Scripture Daily

Context No. 99 of 4322 · Leviticus

Context · Reflection

Leviticus 18:21-30: in context

21“‘You shall not give any of your children as a sacrifice to Molech. You shall not profane the name of your God. I am the LORD. 22“‘You shall not lie with a man as with a woman. That is detestable. 23“‘You shall not lie with any animal to defile yourself with it. No woman may give herself to an animal, to lie down with it: it is a perversion. 24“‘Don’t defile yourselves in any of these things; for in all these the nations which I am casting out before you were defiled. 25The land was defiled. Therefore I punished its iniquity, and the land vomited out her inhabitants. 26You therefore shall keep my statutes and my ordinances, and shall not do any of these abominations; neither the native-born, nor the stranger who lives as a foreigner among you 27(for the men of the land that were before you had done all these abominations, and the land became defiled), 28that the land not vomit you out also, when you defile it, as it vomited out the nation that was before you. 29“‘For whoever shall do any of these abominations, even the souls that do them shall be cut off from among their people. 30Therefore you shall keep my requirements, that you do not practice any of these abominable customs which were practiced before you, and that you do not defile yourselves with them. I am the LORD your God.’”

Leviticus 17 to 26 is called the Holiness Code, a block of law built on the refrain be holy, for I am holy. Chapter 18 is its list of forbidden sexual relations and practices, and this passage is its closing section. The frame around the list is stated twice, before and after: do not do as they do in Egypt where you lived, or as they do in Canaan where I am bringing you.

The first item here is child sacrifice to Molech, the practice of passing a son or daughter through the fire, which the prophets later report happening in Judah itself in the valley outside Jerusalem. Then prohibitions of sex between men and of sex with animals, each with its own term of condemnation. The chapter's logic is territorial and stated plainly: the land itself became defiled by these things, and the land vomited out the people who were there before you. Then the warning that it will do the same to Israel, with no exemption for being the chosen people.

The land is the actor in that sentence. It is not that Israel gets a pass and the Canaanites did not. The same conditions apply to whoever is standing there. These are the terms the text sets for itself, addressed to a specific people entering a specific place. What have I assumed I am exempt from because of who I am rather than what I am doing?

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