And Another One - Leviticus 20

Chapter 20 is another conglomerate of already discussed commands, but starts off with something a little unfamiliar which is giving of children “unto Molech.” We first heard about Molech just recently and It doesn’t say exactly what happens to these kids, like if they are given to serve Molech or if they are to be human sacrifices, which TB suggests that that is the case. Any one who gives their children to be given “unto Molech” or I would imagine any other type of god as well, are to be put to death, more specifically, “the people of the land shall stone him with stones.” It’s interesting that God prescribed the method of execution here and TB suggests that if it was like beheading or shot with an arrow or something like that, then it would only take one single skilled executioner to perform the task. But with stoning, it takes a whole group of people hurling stones at the person for a while before they actually die. The point, TB says, is to make sure that lots of people participate in that execution so that they can fully comprehend what exactly the consequences are if they choose to do the same thing.

Those who participate in the occult are to be cut off from the people, those “that curseth his father or his mother shall be surely put to death.” This is another one that I’ve never understood because my parents were so terrible that I’ve never felt like I had an obligation to obey them and I thought it was incredibly unjust to expect me to do what they say when it wasn’t in my own best interest but instead was only to support their raging narcissism and psychopathy. Like I have to take care of myself, I can’t obey them and make sure that I’m okay too. Anyway, so this is something else that I’ve not just struggled with but just don’t understand because I don’t have that experience and understanding.

Verse 10 goes right back into everyone’s favorite subject… sex. There are numerous sexual relationships that are described and forbidden and the punishment for these acts are almost all death, except for consensual sex between a brother and sister, in which case they are just to be “cut off.” Additionally, if a man has sex with a woman who is not his wife while she is on her period, this is also punishable by being “cut off.” Sex between a man and his brother or uncle’s wife will have the punishment of them being barren. This introduces an interesting concept though because a priest could not enforce the punishment of barrenness and so it begs the question, does this mean that this is God’s individual and private punishment for someone who commits this sin, even though it might not be general knowledge, and if so, does that mean that those who were barren were subject to the speculation of other people trying to figure out which sin they were guilty of because they didn’t have kids? Something to think about.

God then tells the Israelite people again that these commandments are what separates Israel from the people in Canaan who were about to be evicted from their lands, and if the people of Israel violate these commandments then they are just as guilty as the expelled Canaanites and will shortly share the same fate and we see that several times in the future this is exactly what happens.