines, plenty of treasure, or such like, that preserve a commonwealth, but careful and diligent observation of public laws ordained of God for the good of man. It is said that Lacedemon flourished whilst Lycurgus's laws were observed: much more any commonwealth when God's be kept. For what comparison betwixt man's laws and God's? Demosthenes saith, It was the manner of the Loerenses, that if any man would publish and devise a new law he should put his neck into a halter ready to be put to death, if the law were not good, by which means they made men more careful to observe old and ancient, tried and known laws, than with busy heads to make new. Now what laws so old and so approved good as God's laws? Ever, therefore, are they to be regarded and hearkened unto. Others take this preface particularly of these laws concerning marriage now following, that if they be carefully kept, a kingdom long flourisheth, and if not, soon ii cometh to a fearful fall. For so odious and abhorred of God is the unlawful mixture of man and woman that the Lord cannot long withhold great judgments. And thus much remember as you read them ever, that these laws do not concern the Jews only, as the ceremonial laws now spoken of and judicial did, but these laws belong to all men and women and to all succeeding times, being eternal, immutable, grafted by God in man's nature and given by Him for holiness' sake. Note all the words well that God would not have them like either the Egyptians or Canaanites, and wish with me that there was a like law against our being like foreign nations near us, with ruffs dipped in the devil's liquor called starch, Turkish heads, Spanish backs, Italian waists, &c., giving daily occasion to the mockers that say French nets catch English fools. ( Bp. Babington. ) None of you shall approach to any that is near of kin to him. Leviticus 18:6-30 Consanguinity A. Willet, D. D. 1. God the institutor of marriage (ver. 6). 2. Faith in Christ not commanded in the law (ver. 5). 3. Of the several kinds of kindred by consanguinity or affinity. 4. Of the computation of the degrees of consanguinity.(1) Consanguinity is a communicating in blood, derived from one stock.(2) Affinity is a respective alliance and kindred which comes in by marriage.(3) A line is a collection of persons coming from the stock.(4) And it is threefold: the right line Ascending, as the father, grandfather; or descending, as the son, &c. or collateral above, as the father's brother — or in the middle, as brother, sister, uncle's children — or below, as brother's son or daughter, and their sons and daughters.(5) A degree is the distance of persons from the stock.(6) In the right line ascending or descending, there are as many degrees as generations and persons.(7) In the collateral line there are as many degrees as persons.(8) In the collateral line the prohibition is extended to the fourth degree.(9) In the right line ascending and descending, the impediment is perpetual when they are alive or dead, as grounded upon the law of nature.(10) The same degrees are forbidden ascending and descending by the like analogy.(11) The same degrees are restrained by the like analogy in both sexes.(12) Where the degree further off is forbidden, the nearer are inclusively interdicted. 5. Of the computation of the degrees of affinity.(1) In what degree of consanguinity the husband is distant, in the same degree of affinity the wife is removed, because man and wife are one flesh.(2) One person added to another by carnal copulation changes the kind of affinity, not the degree: as the brother's wife is of affinity in the second degree, and first kind; if after she marry another husband, he is in the same degree of affinity, but in the second kind.(3) There are three kinds of affinity — the near, middle, and remote: as the brother's wife is in the first kind, the brother's wife's second husband in the second, the second husband's second wife in the third.(4) Affinity in the first kind is a perpetual impediment.(5) Between such as are of kindred in blood to the husband, and them that are of kin to the wife, there is no affinity to hinder marriage: as, two brothers may marry two sisters.(6) In the degrees of affinity ascending and descending in the right line, the prohibition is infinitely extended without any limitation: as, it is not lawful to marry the wife's daughter's daughter, and so downward, nor the wife's mother, or grandmother, and so upward.(7) In the collateral line, affinity is restrained to the third degree, as to uncle's wife, who is in the same degree of affinity that her husband is in consanguinity.(8) Of the agreements and differences between the degrees of consanguinity and affinity.(1) Agreement. (a) In what degree one is of consanguinity, the wife or husband is in the same degree of affinity. (b) The impediment in both continues not only during life but afterward. (c) The prohibition extends itself in both alike, in the right line ascending and descending without limitation; and in the collateral to the third degree expressly, and by a certain analogy to the fourth.(2) Differences. (a) The efficient cause of consanguinity is a natural obligation, without any relation to the will and consent of man, in the propagation and the line of consanguinity; but in affinity there is a voluntary bond or obligation by consent in marriage. (b) Consanguinity is by generation from one, both father and mother; affinity is by the copulation of two. The first is real, the second by relation. (c) In consanguinity, on both sides the bond holds, both by the father and mother, but the kinsmen of the husband are not of affinity to the kindred of the wife; on the contrary, affinity holds only in the first kind, which changes by a new copulation, though the degree alter not, as the brother's wife's second husband is not properly of affinity; but in consanguinity, the kind and degree hold out together. 6. Marriage of divers wives successively, lawful, though not together (ver. 18). 7. The Scripture most pure, even when it makes mention of impure and obscene things. ( A. Willet, D. D. ) Moral observations A. Willet, D. D. 1. To walk constantly in the obedience of God's law (ver. 4). 2. Against the monstrous sin of adultery (ver. 20). 3. Against the unnatural and most abominable sin of bestiality (ver. 23). 4. To profit by other men's examples, and to be warned by their punishments (ver. 25). 5. God not partial in His judgments, and therefore no man should presume (ver. 28). ( A. Willet, D. D. ) On marriage with a deceased wife's sister M. M. Kalisch, Ph. D. By the wording of the Hebrew text a man is permitted to marry his deceased wife's sister, but not to have two sisters for wives at the same time, or one after the other while both are living — this is the logical inference to be drawn from the qualifying addition "in her lifetime"; and yet by the spirit of the Levitical laws, the former alliance also is like an alliance with a sister, and therefore no less objectionable. Such scruples were indeed unknown to the Hebrews of earlier times, since even in Genesis Jacob is represented as the husband of the sisters Rachel and Leah; but they followed with necessity from the severe theory of marriage gradually worked out and adopted. Philo, in the oldest explanation of our law that has come down to us, observes that it is impious for one sister to usurp the place of the other, and to make the misfortune of the latter a stepping-stone of her own happiness; thus bitter jealousies and implacable enmities must be engendered; and it would be as if the different members of the body, abandoning their natural harmony and fellowship, were to quarrel with one another, thus inevitably causing incurable diseases and endless mischief. In this sense the prohibition has commonly been understood, and if the words of our verse alone are weighed, it can hardly be understood otherwise: and yet the matrimonial laws, taken as a whole, were not prompted by considerations of mere expediency, such as the prevention of unsisterly rivalry, since their main object was to warn against alliances between near relations (ver. 6). From whatever side we weigh the question, we cannot help being struck by the incongruity of a code which permits a woman to marry, at least under certain conditions, her sister's husband, but expressly forbids a man to marry his brother's wife. If the wife dies, her husband does not cease to be the brother of that wife's sister; yet practical life seemed to demand some relief from the rigour of abstract logic, and the prohibition was limited to the lifetime of both sisters. It has bee contended that this was a concession analogous to the levirat and the permission of divorce; but the cases are not quite parallel: the Levitical legislators are entirely silent with regard to the levirat and divorce; for in their own time the former was unnecessary, and the latter was strongly opposed by contemporaries, such as Malachi; a direct repeal of the two statutes, known to the people as a part of Deuteronomy, or "the Book of the Law," was unfeasible; and silence on these subjects was sufficiently significant. We need hardly add that these remarks are merely designed to elucidate the meaning and intention of the command, without attempting to decide upon its value or its binding force; the latter points must be left to individual judgment and feeling, which in no other sphere claim greater respect and freedom. The prevailing laws of matrimony may possibly, in the course of time, call for revision; and progress and liberty of action should not be checked by a misconception of Biblical authority. The very verse under consideration affords the strongest proof that the ordinances of the Levitical code are not final and unalterable; for this verse involves the sanction of polygamy, which, not even abrogated by Christ and the apostles, is now regarded by western Jews and Christians not merely as inexpedient, but as immoral. It is well known that from comparatively early times, many chiefs of the Christian Church indeed translated the words of our verse literally, yet weighing the spirit of the law, were strongly opposed to the marriage with the deceased wife's sister. By the Apostolic Canons (about 300) persons contracting such an alliance were for ever incapacitated for clerical functions. The Council of Illiberis (about 305) excluded them from holy communion for five years; St. Basil (375) imposed upon them for seven years the ecclesiastical penalties fixed for adultery; his celebrated letter on the subject proves that, in the Church "a custom equivalent to a law, and handed down by holy men" had been established against such marriages; it was in his time probably that the Septuagint (in Deuteronomy 27:23 ) received the interpolation found in the Vatican copy of that version, "Cursed be he who lies with his wife's sister"; and similar views were enforced by the emperors Constantius and , Honorius, Theodosius II., and , and by all the leaders of the Greek and Latin Church: the only notable exception is Diodorus , bishop of Tarsus; but he was indignantly opposed by his contemporary St. Basil, who declared that such marriages are indeed permitted to the Jews because they are under the law and all its ceremonial enactments, but not to the free Christians, and asked how the offspring of the two sisters would be related to each other, whether they should be called cousins or brothers, since by a deplorable "confusion" they could claim both names. In England those marriages were forbidden in 1603 by the Convocation of the province of Canterbury in a Canon which has never been formally ratified by Parliament. Dispensations were, however, readily granted in the Roman Church; and since the last century many Protestant theologians and jurists, and among the first those of the pietistic schools, as Philip Jacob Spener, declared marriage with the deceased wife's sister unobjectionable, since the prohibition is not unequivocally enjoined in the Bible. It was disapproved of by the Karaites; but among the bulk of the Jews it has at all times not only been tolerated but encouraged. ( M. M. Kalisch, Ph. D. ) Of unlawful marriages G. Bush. As the chosen and covenant tribes of Israel were soon to take up their journey to the land of Canaan, the inhabitants of which were to be exterminated for their multifarious iniquities in the sight of God, a recital is here made of some of those aggravated forms of wickedness which were rife among them, and which God had determined signally to punish. This is done not only to illustrate the justice of the Divine proceedings in their excision, but also with a view to put the peculiar people themselves on their guard against yielding to the contagion of their pernicious example, and thus becoming obnoxious to the same fearful retributions which were now about to be visited upon the Canaanites. The particular class of abominations more especially pointed out in this chapter, and to which the brand-mark of the Divine reprobation is so conspicuously affixed, is that of incestuous connections. Not only had that abandoned race been guilty of a total apostacy from the worship of the true God, substituting in His room the sun, and moon, and host of heaven, and bowing down to stocks and stones and creeping things, but they had mingled with their idolatry every vice that could degrade human nature and pollute society. In the black catalogue of these the abominations of lust Stand pre-eminent; and whether in the form of adultery, fornication, incest, sodomy, or bestiality, they had now risen to a pitch of enormity which the forbearance of heaven could tolerate no longer, and of which a shuddering dread was to be begotten in the minds of the people of the covenant. And in order that no possible plea of ignorance or uncertainty might be left in their minds as to those connections which were lawful and those which were forbidden, the Most High proceeds in the present and in the 20th chapter to lay down a number of specific prohibitions on this subject, so framed, as not only to include the extra-nuptial pollutions, which had prevailed among the heathen, but also all those incestuous unions which were inconsistent with the purit and sanctity of the marriage relation. Both classes of crimes we think are in fact included; so that it is doing no violence to the spirit of the text to regard it as containing a system of marriage-laws by which the peculiar people were ever after to be governed. As this is the only passage in the compass of the whole Bible where any formal enactments are given on this subject, this and the connected chapters treating of this theme have always been deemed of peculiar importance in their relations to the question of the lawful degrees within which the marriage connection may now be formed by those who make the law of God the great standard of moral duty. ( G. Bush. ) The wilderness a suitable place for the giving of these laws Bp. Kidder. The wilderness in which they now were was a very fit place for enjoining these laws upon the Israelites, as they were now removed from the snares and temptations of Egypt, and were not yet mingled with the people of Canaan. ( Bp. Kidder. ) Need for marriage laws H. Cowles, D. D. The necessity for laws on this point at once discriminating, wise, and stringent, will be sufficiently obvious when we consider the strength of the passion to be controlled — constitutionally common to all ages of the world; the sacredness of the marriage relation and the inestimable value of moral purity in all human society — also common to all ages of the world's history; and (peculiar to the earlier ages) the necessity of defining the limits of consanguinity within which marriage should be prohibited. Perhaps we need to remind ourselves that the race having sprung from a single pair and the world having been repeopled a second time from one family, those primitive examples may have sent down for many generations a certain looseness which called for special restraint and a carefully defining law. The crimes of Sodom, their polluting influence in so good a family as that of Lot; the low morals of Egyptian life; some sad manifestations in the early history of Jacob's family; the horrible contagion of Moab and Midian when the tribes of Israel came socially near them; these and kindred facts will be readily recalled as in point to show the necessity of vigorous legislation in the Mosaic code to counteract these untoward influences of their antecedent life and of surrounding society. ( H. Cowles, D. D. ).

Benson Commentary Leviticus 18:1 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, Leviticus 18:1 . It being one special design of God to preserve his people from the lewd and idolatrous customs of other nations, Moses now receives particular orders to prohibit the Israelites from many of those unnatural practices which were common among the ancient idolaters. Leviticus 18:2 Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, I am the LORD your God. Leviticus 18:2 . Your God — Your sovereign and lawgiver. This is often repeated, because the things here forbidden were practised and allowed by the Gentiles, to whose custom he opposes divine authority and their obligation to obey his commands. Leviticus 18:3 After the doings of the land of Egypt, wherein ye dwelt, shall ye not do: and after the doings of the land of Canaan, whither I bring you, shall ye not do: neither shall ye walk in their ordinances. Leviticus 18:3 . Egypt and Canaan — These two nations he mentions, because their habitation and conversation among them made their evil example in the following matters more dangerous. But under them he includes all other nations. Leviticus 18:4 Ye shall do my judgments, and keep mine ordinances, to walk therein: I am the LORD your God. Leviticus 18:4 . My judgments — Though you do not see the particular reason of some of them, and though they be contrary to the laws and usages of the other nations. Leviticus 18:5 Ye shall therefore keep my statutes, and my judgments: which if a man do, he shall live in them: I am the LORD. Leviticus 18:5 . He shall live in them — Not only happily here, but eternally hereafter. This is added as a powerful argument why they should follow God’s commands rather than men’s examples, because their life and happiness depended upon it. And though in strictness, and according to the covenant of works, they could not challenge life for so doing, except their obedience was universal, perfect, constant, and perpetual, and therefore no man since the fall could be justified by the law; yet by the covenant of grace this life is promised to all that obey God’s commands sincerely. I am the Lord — Hebrew, I am Jehovah; that is, I am faithful to keep my covenant, and to fulfil my promises. See on Exodus 6:3 . I am the sovereign dispenser of life and death, and therefore they that keep my laws shall live. Leviticus 18:6 None of you shall approach to any that is near of kin to him, to uncover their nakedness: I am the LORD. Leviticus 18:6 . The first of these prohibitions is against all improper and incestuous marriages, a thing very common among the Canaanitish nations and in Egypt, even to the last degree of unnatural mixtures. Diodorus Siculus relates, that it was permitted by law in the latter country, contrary to the custom of other nations, that a man might marry his own sister. None of you shall approach — The prohibition is absolute, and no advances were to be made toward its violation. Indeed the only way to avoid actual transgressions, is to resist and guard against the first motions of evil. Principiis obsta, withstand the first approach of sin, is a most important precept. And it is to be well observed, that as these laws forbade marriages between near relations, they certainly much more prohibited unchastity between them, and every approach to it. Any that is near akin to him — Hebrew, The remainder of his flesh; that is, his immediate relations, so near akin to him, that they are, as we say, his own flesh and blood; such as a man’s sister, mother, daughter. Indeed, had near relations been allowed to marry each other, the most mischievous and fatal consequences must have resulted from it. For being much together in youth, temptations to unchastity would frequently have been too powerful to have been resisted. But, by such a restriction as this, being taught to look upon all such intercourse as prohibited and incestuous, they were assisted to withstand temptations to evil. Leviticus 18:7 The nakedness of thy father, or the nakedness of thy mother, shalt thou not uncover: she is thy mother; thou shalt not uncover her nakedness. Leviticus 18:7 . The nakedness of thy father, or of thy mother — This is but one fact, though expressed two ways, as appears from Leviticus 18:8 , compared with Leviticus 20:11 . The expression imports, that such an action is doing the greatest dishonour to one’s father and mother. Leviticus 18:8 The nakedness of thy father's wife shalt thou not uncover: it is thy father's nakedness. Leviticus 18:9 The nakedness of thy sister, the daughter of thy father, or daughter of thy mother, whether she be born at home, or born abroad, even their nakedness thou shalt not uncover. Leviticus 18:9 . Whether she be born at home, or born abroad — Whether she be legitimately born in wedlock, or illegitimately out of wedlock. Others explain it thus: “Whether she be thy sister by the same father, or by another marriage.” Leviticus 18:10 The nakedness of thy son's daughter, or of thy daughter's daughter, even their nakedness thou shalt not uncover: for theirs is thine own nakedness. Leviticus 18:11 The nakedness of thy father's wife's daughter, begotten of thy father, she is thy sister, thou shalt not uncover her nakedness. Leviticus 18:12 Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy father's sister: she is thy father's near kinswoman. Leviticus 18:13 Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy mother's sister: for she is thy mother's near kinswoman. Leviticus 18:14 Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy father's brother, thou shalt not approach to his wife: she is thine aunt. Leviticus 18:14 . Thy father’s brother — Thou shalt not marry thy uncle’s wife, as is explained in the next words. Leviticus 18:15 Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy daughter in law: she is thy son's wife; thou shalt not uncover her nakedness. Leviticus 18:16 Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy brother's wife: it is thy brother's nakedness. Leviticus 18:16 . Thy brother’s wife — Unless he died childless, for in that case God afterward commanded that a man should marry his brother’s widow, Deuteronomy 25:5 . For the prohibiting of marriages in the more remote degrees of consanguinity, where other moral considerations are less obvious, there is this good reason to be assigned, namely, that marriage being one of the firmest bonds of friendship, it is proper, for the greater good of society, that men should seek to enlarge the ties of friendship and social affection, by uniting, not with those to whom they were before related, but with persons of different families. Leviticus 18:17 Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of a woman and her daughter, neither shalt thou take her son's daughter, or her daughter's daughter, to uncover her nakedness; for they are her near kinswomen: it is wickedness. Leviticus 18:17 . A woman and her daughter — If a man married a widow that had a daughter, he was not allowed to marry this daughter, either while the mother was alive or after her death. Leviticus 18:18 Neither shalt thou take a wife to her sister, to vex her , to uncover her nakedness, beside the other in her life time . Leviticus 18:18 . A wife to her sister — The meaning seems to be, that no man should take to wife two sisters, which had sometimes been done, as we see in the example of Jacob. It may, however, signify that a man, who already had a wife, was not to take another out of mere incontinency, which would tend only to break his wife’s peace; but that if he took that liberty at all, it ought only to be when his wife consented to it, as Sarah did in the case of Abraham’s marrying Hagar, and Rachel in the case of Bilhah. To vex her — Grotius justly observes, that as the feuds and animosities of brothers are, of all others, the most keen; so are generally the jealousies and emulations between sisters, whereof we have an example in the history of Rachel and Leah. Leviticus 18:19 Also thou shalt not approach unto a woman to uncover her nakedness, as long as she is put apart for her uncleanness. Leviticus 18:19 . As long as she is set apart — No, not to thy own wife. This was not only a ceremonial pollution, but an immorality also, whence it is put among gross sins, Ezekiel 18:6 . And therefore it is now unlawful under the gospel. Leviticus 18:20 Moreover thou shalt not lie carnally with thy neighbour's wife, to defile thyself with her. Leviticus 18:21 And thou shalt not let any of thy seed pass through the fire to Molech, neither shalt thou profane the name of thy God: I am the LORD. Leviticus 18:21 . Pass through the fire to Molech — In the Hebrew it is only pass through to Molech. But though the word fire be not in the original, it is reasonably supplied from other places, where it is expressed, as Deuteronomy 18:10 ; 2 Kings 23:10 . Molech, called also Milcom, was the idol of the Ammonites. The name signifies king, or regal dominion, and is thought to denote the sun, the supreme, and probably the first object of idolatrous worship. Or, as others, the planet Saturn; for it appears from Amos 5:26 , that Molech represented one of the celestial luminaries. Now, as fire is a fit emblem of the sun, the causing their seed to pass through the fire is thought to have been a rite of purification whereby parents consecrated their children to that deity, either by waving them over the fire, or by making them walk between two fires, or jump over a fire. This is the opinion of many able interpreters. But Selden, who has given a large account of this idol, and of the rites with which it was worshipped, shows, from several testimonies, that the Phœnicians, and other nations in the neighbourhood of Judea, actually sacrificed their children, in times of great calamity, to this blood-thirsty demon. Accordingly this phrase of causing them to pass through the fire, signifies sacrificing them in the following horrid manner, Ezekiel 16:20-21 . Fagius informs us, that the image of Molech was of brass, contrived with seven cells or receptacles, probably representing the seven planets, the first for receiving an offering of flour; the second of turtle-doves; the third for a ewe; the fourth for a ram; the fifth for a calf; the sixth for an ox; the seventh for a child. who, being shut up in this cell, as in a furnace, was therein burned to death, while the people danced about the idol, and beat timbrels, that the cries of the tormented infant might not be heard. We have authority from the sacred writings to believe that these nations actually sacrificed their children to that grim idol, in some such horrid manner. Compare 2 Chronicles 28:3 , and Jeremiah 7:31 , with Jeremiah 32:35 ; Jeremiah 19:5 ; Psalm 106:37-38 , and Ezekiel 16:20-21 . In all which places, to pass through the fire, signifies the consuming of the victim by fire. And Le Clerc ingeniously conjectures, that this phrase, passing through to Molech, was invented by the impious priests, in order to convey a softer idea of that horrid rite. We may further observe, that there was a place near Jerusalem, where this horrid custom was observed. It was called the valley of the sons of Hinnom, ( 2 Chronicles 28:3 ,) from the yelling of the sacrificed infants. And for the same reason it had the name of Tophet, ( 2 Kings 23:10 ,) from Toph, a tabret or drum, with which they used to drown the dreadful outcries of the unhappy victims. Neither shalt thou profane the name of thy God — This idolatry in the Israelites would be the foulest and most profane renunciation of the true GOD, to whom they and their posterity were solemnly devoted, and at the same time it would give occasion to strangers to blaspheme the name of Jehovah, as if he authorized such barbarities in his worshippers. Leviticus 18:22 Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination. Leviticus 18:23 Neither shalt thou lie with any beast to defile thyself therewith: neither shall any woman stand before a beast to lie down thereto: it is confusion. Leviticus 18:24 Defile not ye yourselves in any of these things: for in all these the nations are defiled which I cast out before you: Leviticus 18:25 And the land is defiled: therefore I do visit the iniquity thereof upon it, and the land itself vomiteth out her inhabitants. Leviticus 18:26 Ye shall therefore keep my statutes and my judgments, and shall not commit any of these abominations; neither any of your own nation, nor any stranger that sojourneth among you: Leviticus 18:26 . Nor any stranger — In nation or religion, of what kind soever. For though they might not force them to submit to their religion, yet they might restrain them from the public contempt of the Jewish laws, and from the violation of natural laws, which, besides the offence against God and nature, were matters of evil example to the Israelites themselves. Leviticus 18:27 (For all these abominations have the men of the land done, which were before you, and the land is defiled;) Leviticus 18:28 That the land spue not you out also, when ye defile it, as it spued out the nations that were before you. Leviticus 18:29 For whosoever shall commit any of these abominations, even the souls that commit them shall be cut off from among their people. Leviticus 18:29 . Cut off — This phrase therefore, of cutting off, is to be understood variously, either of ecclesiastical or civil punishment, according to the differing natures of the offences for which it was inflicted. Leviticus 18:30 Therefore shall ye keep mine ordinance, that ye commit not any one of these abominable customs, which were committed before you, and that ye defile not yourselves therein: I am the LORD your God. Benson Commentary on the Old and New Testaments Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com . Used by Permission.

Expositor's Bible Commentary Leviticus 18:1 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, THE LAW OF HOLINESS: CHASTITY Leviticus 18:1-30 CHAPTERS 18, 19, and 20, by a formal introduction {Lev 18:1-5} and a formal closing, {Lev 20:22-26} are indicated as a distinct section, very commonly known by the name, "the Law of Holiness." As this phrase indicates, these chapters-unlike chapter 17, which as to its contents has a character intermediate between the ceremonial and moral law-consist substantially of moral prohibitions and commandments throughout. Of the three, the first two contain the prohibitions and precepts of the law; the third (chapter 20), the penal sanctions by which many of these were to be enforced. The section opens ( Leviticus 18:1-2 ) with Jehovah’s assertion of His absolute supremacy, and a reminder to Israel of the fact that He bad entered into covenant relations with them: "I am the Lord your God." With solemn emphasis the words are again repeated, Leviticus 18:4 ; and yet again in Leviticus 18:5 : "I am the Lord." They would naturally call to mind the scene at Sinai, with its august and appalling grandeur, attesting amid earthquake and fire and tempest at once the being, power, and unapproachable holiness of Him who then and there, with those stupendous solemnities, in inexplicable condescension, took Israel into covenant with Himself, to be to Himself "a kingdom of priests and a holy nation." There could be no question as to the right of the God thus revealed to impose law; no question as to the peculiar obligation upon Israel to keep His law; no question as to His intolerance of sin, and full power and determination, as the Holy One, to enforce whatever He commanded. All these thoughts-thoughts of eternal moment-would be called up in the mind of every devout Israelite, as he heard or read this preface to the law of holiness. The prohibitions which we find in chapter 18 are not given as an exhaustive code of laws upon the subjects traversed, but rather deal with certain gross offences against the law of chastity, which, as we know from other sources, were horribly common at that time among the surrounding nations. To indulgence in these crimes, Israel, as the later history sadly shows, would be especially liable; so contagious are evil example and corrupt associations! Hence the general scope of the chapter is announced in this form ( Leviticus 18:3 ): "After the doings of the land of Egypt, wherein ye dwelt, shall ye not do: and after the doings of the land of Canaan, whither I bring you, shall ye not do: neither shall ye walk in their statutes." Instead of this, they were ( Leviticus 18:4 ) to do God’s judgments, and keep His statutes, to walk in them, bearing in mind whose they were. And as a further motive it is added ( Leviticus 18:5 ): "which if a man do, he shall live in them"; that is, as the Chaldee paraphrast, Onkelos, rightly interprets in the Targum, "with the life of eternity." Which far-reaching promise is sealed by the repetition, for the third time, of the words, "I am the Lord." That is enough; for what Jehovah promises, that shall certainly be! The law begins ( Leviticus 18:6 ) with a general statement of the principle which underlies all particular prohibitions of incest: "None of you shall approach to any that is near of kin to him, to uncover their nakedness"; and then, for the fourth time, are iterated the words, "I am the Lord." The prohibitions which follow require little special explanation. As just remarked, they are directed in particular to those breaches of the law of chastity which were most common with the Egyptians, from the midst of whom Israel had come; and with the Canaanites, to whose land they were going. This explains, for instance, the fulness of detail in the prohibition of incestuous union with a sister or half-sister ( Leviticus 18:9 , Leviticus 18:11 ), -an iniquity very common in Egypt, having the sanction of royal custom from the days of the Pharaohs down to the time of the Ptolemies. The unnatural alliance of a man with his mother prohibited in Leviticus 18:8 , of which Paul declared {1Co 5:1} that in his day it did not exist among the Gentiles, was yet the distinguishing infamy of the Medes and Persians for many centuries. Union with an aunt, by blood or by marriage, prohibited in Leviticus 18:12-14 , -a connection less gross, and less severely to be punished than the preceding, - seems to have been permitted even among the Israelites themselves while in Egypt, as is plain from the case of Amram and Jochebed. {Exo 6:20} To the law forbidding connection with a brother’s wife ( Leviticus 18:16 ), the later Deuteronomic law, {Deu 25:5-10} made an exception, permitting that a man might marry the widow of his deceased brother, when the latter had died without children, and "raise up seed unto his brother." In this, however, the law but sanctioned a custom which-as we learn from the case of Onan {Gen 38:1-30} -had been observed long before the days of Moses, both by the Hebrews and other ancient nations, and, indeed, even limited and restricted its application; with good reason providing for exemption of the surviving brother from this duty, in cases where for any reason it might be repugnant or impracticable. The case of a connection with both a woman and her daughter or granddaughter is next mentioned ( Leviticus 18:17 ); and, with special emphasis, is declared to be "wickedness," or "enormity." The prohibition ( Leviticus 18:18 ) of marriage with a sister-in-law, as is well known, has been, and still is, the occasion of much controversy, into which it is not necessary here to enter at length. But, whatever may be thought for other reasons as to the lawfulness of such a union, it truly seems quite singular that this verse should ever have been cited as prohibiting such an alliance. No words could well be more explicit than those which we have here, in limiting the application of the prohibition to the lifetime of the wife: "Thou shalt not take a woman to her sister, to be a rival to her, to uncover her nakedness, beside the other in her lifetime" (R.V). The law therefore does not touch the question for which it is so often cited, but was evidently only intended as a restriction on prevalent polygamy. Polygamy is ever likely to produce jealousies and heart burnings; but it is plain that this phase of the evil would reach its most extreme and odious expression when the new and rival wife was a sister to the one already married; when it would practically annul sisterly love, and give rise to such painful and peculiarly humiliating dissensions as we read of between the sisters Leah and Rachel. The sense of the passage is so plain, that we are told that this interpretation "stood its ground unchallenged from the third century B.C. to the middle of the sixteenth century A.D." Whatever opinion any may hold therefore as to the expediency, upon other grounds, of this much debated alliance, this passage, certainly, cannot be fairly cited as forbidding it; but is far more naturally understood as by natural implication permitting the union, after the decease of the first wife. The laws concerning incest therefore terminate with Leviticus 18:17 ; and Leviticus 18:18 , according to this interpretation, must be regarded as a restriction upon polygamous connections, as Leviticus 18:19 is upon the rights of marriage. It seems somewhat surprising that the question should have been raised, even theoretically, whether the Mosaic law, as regards the degrees of affinity prohibited in marriage, is of permanent authority. The reasons for these prohibitions, wherever given, are as valid now as then; for the simple reason that they are grounded fundamentally in a matter of fact, -namely, the nature of the relation between husband and wife, whereby they become "one flesh," implied in such phraseology as we find in Leviticus 18:16 ; and also the relation of blood between members of the same family, as in Leviticus 18:10 , etc. Happily, however, whatever theory any may have held, the Church in all ages has practically recognised every one of these prohibitions, as binding on all persons; and has rather been inclined to err, if at all, by extending, through inference and analogy, the prohibited degrees even beyond the Mosaic code. So much, however, by way of guarding against excess in such inferential extensions of the law, we must certainly say: according to the law itself, as further applied in Leviticus 21:1-4 , and limited in Deuteronomy 25:5-10 , relationship by marriage is not to be regarded as precisely equivalent in degree of affinity to relationship by blood. We cannot, for instance, conceive that, under any circumstances, the prohibition of the marriage of brothers and sisters should have had any exception; and yet, as we have seen, the marriage between brother and sister-in-law is explicitly authorised, in the case of the levirate marriage, and by implication allowed in other cases, by the language of Leviticus 18:18 of this chapter. But in these days, when there is such a manifest inclination in Christendom, as especially in the United States and in France, to ignore the law of God in regard to marriage and divorce, and regulate these instead by a majority vote, it assuredly becomes peculiarly imperative that, as Christians, we exercise a holy jealousy for the honour of God and the sanctity of the family, and ever refuse to allow a majority vote any authority in these matters, where it contravenes the law of God. While we must observe caution that in these things we lay no burden on the conscience of any, which God has not first placed there, we must insist-all the more strenuously because of the universal tendency to license-upon the strict observance of all that is either explicitly taught or by necessary implication involved in the teachings of God’s Word upon this question. Nothing more fundamentally concerns the well being of society than the relation of the man and the woman in the constitution of the family; and while, unfortunately, in our modern democratic communities, the Church may not be able always to control and determine the civil law in these matters, she can at least utterly refuse any compromise where the civil law ignores what God has spoken; and with unwavering firmness deny her sanction, in any way, to any connection between a man and a woman which is not according, to the revealed will of God, as set before us in this most holy, good, and beneficent law. The chapter before us casts a light upon the moral condition of the most cultivated heathen peoples in those days, among whom many of the grossest of these incestuous connections, as already remarked, were quite common, even among those of the highest station. There are many in our day more or less affected with the present fashion of admiration for the ancient (and modern) heathenisms, who would do well to heed this light, that their blind enthusiasm might thereby be somewhat tempered. On the other hand, these laws show us, in a very striking contrast, the estimate which God puts upon the maintenance of holiness, purity, and chastity between man and woman; and His very jealous regard for the sanctity of the family in all its various relations. Even in the Old Testament we have hints of a reason for this, deeper than mere expediency, -hints which receive a definite form in the clearer teaching of the New Testament, which tells us that in the Divine plan it is ordained that in these earthly relations man shall be the shadow and image of God. If, as the Apostle tells, {Eph 3:15, R.V} "every family in heaven and on earth" is named from the Father; and if, as he again teaches, {Eph 5:29-32} the relation of husband and wife is intended to be an earthly type and symbol of the relation between the Lord Jesus Christ and His Church, which is His Bride, -then we cannot wonder at the exceedingly strong emphasis which marks these prohibitions. Everything must be excluded which would be incompatible with this holy ideal of God for man; that not only in the constitution of his person, but in these sacred relations which belong to his very nature, as created male and female, he should be the image of the invisible God. Thus, he who is a father is ever to bear in mind that in his fatherhood he is appointed to shadow forth the ineffable mystery of the eternal relation of the only-begotten and most holy Son to this everlasting Father. As husband, the man is to remember that since he who is joined to his wife becomes with her "one flesh," therefore this union becomes, in the Divine ordination, a type and pattern of the yet more mysterious union of life between the Son of God and the Church, which is His Bride. As brothers and sisters, again, the children of God are to remember that brotherly love, in its purity and unselfish devotion, is intended of God to be a living illustration of the love of Him who has been made of God to be "the firstborn among many brethren". {Rom 8:29} And thus, with the family life pervaded through and through by these ideas, will license and impurity be made impossible, and, as happily now in many a Christian home, it will appear that the family, no less truly than the Church, is appointed of God to be a sanctuary of purity in a world impure and corrupt by wicked works, and, no less really than the Church, to be an effective means of Divine grace, and of preparation for the eternal life of the heavenly kingdom, when all of God’s "many sons" shall have been brought to glory, the "many brethren" of the First Begotten, to abide with Him in the Father’s house forever and ever. After the prohibition of adultery in Leviticus 18:20 , we have what at first seems like a very abrupt introduction of a totally different subject; for Leviticus 18:21 refers, not to the seventh, but to the second, and, therewith also, to the sixth commandment. It reads: "Thou shalt not give any of thy seed to make them pass through the fire to Molech, neither shalt thou profane the name of thy God." But the connection of thought is found in the historical relation of the licentious practices prohibited in the preceding verses to idolatry, of which this Molech worship is named as one of the most hideous manifestations. Some, indeed, have supposed that this frequently recurring phrase does not designate an actual sacrifice of the children, but only their consecration to Molech by some kind of fire baptism. But certainly such passages as 2 Kings 17:31 Jeremiah 7:31 ; Jeremiah 19:5 , distinctly require us to understand an actual offering of the children as "burnt offerings." They were not indeed burnt alive, as a late and untrustworthy tradition has it, but were first slain, as in the case of all burnt sacrifices, and then burnt. The unnatural cruelty of the sacrifice, even as thus made, was such, that both here and in Leviticus 20:3 it is described as in a special sense a "profaning" of God’s holy name, -a profanation, in that it represented Him, the Lord of love and fatherly mercy, as requiring such a cruel and unnatural sacrifice of parental love, in the immolation of innocent children. The inconceivably unnatural crimes prohibited in Leviticus 18:22-23 were in like manner essentially connected with idolatrous worship: the former with the worship of Astarte or Ashtoreth; the latter with the worship of the he-goat at Mendes in Egypt, as the symbol of the generative power in nature. What a hideous perversion of the moral sense was involved in these crimes, as thus connected with idolatrous worship, is illustrated strikingly by the fact that men and women, thus prostituted to the service of false gods, were designated by the terms qadesh and qadeshah, " sacred," "holy"! No wonder that the sacred writer brands these horrible crimes as, in a peculiar and almost solitary sense, "abomination," "confusion." In these days of ours, when it has become the fashion among a certain class of cultured writers-who would still, in many instances, apparently desire to be called Christian-to act as the apologist of idolatrous, and, according to Holy Scripture, false religions, the mention of these crimes in this connection may well remind the reader of what such seem to forget, as they certainly ignore; namely, that in all ages, in the modern heathenism no less than in the ancient, idolatry and gross licentiousness ever go hand in hand. Still, today, even in Her Majesty’s Indian Empire, is the most horrible licentiousness practised as an office of religious worship. Nor are such revolting perversions of the moral sense confined to the "Maharajas" of the temples in Western India, who figured in certain trials in Bombay a few years ago; for even the modern "reformed" Hindooism, from which some hope so much, has not always been able to shake itself free from the pollution of these things, as witness the argument conducted in recent numbers of the Arya Patrika of Lahore, to justify the infamous custom known as Niyoga , practised to this day in India, e.g. , by the Panday Brahmans of Allahabad; -a practice which is sufficiently described as being adultery arranged for, under certain conditions, by a wife or husband, the one for the other. One would fain charitably hope, if possible, that our modern apologists for Oriental idolatries are unaccountably ignorant of what all history should have taught them as to the inseparable connection between idolatry and licentiousness. Both Egypt and Canaan, in the olden time, -as this chapter with all contemporaneous history teaches, -and also India in modern times, read us a very awful lesson on this subject. Not only have these idolatries led too often to gross licentiousness of life, but in their full development they have, again and again, in audacious and blasphemous profanation of the most holy God, and defiance even of the natural conscience, given to the most horrible excesses of unbridled lust the supreme sanction of declaring them to be religious obligations. Assuredly, in God’s sight, it cannot be a trifling thing for any man, even through ignorance, to extol, or even apologise for, religions with which such enormities are both logically and historically connected. And so, in these stern prohibitions, and their heavy penal sanctions, we may find a profitable lesson for even the cultivated intellect of the nineteenth century! The chapter closes with reiterated charges against indulgence in any of these abominations. Israel is told ( Leviticus 18:25 , Leviticus 18:28 ) that it was because the Canaanites practised these enormities that God was about to scourge them out of their land; -a judicial reason which, one would think, should have some weight with those whose sympathies are so drawn out with commiseration for the Canaanites, that they find it impossible to believe that it can be true, as we are told in the Pentateuch, that God ordered their extermination. Rather, in the light of the facts, would we raise the opposite question: whether, if God indeed be a holy and righteous Governor among the nations, He could do anything else either in justice toward the Canaanites, or in mercy toward those whom their horrible example would certainly in like manner corrupt, than, in one way or another, effect the extermination of such a people? Israel is then solemnly warned ( Leviticus 18:28 ) that if they, notwithstanding, shall practise these crimes, God will not spare them any more than He spared the Canaanites. No covenant of His with them shall hinder the land from spueing them out in like manner. And though the nation, as a whole, give not itself to these things, each individual is warned ( Leviticus 18:29 ), "Whosoever shall commit any of these abominations, even the souls that do them shall be cut off from among their people"; that is, shall be outlawed and shut out from all participation in covenant mercies. And therewith this part of the law of holiness closes, with those pregnant words, repeated now in this chapter for the fifth time: "I am the Lord (Heb. Jehovah) your God!" The Expositor's Bible Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com . Used by Permission.