Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadPaul Kretzmann Commentary - Leviticus 18:21 - 18:30
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Unnatural Lusts
v. 21. And thou shalt not let any of thy seed pass through the fire to Molech, an ancient Canaanitish idol in the form of a hollow statue with the head of an ox, in whose worship such bestial practices of sacrificing children, in an excess of cruelty, were common; neither shalt thou profane the name of thy God, as would certainly happen through participation in such abominations. I am the Lord.
v. 22. Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind, in the sin known as sodomy or as pederasty; it is abomination.
v. 23. Neither shalt thou lie with any beast to defile thyself there with; neither shall any woman stand before a beast to lie down thereto, to permit carnal intercourse; it is confusion, a most abominable and revolting defilement.
v. 24. Defile not ye yourselves in any of these things, in these bestial perversions of sexual desire: for in all these the nations are defiled which I cast out before you;
v. 25. and the land is defiled; therefore I do visit the iniquity thereof upon it, and the land itself vomiteth out her inhabitants. The story of Sodom shows to what extent unnatural vices were practiced by the inhabitants of Canaan, to a degree that nature itself could no longer endure them.
v. 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 ("The land which the ancestors of Israel were not allowed to possess because the iniquity of the Amorites not yet full, Gen_15:16, had now become filled with a mass of festering moral corruption. Its inhabitants were to be cast out and the holy people planted in their stead. It could not be allowed that 'the stranger' should again introduce the pollutions which were now being so severely punished. " Lange),
v. 27. (for all these abominations have the men of the land done which were before you, and the land is defiled,)
v. 28. that the land spue not you out also when ye defile it, as it spued out the nations that were before you. The land is personified as a creature which is obliged to vomit forth some form of indigestible food with every indication of revulsion.
v. 29. For whosoever shall commit any of these abominations, even the souls that commit them shall be cut off from among their people.
v. 30. Therefore shall ye keep Mine ordinance, the precept covering this matter based upon natural law, 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, and the just and holy God cannot endure such customs of abomination, as in those days, so in our times. There is a hint in this Chapter which has been sustained abundantly by history, namely, that any relaxation of sexual purity will usually be accompanied by the perversion or denial of some fundamental doctrine.