Leviticuschapter 18
30 verses · Moses, by tradition · 15th to 13th century BC · The Law
Key verse
So if you defile the land, it will vomit you out as it spewed out the nations before you.
It stands in A land that vomits out its people, verses 24 to 30.
The chapter
Chapter summary
Sexual ethics under the holiness code. The introduction sets the context: do not after the doings of Egypt where you dwelt, nor after the doings of Canaan whither I bring you. Prohibitions of incest in careful concentric rings; adultery; Molech. The fire-child offering to a god of death; homosexual acts; bestiality. ‘For all these abominations have the men of the land done … and the land is defiled; therefore do I visit the iniquity thereof upon it, and the land itself vomiteth out her inhabitants.’ The chapter warns that moral defilement pollutes land as truly as blood does. Gill: moral holiness is a matter of the land's endurance, not merely the household's honor.
Context
Law · Moses · Leviticus overview
The world of this chapter
Israel encamped at Sinai, inside the Holiness Code, between Egypt behind and Canaan ahead · c. 1445 BC, in the second year after the Exodus, on the traditional dating that follows the book's own setting · The camp at Sinai, with the chapter's frame pointing at two other countries, the Egypt Israel had left and the Canaan it had not yet entered · A nation formed inside Egyptian practice and being sent into Canaanite practice, told at verse 3 to follow neither
Historical context
The instruction is given to Moses for the whole nation, and it opens and closes on the same sentence, I am the LORD your God, which is the only ground most of its rules are given.
The chapter names its two reference points before it gives a single rule. Egypt is where Israel had lived for four hundred years, and Canaan is the land it was being brought into, and verse 3 forbids the practices of both.
A first hearer knew what the word at verse 3 was doing. The text calls the practices of those nations their customs, using a word the book also uses for what God appoints, so custom is met on the ground that custom claims.
He also knew the family structures the list works in. Households were extended and several generations lived together, so a rule naming the father's wife, the daughter in law, the brother's wife and the uncle's wife was describing people under one roof rather than distant relations.
The Hebrew behind close relative at verse 6 is she'er besaro, the remnant of his flesh, so the stated ground of the law is shared flesh rather than shared descent, which is why the relations by marriage at verses 14 to 16 are included at all.
Molech occurs here for the first time in Scripture, and what passing a child through the fire meant is left unsaid. Leviticus 20:2 to 5, 2 Kings 23:10 and Jeremiah 32:35 show the practice running on in Israel for centuries without ever being described.
Significance
The chapter told a nation on the move that the land it was entering was not being handed to it for its own merit. The ground of the conquest is stated as the conduct of the nations being driven out, and Deuteronomy 9:5 says the same thing plainly.
It then turned the threat around. The same ground that vomits Canaanites will vomit Hebrews, and Leviticus 25:23 gives the reason when it says the land belongs to God and Israel are foreigners and residents with him.
For a household the practical effect was a clear list of who could and could not be married, at a time when marriage inside an extended family was how property and standing were kept together.
Where the chapter sits
Leviticus 18 falls in The Holiness Code (chapters 17–26). ‘Ye shall be holy; for I the LORD your God am holy.’ Blood, sexual ethics, neighbor-love, feasts, jubilee, blessings and curses.
Before it: Day of Atonement, chapters 16. After it: Vows and dedications, chapters 27.
The whole shape of Leviticus→The structure of this chapter
People1
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
A. Do not walk as Egypt or Canaan walk
1. (vv. 1-3)
The chapter sets Israel between two countries. Egypt is behind them and Canaan is in front of them, and verse 3 forbids the doings of both by name before a single rule is given. It calls the practices of those nations their ordinances, the same word the book uses for what God appoints, so custom is met on the ground custom claims.
Leviticus 18:1
“And the Lord spake unto Moses,.... He continued speaking to him, after he had delivered to him the laws respecting the day of atonement, and the bringing of the sacrifices to the door of the tabernacle, and particularly concerning the Israelites not worshipping devils, as they had done in Egypt: the Lord proceeds to deliver out others, the more effectually to guard against both the immoral and idolatrous practice, of the Egyptians and Canaanites: saying, as follows.”
Leviticus 18:2
“I am, the Lord your God - The frequent repetition of this formula in these parts of the Law may be intended to keep the Israelites in mind of their covenant with Yahweh in connection with the common affairs of life, in which they might be tempted to look at legal restrictions in a mere secular light.”
Leviticus 18:3
“The doings of the land of Egypt - the land of Canaan - The worshipping of demons, beasts, etc., as mentioned in the preceding chapter, Lev 17:7, and the abominations mentioned in this chapter from Lev 18:21-23.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2. (vv. 4-5)
Verse 5 is the sentence Paul reaches for twice. He quotes it at Romans 10:5 to describe the righteousness which is of the law, and at Galatians 3:12 to show that the law is not of faith. Ezekiel 20:11 takes the same words up when God recounts what he gave Israel in the wilderness, and Luke 10:28 puts a form of them in the mouth of Jesus to the lawyer who asked about eternal life. The promise attached to obedience is life, and the chapter that follows it is about what kills a nation.
Leviticus 18:4
“The apostle quotes this twice as opposite to the faith which the gospel reveals. It is the description of the righteousness which is by the law, the man that doeth them shall live en autois -- in them ( Rom. x. 5 ), and is urged to prove that the law is not of faith, Gal. iii.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Leviticus 18:5
“If a man keeps the “statutes” (i. e. the ordinances of Lev 18:4) and “judgments” of the divine law, he shall not be “cut off from his people” (compare Lev 18:29), he shall gain true life, the life which connects him with Yahweh through his obedience. See the margin reference and Luk 10:28; Rom 10:5; Gal 3:12.”
2 more voices on this verse
Leviticus 18:5
"The man who carries out the law will find life through it." Scripture did not say he will find life through it, in the sense that through the law he will live in heaven, but he will find life through it to the extent that what he merits, he reaps in the present world.
Jerome· written before 420· HOMILY 76patristic
Leviticus 18:5
“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.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Cross references
Leviticus 18:5
- Quoted inGalatians 3:12The law, however, is not based on faith; on the contrary, “The man who does these things will live by them.”
'The man that doeth them shall live in them' (law not of faith)
- Quoted inRomans 10:5For concerning the righteousness that is by the law, Moses writes: “The man who does these things will live by them.”
'The man which doeth those things shall live by them' (righteousness of the law)
B. The kin whose nakedness you may not uncover
1. (vv. 6-8)
Verse 6 is the heading and everything through verse 18 works it out. The Hebrew behind near of kin is she'er besaro, the remnant of his flesh, so the stated ground of the law is shared flesh rather than shared descent. The Babylonian Talmud, which reached its form around 500 AD, records at Megillah 31a that this chapter is the synagogue reading for the afternoon of the Day of Atonement, which puts the list of forbidden relations on the one day of the year the nation is cleansed.
Leviticus 18:6
“Any that is near of kin - כל שאר בשרו col shear besaro, any remnant of his flesh, i.e., to any particularly allied to his own family, the prohibited degrees in which are specified from the 7th to the 17th verse (Lev 18:7-17) inclusive. Notwithstanding the prohibitions here, it must be evident that in the infancy of the world, persons very near of kin must have been joined in matrimonial alliances; and that even brothers must have matched with their own sisters. This must have been the case in the family of Adam.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Leviticus 18:7
“Or - It might be rendered “and”, or rather, even; that is, which belongs to both parents as being “one flesh” (Gen 2:24; compare Lev 18:8, Lev 18:14). These prohibitions are addressed to men.”
Leviticus 18:8
“Compare the case of Reuben, Gen 49:3-4. See 1Co 5:1.”
2. (vv. 9-11)
The sister is covered twice, once by blood at verse 9 and once by household at verse 11. Verse 9 reaches a half sister born at home or born abroad, and Abraham's word about Sarah at Genesis 20:12, that she was the daughter of his father though not of his mother, falls inside it. Verse 10 gives a reason where most of the list gives none, that a granddaughter is his own nakedness. The law comes to Israel at Sinai and the patriarchs lived centuries before it, and the narrative of Genesis is left standing as it is.
Leviticus 18:9
“Thy sister - What was here spoken of was the distinguishing offence of the Egyptians.”
3. (vv. 12-13)
Both aunts are named, the father's sister and the mother's sister, each a blood relation one generation above him. Exodus 6:20 says that Amram took Jochebed his father's sister to wife, and Moses is the son of that marriage. The man who carries this law down the mountain is the child of a union it forbids, and the text records both facts and reconciles neither.
Leviticus 18:12
“Thy father’s sister - The instance of Amram and Jochebed Exo 6:20 seems to show that marriage with an aunt was not considered wrong by the Israelites when they were in Egypt.”
4. (vv. 14-16)
These three are relations by marriage, the uncle's wife, the son's wife and the brother's wife, and none of them shares his blood. Judah and Tamar at Genesis 38 is the case of verse 15, and Deuteronomy 25:5 sets a named exception beside verse 16 by requiring a man to raise up seed to a brother who died childless. John the Baptist applies verse 16 to a king at Mark 6:18, telling Herod it is not lawful for him to have his brother's wife, and it costs him his head.
Leviticus 18:15
“Thou shall not uncover the nakedness of thy daughter in law,.... Shall not he with her in his son's lifetime, or marry her after his death: she is that son's wife; and so one flesh with him, and who is of the same flesh and blood with his father, and therefore the nearness of the relation forbids such incestuous copulation or marriage: thou shall not uncover her nakedness; or have carnal knowledge of her, whether in the life or after the death of his son, even then marriage with her is not lawful.”
Leviticus 18:16
“Thy brother’s wife - This was an illegal marriage, unless the brother died childless. In that case it was not only lawful for her to marry her brother-in-law, but he was obliged by the law, Deu 25:5, to take her to wife.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
5. (vv. 17-18)
Verse 17 forbids taking a mother and her daughter together and calls it wickedness, a verdict the list rarely stops to give. Verse 18 is argued. Adam Clarke reads it as forbidding two sisters while the first is alive and points to the vexing between Leah and Rachel in Genesis 29 and 30 as the case in view, while the margin renders it one wife to another, which would reach polygamy itself. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown reports both readings and settles neither, and the words in her life time are where the dispute turns.
Leviticus 18:18
“A wife to her sister - Thou shalt not marry two sisters at the same time, as Jacob did Rachel and Leah; but there is nothing in this law that rendered it illegal to marry a sister-in-law when her sister was dead; therefore the text says, Thou shalt not take her in her life time, to vex her, alluding probably to the case of the jealousies and vexations which subsisted between Leah and Rachel, and by which the family peace was so often disturbed. Some think that the text may be so understood as also to forbid polygamy.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
C. Molech, another man's wife, and defilement
1. (vv. 19-20)
Verse 19 turns the law on a man and his own wife during the separation of Leviticus 15:19, and verse 20 turns it on his neighbour's wife. Ezekiel 22:10 and 22:11 arraign Jerusalem with these two offences standing side by side, and Ezekiel 18:6 puts both of them in a list of what a just man leaves alone. A prophet writing centuries later is reading this chapter as a charge sheet.
Leviticus 18:19
“Also thou shall not approach unto a woman,.... Not even a man to his own wife, and much less to another woman: to uncover her nakedness, as long as she is put apart for her uncleanness; in her monthly courses; and the time of her separation from her husband on that account was seven days, Lev 15:19; if a man lay with a woman when in such circumstances, they were both to be cut off from their people, Lev 20:18; and such an action is reckoned among sins, and uncleanness of the worst sort, Eze 22:10.”
1 more voice on this verse
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 amongst gross sins, Ezek. xviii, 6. And therefore it is now unlawful under the gospel.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Leviticus 18:20
“Moreover, thou shalt not lie carnally with thy neighbour's wife,.... Which is adultery, and a breach of the seventh command, Exo 20:14, to defile thyself with her; not only adultery is a defiling a man's wife, as it is sometimes called, but the adulterer defiles himself: all sin is of a defiling nature, but especially this, which defiles a man both in soul and body, and brings a blot and stain upon his character, which shall not be wiped off, Pro 6:32.”
2. (v. 21)
Molech occurs here for the first time in Scripture. The verse stands in the middle of the sexual law with no transition into it and none out of it, and the offence it names is against the name of God. What passing through the fire meant is left unsaid. Adam Clarke lists the readings on offer, a child burned as a sacrifice or a child led between two fires as a dedication, and Leviticus 20:2 through 20:5, 2 Kings 23:10 and Jeremiah 32:35 show the practice running on in Israel for centuries without ever being described.
Leviticus 18:21
“Pass through the fire to Molech - The name of this idol is mentioned for the first time in this place. As the word מלח molech or melech signifies king or governor, it is very likely that this idol represented the sun; and more particularly as the fire appears to have been so much employed in his worship. There are several opinions concerning the meaning of passing through the fire to Molech. 1. Some think that the semen humanum was offered on the fire to this idol. 2. Others think that the children were actually made a burnt-offering to him.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Leviticus 18:21
“Pass through fire - This was done, either by burning them in the fire, or by making them pass between two great fires, which was a kind of consecration of them to that God. Moloch - Called also Milcom, was an idol chiefly of the Ammonites. He seems to be the Saturn of the heathens, to whom especially children and men were sacrificed.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
3. (vv. 22-23)
Two verdicts close these verses, abomination at verse 22 and confusion at verse 23. The word rendered confusion is tebel, and it occurs once more in Scripture, at Leviticus 20:12. It carries the sense of a mixture of things that belong apart, which is the objection Leviticus 19:19 makes to a field sown with mingled seed. Romans 1:26 and 1:27 take up verse 22, and Leviticus 20:13 and 20:15 attach the penalties.
Leviticus 18:22
“With mankind - This abominable crime, frequent among the Greeks and Romans as well as the Canaanites, may be punished with death in this country.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Leviticus 18:22
“Other sins level men with the beasts, but these sink them much lower. That ever there should have been occasion for the making of these laws, and that since they are published they should ever have been broken, is the perpetual reproach and scandal of human nature; and the giving of men up to these vile affections was frequently the punishment of their idolatries; so the apostle shows, Rom. i.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Leviticus 18:23
“With any beast - This abomination is also punishable with death by the laws of this country. Any woman stand before a beast - That this was often done in Egypt there can be no doubt; and we have already seen, from the testimony of Herodotus, that a fact of this kind actually took place while he was in Egypt. See Clarke’s note on Lev 17:7, and See Clarke on Lev 20:16 (note).”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
D. A land that vomits out its people
1. (vv. 24-25)
The ground of the conquest is stated here, and it is the conduct of the nations rather than the merit of Israel. Genesis 15:16 had held Abraham's descendants back four hundred years on the reckoning that the iniquity of the Amorites was not yet full, and Deuteronomy 9:5 says plainly that Israel enters for the wickedness of those nations. Adam Clarke calls verse 25 a personification, the land given a sense of moral good and evil so sharp that it sickens and throws its people up. The verse says the land itself vomiteth out her inhabitants, which puts the eviction on the ground's own reaction to what was done on it.
Leviticus 18:25
“The land itself vomiteth out her inhabitants - This is a very nervous prosopopoeia or personification; a figure by which any part of inanimate nature may be represented as possessing the passions and reason of man. Here the land is represented as an intelligent being, with a deep and refined sense of moral good and evil: information concerning the abominations of the people is brought to this personified land, with which it is so deeply affected that a nausea is produced, and it vomits out its abominable and accursed inhabitants.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2. (vv. 26-28)
The threat is then turned around and pointed at Israel, that the land spue not you out also. The same ground that vomits Canaanites will vomit Hebrews, and Leviticus 25:23 gives the reason when it says the land is mine and ye are strangers and sojourners with me. The rule binds the stranger that sojourneth among them on the same terms as one born in the nation. 2 Kings 17:7 and 17:8 report the northern kingdom carried away for walking in the statutes of the heathen whom the LORD cast out, which is this sentence carried into effect.
Leviticus 18:26
“The confirmation, which is added at the end of both clauses, has relation to the sum of the First Commandment; for when God declares Himself to be "Jehovah, and the God of Israel," he both claims the worship which is due to Him alone, and also condemns all the superstitions whereby pure religion is adulterated.”
John Calvin· Commentaries (1554)reformed
Leviticus 18:28
“Lay the ear of faith to the gates of the bottomless pit, and hear the doleful shrieks and outcries of damned sinners, whom earth has spued out and hell has swallowed, that find themselves undone, for ever undone, by sin; and tremble lest this be your portion at last. God's threatenings and judgments should frighten us from sin.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
3. (vv. 29-30)
The penalty is to be cut off from among their people, and commentators read the phrase in more than one way, as a civil execution, as exclusion from the congregation, or as a judgment God carries out himself. The Mishnah, compiled about 200 AD, opens the tractate Kerithot by counting thirty six transgressions that carry this penalty, and most of that list is taken from this chapter. Verse 30 calls the practices abominable customs, which answers the word ordinances back at verse 3, and the chapter closes on I am the LORD your God, the sentence it opened with at verse 2.
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 offenses for which it is inflicted.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Leviticus 18:30
“Shall ye keep mine ordinance - The only way to be preserved from all false worship is seriously to consider and devoutly to observe the ordinances of the true religion. He who in the things of God goes no farther than he can say, Thus it is written, and thus it behoves me to do, is never likely to receive a false creed, nor perform a superstitious act of worship. 1. How true is that word, The law of the Lord is Perfect!”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Leviticus 18:30
“It is of pernicious consequence to admit and allow of any one sinful custom, because one will make way for many, Uno absurdo dato, mille sequuntur--Admit but a single absurdity, you invite a thousand. The way of sin is downhill. A close and constant adherence to God's ordinances is the most effectual preservative from the infection of gross sin.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
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Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Calvin, Commentary on the Four Last Books of Moses Arranged in the Form of a Harmony; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: The Pentateuch and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.