20:1–2a While Leviticus is pervasively marked as the Lord’s speech, it is especially important to remember this here. The Lord is still speaking from Sinai with the same authority that spoke the blessings and curses of the covenant. These laws are given to the “people of Israel,” who will be responsible as a community for judging sin.

20:2b–3 The penalty begins most emphatically to include every single Israelite and resident alien.237 Idolatry is the first order of concern in the Sinai covenant (Ex. 20:3). The offense of turning to other gods is only magnified by the way in which devotion is shown to Molech in offering one’s children. The Lord had judged the genocidal king of Egypt and claimed all Israelite children through the redemption of the firstborn (Ex. 13:11–15). To give them up willingly to false gods is a betrayal of the Lord’s saving work among his people. It profanes the holy name of Yahweh by making him appear as the depraved gods of the nations.

Child sacrifice was practiced among Israel’s neighbors, and in their darkest apostasy by Israelites themselves (2 Kings 23:10; Jer. 32:35). Ancient literary sources and archaeological remains attest to how children were offered as sacrifice by passing through fire. Cemeteries in North Africa, Sicily, Sardinia, and Cyprus preserve the cremated remains of infants in ceramic urns with dedicatory inscriptions.

The community is to execute the violator and purge evil from among the nation. Stoning is prescribed as the method of execution for idolatry and the practice of the occult (Lev. 20:2, 27), rebellion against parental authority (v. 9), and adultery (v. 10). Elsewhere it is prescribed for blasphemy (24:16) and the desecration of the Sabbath (Num. 15:32–36).

20:4–5 If the community is lax in enforcing the death penalty, the Lord himself will arise as a kinsman, avenging wrong by judging the sinner with the extinction of his family line and judgment beyond the grave. He will judge the clan that should have restrained the sinner but instead chose to close its eyes (cf. Josh. 7:25).

In Leviticus 20:3, 5 the Lord threatens to “set [his] face against that man” in a reversal of the blessing for the Lord to shine his face upon his people with favorable acceptance (Num. 6:24–26). Instead of granting favor and peace God will oppose the idolater who profanes his divine name.

20:6 Spiritism involves seeking knowledge from other gods and from a different realm, often by possession (cf. 19:31).

20:7–8 The Lord sanctifies Israel (v. 8), but she must also consecrate herself (v. 7). The people participate in their sanctification through obedience to the Lord’s commands. Holiness allows for relationship: God’s people draw near to him in worship and live under his blessing. It is their priestly task to guard themselves from sin, as the Levites were zealous to guard the Lord’s holiness (Exodus 26–29; Deut. 33:8–9).

20:9 The laws begin with those whose penalty is death (vv. 9–16), followed by those whose penalty is not (vv. 17–21). The death penalty for cursing one’s parents conveys the gravity of the offense. This law is directed toward adult children, who have a solemn obligation to care for their parents in their old age (and even beyond, as in Gen. 50:5, 12–13). Dishonoring one’s parents undermines the kinship bonds of loyalty and authority that exist in the parent-child relationship (and that ultimately mirror the same bonds that exist in one’s relationship with the Lord). Furthermore, cursing invokes a supernatural power. If blessing is thought to have the spiritual power to shape the course of one’s life, so is cursing. Jacob was desperate for his father’s blessing but fearful of his curse (Gen. 27:11–13). The Lord condemns anyone who would wish destruction on his parents, through whom he has received protection, blessing, life instruction, and knowledge of the Lord. Both parents are to bring their son to the town’s elders, who call witnesses and judge the case (Deut. 21:18–21). No one in the extended family or village community can excuse the crime or cover up this sinful behavior.

20:10 Adultery is a weighty transgression against the Lord and the covenant of marriage (Ex. 20:14). Among Israel’s neighbors adultery was referred to as the “great sin” and was punishable by death. In Israel both adulterer and adulteress are executed by stoning in a public place (Deut. 22:24). In complementary biblical laws provision is made to protect a woman who may have been sexually assaulted. If she cried out for help, the sexual encounter is deemed nonconsensual. She is spared, and her rapist is put to death for violating her (Deut. 22:25–27). Falsely accusing a woman of adultery during the betrothal period results in flogging and a staggering fine of 100 shekels (Deut. 22:18–19).238

Adultery is difficult to prove in a court that requires eyewitnesses to the act. A husband therefore has recourse to a divine court at the tabernacle (Num. 5:11–31), where he appeals to the Lord to uncover and punish sin. It may be up to the wronged husband’s discretion whether he pursues a trial or divorce (cf. Matt. 1:19).239 Through the prophetic word it is up to the Lord to model that which is outside the purview of the legal genre to convey—forgiveness and reconciliation (Hosea 2; John 8:3–11). See Leviticus 18:20.

20:11–12 A sexual liaison between a man and his father’s wife or a man and his daughter-in-law is incest and a capital offense. It dishonors the relationship between father and son and disorders family dynamics involving household leadership and inheritance. Judah unknowingly violated this law with Tamar but later exonerated her as more righteous than he when he recognized his complicity in driving her to that desperate act (Gen. 38:26). See Leviticus 18:8, 15.

20:13 Capital punishment is prescribed for same-sex intercourse. Homosexuality is embedded within other penalties for sexual sin that, though apparently consensual, defy the Lord’s commands and pollute the community’s holiness. The severe punishment strikes at eradicating personal sin that endangers the entire nation of coming under God’s wrath (vv. 22–24).

In the same way that child sacrifice (v. 2), incest (vv. 11–12), and bestiality (vv. 15–16) have ongoing relevance so does the prohibition against homosexuality, as clearly reflected in the NT (Rom. 1:24–27; Rev. 22:15). In fact Paul coins a word for those who practice homosexuality that is drawn directly from the LXX of this verse: arsenokoitai combines the word for male (arseno) and bed (koitē) to refer to men who take other men to bed (1 Cor. 6:9; 1 Tim. 1:10). For Paul this is not just an aberrant sexual practice but one that the authority of Scripture clearly condemns. In the old covenant as in the new the Lord holds out hope for the penitent, preferring “that the wicked [person should] turn from his way and live” (Ezek. 33:11, 14–16). Turning away from a sinful lifestyle to walk in forgiveness and newness of life is possible because of the power of God made available “in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Cor. 6:11). See Leviticus 18:22.

20:14 The law and its penalty are given from the perspective of the wife. The prohibition in 18:17 is stated from the mother’s perspective (“woman and . . . her daughter”), while here it is stated from the daughter’s perspective (“woman and her mother”). The focus is the relationship between the two women. Such a marriage is a betrayal of the natural bond between mother and child that was protected even among Israel’s livestock (22:28). It is perversion (Hb. zimmah). As noted above, the unions appear to have been consensual, since the husband and both of his wives are held liable and punished by burning, a form of execution seen not usually with men but with women who have engaged in illicit sexual behavior (21:9; Gen. 38:24). Burning communicates a decisive eradication of sin and purification of the community. The Lord himself punishes by fire when he judges sexual sin (Gen. 19:24), transgression of holy boundaries (Lev. 10:2), and evil in general (Rev. 20:10).

20:15–16 The sin of bestiality can be committed by either men or women. Livestock is overnighted in stables on either side of a home’s central courtyard, where daily cooking activities take place. Inclusion of bestiality in the family laws shows that animals are part of the Israelite household. They rest on the Sabbath, just as the householder and his servants do (Ex. 23:12); they feed on the land, just as the poor do (Lev. 25:6–7); they are held liable for shedding a person’s blood, just as human murderers are (Gen. 9:5; Ex. 21:28–32). Since both animal and human have transgressed the Lord’s boundaries, both are to be put to death. See Leviticus 18:23.

20:17 A man who has sexual intercourse with his sister or half-sister is guilty. While both are held liable to punishment, a brother’s culpability is singled out (“He shall bear his iniquity”) because he is responsible for protecting his sister and guarding her honor but instead has betrayed and shamefully debased her. As Tamar objected to Amnon, “Such a thing is not done in Israel” (2 Sam. 13:12). That which is to separate Israel from the nations is love and care for the other within holy boundaries (Leviticus 19).

For the “cutting off” penalty cf. 7:19–21. Given that the penalty in 20:9–16 is clearly stated as being put to death, the switch to the “cutting off” penalty here suggests that excommunication, not death, is in view.240 For the parallel laws cf. 18:9.

20:18 The man and woman who pursue sexual relations during the woman’s menstrual cycle are likewise punished by being cut off from the community. This is a different situation from that of 15:24, in which the couple was intimate without realizing menstruation had begun. Deliberate intercourse during menstruation is a moral issue because it is a flagrant violation of the Lord’s commands—his exposing “her fountain” and her “uncovering the fountain of her blood.” See 18:19.

20:19–20 Sexual relations with aunts from either the mother’s or the father’s side of the family bring guilt upon the offenders that will be punished by the Lord. A man who seduces his uncle’s wife (presumably after his death) will be punished with childlessness (cf. sexual sin and lack of conception in Gen. 20:17–18). The Lord will bring justice to an immoral union by ending that family line. The expression that they will “bear their sin/iniquity” instills the fear of God in situations that are difficult to expose. The Lord takes it upon himself to visit punishment in the absence of human agency. See Leviticus 18:12–14.

20:21 The case of a man’s taking his brother’s wife is equated with having relations with a menstruating woman. The Hebrew for “impurity” (Hb. niddah), which refers elsewhere to menstruation (12:2, 5; 15:19–33; 18:19), is used rhetorically to communicate the uncleanness and disgust of a polluting sexual union in violation of God’s commands. John the Baptist confronted Herod Antipas precisely on this prohibition, as he had unlawfully divorced his wife and married Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife (Mark 6:17–18). Cf. Leviticus 18:16.

20:22–24 The way in which Israel lives in the land will determine her destiny. The choice is clear: will God’s people live by the Lord’s statutes and inherit the land, or will they live like the nations, which were vomited out? They will soon be acting as an instrument of God’s judgment on the Canaanites. How can they possibly fight wars of conquest or take possession of the land if they have not rooted out the evil from among them? If the Lord detests these practices, his covenant partners should also (Ps. 139:21–22; Rom. 12:9).

20:25–26 Israel participates in her sanctification by obedience in daily living. Drawing distinctions between clean and unclean separates Israel from the nations and to the Lord. Consuming unclean food would make the people “detestable” (Hb. shaqats; 11:11, 13, 43), a word intended to elicit disgust. The Lord who made a distinction between his people and the Egyptians (Ex. 8:23) urges them to maintain their distinctiveness in the land. The distinctiveness they are to have at the ritual level in relation to food is a constant reminder of the distinctiveness they are to have at the moral level in relation to sexuality and worship practices.

20:27 The final case law comes full circle to the beginning of the chapter: idolatry and divination will not go unpunished. The public and dramatic execution will be a stern warning to all.