25 "'You shall therefore make a distinction between the clean animal and the unclean, and between the unclean fowl and the clean: and you shall not make yourselves abominable by animal, or by bird, or by anything with which the ground teems, which I have separated from you as unclean for you.
Yahweh spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying to them, "Speak to the children of Israel, saying, 'These are the living things which you may eat among all the animals that are on the earth. Whatever parts the hoof, and is cloven-footed, and chews the cud among the animals, that you may eat. "'Nevertheless these you shall not eat of those that chew the cud, or of those who part the hoof: the camel, because he chews the cud but doesn't have a parted hoof, he is unclean to you. The coney, because he chews the cud but doesn't have a parted hoof, he is unclean to you. The hare, because she chews the cud but doesn't part the hoof, she is unclean to you. The pig, because he has a split hoof, and is cloven-footed, but doesn't chew the cud, he is unclean to you. Of their flesh you shall not eat, and their carcasses you shall not touch; they are unclean to you. These you may eat of all that are in the waters: whatever has fins and scales in the waters, in the seas, and in the rivers, that you may eat. All that don't have fins and scales in the seas, and in the rivers, of all that move in the waters, and of all the living creatures that are in the waters, they are an abomination to you, and you detest them. You shall not eat of their flesh, and you shall detest their carcasses. Whatever has no fins nor scales in the waters, that is an abomination to you. "'These you shall detest among the birds; they shall not be eaten, they are an abomination: the eagle, and the vulture, and the black vulture, and the red kite, any kind of black kite, any kind of raven, the horned owl, the screech owl, and the gull, any kind of hawk, the little owl, the cormorant, the great owl, the white owl, the desert owl, the osprey, the stork, any kind of heron, the hoopoe, and the bat. "'All flying insects that walk on all fours are an abomination to you. Yet you may eat these: of all winged creeping things that go on all fours, which have legs above their feet, with which to hop on the earth. Even of these you may eat: any kind of locust, any kind of katydid, any kind of cricket, and any kind of grasshopper. But all winged creeping things which have four feet, are an abomination to you. "'By these you will become unclean: whoever touches the carcass of them shall be unclean until the evening. Whoever carries any part of their carcass shall wash his clothes, and be unclean until the evening. "'Every animal which parts the hoof, and is not cloven-footed, nor chews the cud, is unclean to you. Everyone who touches them shall be unclean. Whatever goes on its paws, among all animals that go on all fours, they are unclean to you. Whoever touches their carcass shall be unclean until the evening. He who carries their carcass shall wash his clothes, and be unclean until the evening. They are unclean to you. "'These are they which are unclean to you among the creeping things that creep on the earth: the weasel, the rat, any kind of great lizard, the gecko, and the monitor lizard, the wall lizard, the skink, and the chameleon. These are they which are unclean to you among all that creep. Whoever touches them when they are dead, shall be unclean until the evening. On whatever any of them falls when they are dead, it shall be unclean; whether it is any vessel of wood, or clothing, or skin, or sack, whatever vessel it is, with which any work is done, it must be put into water, and it shall be unclean until the evening; then it will be clean. Every earthen vessel, into which any of them falls, all that is in it shall be unclean, and you shall break it. All food which may be eaten, that on which water comes, shall be unclean; and all drink that may be drunk in every such vessel shall be unclean. Everything whereupon part of their carcass falls shall be unclean; whether oven, or range for pots, it shall be broken in pieces: they are unclean, and shall be unclean to you. Nevertheless a spring or a cistern in which water is a gathered shall be clean: but that which touches their carcass shall be unclean. If part of their carcass falls on any sowing seed which is to be sown, it is clean. But if water is put on the seed, and part of their carcass falls on it, it is unclean to you. "'If any animal, of which you may eat, dies; he who touches its carcass shall be unclean until the evening. He who eats of its carcass shall wash his clothes, and be unclean until the evening. He also who carries its carcass shall wash his clothes, and be unclean until the evening. "'Every creeping thing that creeps on the earth is an abomination. It shall not be eaten. Whatever goes on its belly, and whatever goes on all fours, or whatever has many feet, even all creeping things that creep on the earth, them you shall not eat; for they are an abomination. You shall not make yourselves abominable with any creeping thing that creeps, neither shall you make yourselves unclean with them, that you should be defiled thereby. For I am Yahweh your God. Sanctify yourselves therefore, and be holy; for I am holy: neither shall you defile yourselves with any kind of creeping thing that moves on the earth. For I am Yahweh who brought you up out of the land of Egypt, to be your God. You shall therefore be holy, for I am holy. "'This is the law of the animal, and of the bird, and of every living creature that moves in the waters, and of every creature that creeps on the earth, to make a distinction between the unclean and the clean, and between the living thing that may be eaten and the living thing that may not be eaten.'"
You shall not eat any abominable thing. These are the animals which you may eat: the ox, the sheep, and the goat, the hart, and the gazelle, and the roebuck, and the wild goat, and the ibex, and the antelope, and the chamois. Every animal that parts the hoof, and has the hoof cloven in two, [and] chews the cud, among the animals, that may you eat. Nevertheless these you shall not eat of them that chew the cud, or of those who have the hoof cloven: the camel, and the hare, and the rabbit; because they chew the cud but don't part the hoof, they are unclean to you. The pig, because it has a split hoof but doesn't chew the cud, is unclean to you: of their flesh you shall not eat, and their carcasses you shall not touch. These you may eat of all that are in the waters: whatever has fins and scales may you eat; and whatever doesn't have fins and scales you shall not eat; it is unclean to you. Of all clean birds you may eat. But these are they of which you shall not eat: the eagle, and the gier-eagle, and the ospray, and the red kite, and the falcon, and the kite after its kind, and every raven after its kind, and the ostrich, and the night-hawk, and the sea-mew, and the hawk after its kind, the little owl, and the great owl, and the horned owl, and the pelican, and the vulture, and the cormorant, and the stork, and the heron after its kind, and the hoopoe, and the bat. All winged creeping things are unclean to you: they shall not be eaten. Of all clean birds you may eat. You shall not eat of anything that dies of itself: you may give it to the foreigner living among you who is within your gates, that he may eat it; or you may sell it to a foreigner: for you are a holy people to Yahweh your God. You shall not boil a kid in its mother's milk.
He saw heaven opened and a certain container descending to him, like a great sheet let down by four corners on the earth, in which were all kinds of four-footed animals of the earth, wild animals, reptiles, and birds of the sky. A voice came to him, "Rise, Peter, kill and eat!" But Peter said, "Not so, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean." A voice came to him again the second time, "What God has cleansed, you must not call unclean."
He said to them, "You yourselves know how it is an unlawful thing for a man who is a Jew to join himself or come to one of another nation, but God has shown me that I shouldn't call any man unholy or unclean.
Therefore don't be partakers with them. For you were once darkness, but are now light in the Lord. Walk as children of light, for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth, proving what is well-pleasing to the Lord. Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather even reprove them.
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.