Leviticuschapter 20
27 verses · Moses, by tradition · 15th to 13th century BC · The Law
Key verse
“Tell the Israelites, ‘Any Israelite or foreigner living in Israel who gives any of his children to Molech must be put to death. The people of the land are to stone him.
It stands in Molech's altar and those who turn to spirits, verses 1 to 8.
The chapter
Chapter summary
Penalties for the holiness-code violations of chapter 18. Molech; familiar spirits and wizards; cursing father or mother; adultery; incest; bestiality; homosexual acts. The penalties range from death to childlessness to being cut off from the people. ‘Ye shall therefore sanctify yourselves, and ye shall be holy: for I am the LORD your God. And ye shall keep my statutes, and do them: I am the LORD which sanctify you.’ The chapter is the courtroom for chapter 18's catechism. Henry: Scripture does not publish the moral code without publishing its sanction. The land that vomited out the Canaanites will not indulge the same abominations in Israel.
Context
Law · Moses · Leviticus overview
The world of this chapter
Israel encamped at Sinai, receiving the sanctions of the covenant · c. 1445 BC on the traditional reckoning, in the second year after the Exodus, following the book's own setting · The camp below Sinai, with the judgment placed in the hands of the people of the land rather than a court of officials · A nation with no king, no standing judiciary and no prisons, about to enter a land whose inhabitants practised what this chapter forbids
Historical context
The chapter is spoken to the Israelites and binds the foreigner living among them on the same terms. The dating follows the book's own setting at Sinai, which this site's dossier records as one of two positions on the date of Leviticus.
Israel at this point has no king, no police and no prison. When the text says the people of the land are to stone a man, it is naming the only machinery of justice the nation has. That is why the chapter also sentences the town that hides its eyes, since a community that will not act is the only thing standing between a crime and its penalty.
Molech is named five times in the Torah and four of those fall here. A first hearer knew what the rite involved and knew that it was practised by neighbours they were about to live among. The text treats it as defiling the sanctuary and profaning the name, so the offence is against the camp as well as the child.
The clean and unclean list of chapter 11 returns at verse 25 with a stated purpose. In the ancient world a shared table marked a shared people, so a food rule was a boundary rule. The chapter gives no reason why one creature is clean and another unclean, and the only ground it offers is that God separated Israel from the peoples to be his own.
Significance
Chapter 18 had told this nation what it could not do. Chapter 20 told it what such acts would cost and who would have to carry out the sentence, which was the neighbours of the man who committed them.
The closing verses gave the reason the land itself would matter. The nations before them were removed for these practices, and Israel was warned on the same terms, so possession of the country was tied to conduct inside it.
Where the chapter sits
Leviticus 20 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. Molech's altar and those who turn to spirits
1. (vv. 1-3)
Chapter 18 listed the things Israel may not do and chapter 20 sets the price on them, beginning with the one that costs a child. The name Molech occurs five times in the Torah and four of them fall in this chapter, the fifth at 18:21. The sentence is stoning, and the hands named are the people of the land, so the community carries out the judgment itself. Verse 3 adds a second sentence no court can execute, since God says he will set his face against that man and cut him off from among his people.
Leviticus 20:1
“The crimes which are condemned in Lev. 18; 19 on purely spiritual ground, have here special punishments allotted to them as offences against the well-being of the nation.”
Leviticus 20:2
“That giveth any of his seed unto Molech - To what has been said in the note on Lev 18:21 (note), we may add, that the rabbins describe this idol, who was probably a representative or emblematical personification of the solar influence, as made of brass, in the form of a man, with the head of an ox; that a fire was kindled in the inside, and the child to be sacrificed to him was put in his arms, and roasted to death.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Leviticus 20:2
“Abraham's offering Isaac could not give countenance, much less could it give rise to this barbarous practice, since, though that was commanded, it was immediately countermanded.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Leviticus 20:3
“To defile my sanctuary - Because the sanctuary was defiled by gross abominations committed in that city or land where God's sanctuary was: or because by these actions they declared to all men that they esteemed the sanctuary and service of God abominable and vile, by preferring such odious idolatry before it.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
2. (vv. 4-5)
The law then turns on the people who watch and say nothing. The phrase rendered hide their eyes occurs nowhere else in the King James text, and it describes a whole town agreeing to see nothing. God answers by setting his face against the man and against his family, so looking away carries a sentence of its own. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown read the words as conniving at what a neighbour does rather than as failing to notice it.
Leviticus 20:4
“If the people of the land do any ways hide their eyes from the man, &c.--that is, connive at their countrymen practising the horrid rites of Molech. Awful was it that any Hebrew parents could so violate their national covenant, and no wonder that God denounced the severest penalties against them and their families.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
3. (vv. 6-8)
The list of penalties breaks off here for two verses about holiness. Turning after those that have familiar spirits is called going a whoring after them, the same words used of Molech in verse 5, so the text treats the practice as unfaithfulness rather than as a technique. Verses 7 and 8 then put both halves of holiness side by side, sanctify yourselves and I am the LORD which sanctify you, and Gill reads the first as the separation a man makes and the second as the work God does in him.
Leviticus 20:6
“Those do so who turn after those that deal in the black art, and know the depths of Satan. This is spiritual adultery as much as idolatry is, giving that honour to the devil which is due to God only; and the jealous God will give a bill of divorce to those that thus go a whoring from him, and will cut them off, they having first cut themselves off from him.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Leviticus 20:7
“7 Sanctify yourselves therefore, and be ye holy: for I am the L ORD your God. 8 And ye shall keep my statutes, and do them: I am the L ORD 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.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Leviticus 20:8
“And ye shall keep my statutes, and do them,.... Not only those respecting the above things, but all others, which would be a means of preserving them from sin, and of promoting holiness in their lives and conversations: I am the Lord which sanctify you: who had separated and distinguished them from all other people on earth, and who had given them holy laws, as the means of holiness; and who only could and did sanctify internally, by his Spirit and grace, such or them as were sanctified in heart, as well as outwardly.”
1 more voice on this verse
Leviticus 20:8
“Who sanctify you - Who separate you from all nations, and from their impurities and idolatries, to be a peculiar people to myself; and who give you my grace to keep my statutes.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
B. Sins that cost a life
1. (vv. 9-10)
Two of the ten commandments get their penalty here, the fifth and the seventh. Jesus cites the law on cursing a parent in the argument over corban at Matthew 15:4 and Mark 7:10, where the wording matches Exodus 21:17 as closely as it matches this verse. Verse 10 names the adulterer and the adulteress together and sentences both, which is worth holding beside John 8:3, where only the woman is brought.
Leviticus 20:9
“But when we wish to examine the very letter of the words as given by Matthew, "He that speaks evil of father or mother, let him die the death," consider whether it was taken from the place where it was written, "Whoso strikes his father or mother, let him die the death; and he that speaks evil of father or mother, let him die the death." For such are the exact words taken from the law with regard to the two commandments; but Matthew has quoted them in part and in an abridged form, and not in the very words.”
Origen of Alexandria· written before 253· COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW 11.9patristic
1 more voice on this verse
Leviticus 20:9
“Curseth - This is not here meant of every perverse expression, but of bitter reproaches or imprecations. His blood shall be upon him - He is guilty of his own death: he deserves to die for so unnatural a crime.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Leviticus 20:10
A woman accused of adultery was brought by the Scribes and Pharisees to the Lord Jesus with the malicious intent, that, if He was to acquit her, He might seem to annul the Law, if He condemned her, that He might seem to have changed the purpose of His coming, since He came to remit the sins of all men. To the same purport He said above, "I judge no man."
Ambrose of Milan· written before 397· Letter XXVIpatristic
2. (vv. 11-13)
Three offences from the chapter 18 list are given the same sentence and the same closing formula, their blood shall be upon them. That formula occurs eleven times in the King James text and six of them stand in this chapter, laying the guilt of the execution on the offender rather than on the court that carries it out. Paul takes up the first of the three at 1 Corinthians 5:1, where a man has his father's wife, and what he calls for there is expulsion from the assembly.
Leviticus 20:12
“They have wrought confusion - See Leviticus 18, and especially the note on Lev 18:6 (note).”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
3. (vv. 14-16)
Verse 14 carries the one sentence in the chapter executed by fire, and the text is silent on whether the burning follows a death already inflicted. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown read stoning first and burning afterwards from the pattern at Joshua 7:15, while Adam Clarke suggests a branding that left the offender marked for life. Verses 15 and 16 order the animal killed along with the person, which Keil and Delitzsch take as removing the memory of the act rather than as punishing the beast.
Leviticus 20:14
“They shall be burnt with fire - As there are worse crimes mentioned here, (see Lev 20:11 and Lev 20:17), where the delinquent is ordered simply to be put to death, or to be cut off, it is very likely that the crime mentioned in this verse was not punished by burning alive, but by some kind of branding, by which they were ever after rendered infamous.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Leviticus 20:14
“The only instance of another form of capital punishment occurs in Le 20:14, that of being burnt with fire; and yet it is probable that even here death was first inflicted by stoning, and the body of the criminal afterwards consumed by fire (Jos 7:15).”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Leviticus 20:15
“Even the beast that was thus abused was to be killed with the sinner, who was thereby openly put to the greater shame: and the villany was thus represented as in the highest degree execrable and abominable, all occasions of the remembrance or mention of it being to be taken away.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Leviticus 20:16
“If a woman approach unto any beast - We have the authority of one of the most eminent historians in the world, Herodotus, to say that this was a crime not unknown in Egypt; yea, that a case of this nature actually took place while he was there. Εγενετο δ’ εν τῳ νο μῳ τουτῳ επ’ εμευ τουτο το τερας, Γυναικι Τραγος εμισγετο αναφανδον. Τουτο ες επιδειξιν ανθρωπων απικετο. - Herod. in Euterp., p. 108. Edit. Gale, Lond.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
C. Shameful unions and their barrenness
1. (vv. 17-19)
The penalty changes register at verse 17. The sentences here are being cut off in the sight of their people, bearing his iniquity, and bearing their iniquity, and no human hand is told to do anything about any of them. Matthew Henry reads the wording as guilt left standing against a man who was never brought to trial, carried forward to be reckoned for rather than purged with sacrifice.
Leviticus 20:18
“For this is the will of God, that every man should possess his vessel (and the wife is called the weaker vessel) in sanctification and honour, as becomes saints. 22 Ye shall therefore keep all my statutes, and all my judgments, and do them: that the land, whither I bring you to dwell therein, spue you not out.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Leviticus 20:19
“Nay it is said, They shall bear their iniquity, that is, though they be not immediately cut off by the hand either of God or man for this sin, yet the guilt of it shall lie upon them, to be reckoned for another day, and not be purged with sacrifice or offering.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
2. (vv. 20-21)
These two carry a sentence found in no other law, which is childlessness. The words die childless occur once in the King James text and this is the place, so what is taken here is a future rather than a life. Deuteronomy 25:5 commands a man to marry his dead brother's widow, so verse 21 speaks of a brother still living, and John the Baptist applies it to Herod at Mark 6:18.
Leviticus 20:20
“They shall die childless - Either the offspring should not be regarded as lawfully theirs, nor be entitled to any hereditary privileges, or they should have no blessing in their children.”
D. Be separate, as I separated you
1. (vv. 22-24)
The chapter stops listing offences and gives the land a part to play. The word spue occurs twice in Leviticus, at 18:28 and here, and both times the ground is the one doing it, so the country itself is described as reacting to what happens on it. Verse 23 states the reason the nations before them were removed, that they committed all these things, and the same threat now stands over Israel on the same terms. Adam Clarke reads the warning alongside Genesis 15:16 and the cup of Canaanite iniquity coming full.
Leviticus 20:22
“The land, whither I bring you to dwell therein, spue you not out - See this energetic prosopopoeia explained in the note on Lev 18:25 (note). From this we learn that the cup of the iniquities of the Canaanitish nations was full; and that, consistently with Divine justice, they could be no longer spared.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2. (vv. 25-26)
The clean and unclean list of chapter 11 comes back here with a stated purpose, which is separation. Verse 26 gives ye shall be holy for the third time in Leviticus, after 11:44 and 19:2, and 1 Peter 1:16 carries the refrain into the church. Leviticus never explains why one creature is clean and another unclean, and the one reason it offers is the close of verse 26, that God severed them from other people that they should be his. Mark 7:19 and Acts 10:9 to 16 are where the New Testament takes up the food law, and each of them does something different with it.
Leviticus 20:25
“Between clean beasts and unclean - See the notes on Leviticus 11 (note).”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Leviticus 20:25
“This is holiness, to discern between things that differ, not to live at large, as if we might say and do any thing, but to speak and act with caution.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Leviticus 20:26
“Their duty; this is inferred from their dignity. God had done more for them than for others, and therefore expected more from them than from others. And what is it that the Lord their God requires, in consideration of the great things done and designed?”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
3. (v. 27)
The chapter closes on the sentence it opened with, stoning by the community. Verse 6 dealt with the man who goes to a medium and this verse deals with the medium, so the practice is answered at both ends of the chapter. Familiar spirits and wizards enter Scripture at 19:31, and the thread runs from here to Saul at Endor in 1 Samuel 28, to Manasseh in 2 Kings 21:6, and to Isaiah 8:19. Matthew Henry reads the penalty as removing a standing temptation from among the people rather than as reaching the practitioner alone.
Leviticus 20:27
“A familiar spirit - A spirit or demon, which, by magical rites, is supposed to be bound to appear at the call of his employer. See the notes on Gen 41:8; Exo 7:11 (note), Exo 7:22 (note), Exo 7:25 (note); and Lev 19:31 (note). From the accounts we have of the abominations both of Egypt and Canaan, we may blush for human nature; for wherever it is without cultivation, and without the revelation of God, it is every thing that is vile in principle and detestable in practice.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Keep studying
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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 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.