2 Again, say to the children of Israel, If any man of the children of Israel, or any other man living in Israel, gives his offspring to Molech, he is certainly to be put to death: he is to be stoned by the people of the land;
Then he is to be stoned to death by all the men of the town: so you are to put away the evil from among you; and all Israel, hearing of it, will be full of fear.
And Moses said these words to the children of Israel, and they took the man who had been cursing outside the tent-circle and had him stoned. The children of Israel did as the Lord gave orders to Moses.
Any man or woman who makes use of spirits, or who is a wonder-worker, is to be put to death: they are to be stoned with stones: their blood will be on them.
And you may not make any of your children go through the fire as an offering to Molech, and you may not put shame on the name of your God: I am the Lord.
Driving him out of the town and stoning him: and the witnesses put their clothing at the feet of a young man named Saul. And Stephen, while he was being stoned, made prayer to God, saying, Lord Jesus, take my spirit.
And you took up the tent of Moloch and the star of the god Rephan, images which you made to give worship to them: and I will take you away, farther than Babylon.
For she has been false to me, and blood is on her hands, and with her images she has been untrue; and more than this, she made her sons, whom she had by me, go through the fire to them to be burned up.
And when you give your offerings, causing your sons to go through the fire, you make yourselves unclean with all your images to this day; and will you come to me for directions, O children of Israel? By my life, says the Lord, you will get no direction from me.
And you took your sons and your daughters whom I had by you, offering even these to them to be their food. Was your loose behaviour so small a thing, That you put my children to death and gave them up to go through the fire to them?
And they put up the high places of the Baal in the valley of the son of Hinnom, making their sons and their daughters go through the fire to Molech; which I did not give them orders to do, and it never came into my mind that they would do this disgusting thing, causing Judah to be turned out of the way.
You who are burning with evil desire among the oaks, under every green tree; putting children to death in the valleys, under the cracks of the rocks? Among the smooth stones of the valley is your heritage; they, even they, are your part: even to them have you made a drink offering and a meal offering. Is it possible for such things to be overlooked by me?
And gave the blood of their sons and their daughters who had done no wrong, offering them to the images of Canaan; and the land was made unclean with blood.
More than this, he made his children go through the fire in the valley of the son of Hinnom; and he made use of secret arts, and signs for reading the future, and unnatural powers, and gave positions to those who had control of spirits and to wonder-workers: he did much evil in the eyes of the Lord, moving him to wrath.
More than this, he had offerings burned in the valley of the son of Hinnom, and made his children go through fire, copying the disgusting ways of the nations whom the Lord had sent out of the land before the children of Israel.
And Topheth, in the valley of the sons of Hinnom, he made unclean, so that no man might make his son or his daughter go through the fire to Molech.
Let there not be seen among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter go through the fire, or anyone using secret arts, or a maker of strange sounds, or a reader of signs, or any wonder-worker,
Then you are to take the man or woman who has done the evil to the public place of your town, and they are to be stoned with stones till they are dead. On the word of two or three witnesses, a man may be given the punishment of death; but he is not to be put to death on the word of one witness. The hands of the witnesses will be the first to put him to death, and after them the hands of all the people. So you are to put away the evil from among you.
Let him be stoned with stones till he is dead; because it was his purpose to make you false to the Lord your God, who took you out of the land of Egypt, out of the prison-house. And all Israel, hearing of it, will be full of fear, and no one will again do such evil as this among you.
Do not so to the Lord your God: for everything which is disgusting to the Lord and hated by him they have done in honour of their gods: even burning their sons and daughters in the fire to their gods.
Then the Lord said to Moses, Certainly the man is to be put to death: let him be stoned by all the people outside the tent-circle. So all the people took him outside the tent-circle and he was stoned to death there, as the Lord gave orders to Moses.
And anyone who takes as food anything which has come to a natural end, or anything which has been put to death by beasts, if he is one of you by birth, or of another nation, will have to have his clothing washed and his body bathed in water and be unclean till evening, and then he will be clean.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Keil & Delitzsch Commentary » Commentary on Leviticus 20
Commentary on Leviticus 20 Keil & Delitzsch Commentary
Punishments for the Vices and crimes Prohibited in Ch. 18 and 19. - The list commences with idolatry and soothsaying, which were to be followed by extermination, as a practical apostasy from Jehovah, and a manifest breach of the covenant.
Whoever, whether an Israelite or a foreigner in Israel, dedicated of his seed (children) to Moloch (see Leviticus 18:21), was to be put to death. The people of the land were to stone him. בּאבן רגם , lapide obruere , is synonymous with סקל , lit., lapidem jacere: this was the usual punishment appointed in the law for cases in which death was inflicted, either as the result of a judicial sentence, or by the national community.
By this punishment the nation only carried out the will of Jehovah; for He would cut off such a man (see at Leviticus 17:10 and Leviticus 18:21) for having defiled the sanctuary of Jehovah and desecrated the name of Jehovah, not because he had brought the sacrifice to Moloch into the sanctuary of Jehovah, as Movers supposes, but in the same sense in which all the sins of Israel defiled the sanctuary in their midst (Leviticus 15:31; Leviticus 16:16).
If the people, however (the people of the land), should hide their eyes from him (on the dagesh in חעלּם and יעלּימוּ see the note on Leviticus 4:13-21), from an unscrupulous indifference or a secret approval of his sin, the Lord would direct His face against him and his family, and cut him off with all that went a whoring after him.
He would also do the same to every soul that turned to familiar spirits and necromantists (Leviticus 19:31, cf. Exodus 22:17), “to go a whoring after them,” i.e., to make himself guilty of idolatry by so doing, such practices being always closely connected with idolatry.
For the Israelites were to sanctify themselves, i.e., to keep themselves pure from all idolatrous abominations, to be holy because Jehovah was holy (Leviticus 11:44; Leviticus 19:2), and to keep the statutes of their God who sanctified them (Exodus 31:13).
Whoever cursed father or mother was to be punished with death (Leviticus 19:3); “ His blood would be upon him .” The cursing of parents was a capital crime (see at Leviticus 17:4, and for the plural דּמיו Exodus 22:1 and Genesis 4:10), which was to return upon the doer of it, according to Genesis 9:6. The same punishment was to be inflicted upon adultery (Leviticus 20:10, cf. Leviticus 18:20), carnal intercourse with a father's wife (Leviticus 20:11, cf. Leviticus 18:7-8) or with a daughter-in-law (Leviticus 20:12, cf. Leviticus 18:17), sodomy (Leviticus 20:13, cf. Leviticus 18:22), sexual intercourse with a mother and her daughter, in which case the punishment was to be heightened by the burning of the criminals when put to death (Leviticus 20:14, cf. Leviticus 18:17), lying with a beast (Leviticus 20:15, Leviticus 20:16, cf. Leviticus 18:23), sexual intercourse with a half-sister (Leviticus 20:17, cf. Leviticus 18:9 and Leviticus 18:11), and lying with a menstruous woman (Leviticus 20:18, cf. Leviticus 18:19). The punishment of death, which was to be inflicted in all these cases upon both the criminals, and also upon the beast that had been abused (Leviticus 20:15, Leviticus 20:16), was to be by stoning, according to Leviticus 20:2, Leviticus 20:27, and Deuteronomy 22:21.; and by the burning (Leviticus 20:14) we are not to understand death by fire, or burning alive, but, as we may clearly see from Joshua 7:15 and Joshua 7:25, burning the corpse after death. This was also the case in Leviticus 21:9 and Genesis 38:24.
No civil punishment, on the other hand, to be inflicted by the magistrate or by the community generally, was ordered to follow marriage with an aunt, the sister of father or mother (Leviticus 20:19, cf. Leviticus 18:12-13), with an uncle's wife (Leviticus 20:20, cf. Leviticus 18:4), or with a sister-in-law, a brother's wife (Leviticus 20:21, cf. Leviticus 18:16). In all these cases the threat is simply held out, “they shall bear their iniquity,” and (according to Leviticus 20:20, Leviticus 20:21) “die childless;” that is to say, God would reserve the punishment to Himself (see at Leviticus 18:14). In the list of punishments no reference is made to intercourse with a mother (Leviticus 18:7) or a granddaughter (Leviticus 18:10), as it was taken for granted that the punishment of death would be inflicted in such cases as these; just as marriage with a daughter or a full sister is passed over in the prohibitions in ch. 18.
The list of punishments concludes, like the prohibitions in Leviticus 18:24., with exhortations to observe the commandments and judgments of the Lord, and to avoid such abominations (on Leviticus 18:22 cf. Leviticus 18:3-5, Leviticus 18:26, Leviticus 18:28, Leviticus 18:30; and on Leviticus 18:23 cf. Leviticus 18:3 and Leviticus 18:24). The reason assigned for the exhortations is, that Jehovah was about to give them for a possession the fruitful land, whose inhabitants He had driven out because of their abominations, and that Jehovah was their God, who had separated Israel from the nations. For this reason (Leviticus 18:25) they were also to sever (make distinctions) between clean and unclean cattle and birds, and not make their souls (i.e., their persons) abominable through unclean animals, with which the earth swarmed, and which God had “ separated to make unclean, ” i.e., had prohibited them from eating or touching when dead, because they defiled (see ch. 11). For (Leviticus 18:26) they were to be holy, because Jehovah their God was holy, who had severed them from the nations, to belong to Him, i.e., to be the nation of His possession (see Exodus 19:4-6).
But because Israel was called to be the holy nation of Jehovah, every one, ether man or woman, in whom there was a heathenish spirit of soothsaying, was to be put to death, viz., stoned (cf. Leviticus 19:31), to prevent defilement by idolatrous abominations.