Leviticus 18 - 20

Leviticus — Steve Gregg

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Leviticus 18 - 20

LeviticusSteve Gregg

Leviticus 18-20 lists various sins that are forbidden and attaches penalties for them. The section reiterates the importance of being holy, as Yahweh is holy. The concept of uncovering one's nakedness is discussed, and it is deemed wrong to have sexual relations outside of marriage or to marry someone who is too closely related. These chapters also touch on various other topics such as honoring parents, not being unjust in judgment, and avoiding mediums and spiritists.

Transcript

When we come to Leviticus 18, we begin another section that is a self-contained section. There are several ways we know this, but just like chapters 1-7 were like one unit because they covered the five offerings, and then they were done with that, and then chapters 8-10 were one unit because they dealt with the priest's consecration and beginning of their ministry, and then that was done, and then chapters 11-15 were one unit because they all have to do with one thing, that is ceremonial cleanness. Well, so also chapters 18-20 are a unit, and there's several things that tell us so.

One is that there's a formal beginning and a formal ending to the section. The formal beginning is in chapter 18, verses 1-5, which is just an introductory to the section, and the formal closing is chapter 20, verses 22-26, really. Verse 27 in chapter 20 seems to be kind of an odd man out there, but there's like a formal close to the section at the end of chapter 20 and a formal beginning at chapter 18.

Also, another thing that makes it clear that it's a unit is that chapter 18 begins by listing a number of sins that are forbidden, and chapter 20, at the end of the segment, repeats many of these sins but attaches the penalty that should be applied to them. So you kind of come full circle. Chapter 18 talks about these sins.

Chapter 19 goes another direction and talks about a lot of different things. Chapter 20 comes back to these sins and others like them and basically tells what the penalty is for them, which is missing from the first listing of them in chapter 18, and so it rounds out the whole section. Another thing is that the phrase, I am Yahweh, which occurs 45 times in the book of Leviticus, actually occurs 24 of those times in these three chapters.

So it is like a theme woven through these three chapters thicker than anywhere else in the book. I mean, the other 21 occurrences of that phrase are mixed out through 23 chapters or 24 different chapters, whereas here in three chapters, we've got more than half of the occurrences of that phrase in the whole book, which makes it a concentrated focus on that one theme. And what it is, it's laws of morality for the people.

When we have come to chapter 17, we came to a natural division in the book of Leviticus. At the beginning, when we were introducing the book, I said if we were to divide the book into two sections, primarily chapters 1 through 16 would be one section and 17 through 27 would be the other. And 1 through 16 has to do with atonement and cleanness, whereas chapter 17 and following is concerned about holiness.

Chapter 17 we saw was about the holiness or the sanctity of the blood. But chapters 18 through 20 is the holiness code of the people, how they are to live to maintain moral purity and holiness. After that, in chapter 22 and 23, there'll be treatment of holiness of the priests and then there's holy feasts and other holy things after that.

But here, chapters 18 through 20 are, we could say, the holiness code for the people, as opposed to say what comes later, the holiness code for the priests and such. Now, chapter 18 is devoted almost entirely to the subject of sexual morality and listing certain sexual relationships that are forbidden. Most of these have to do with relationships with people who are close relatives, and so a big concern here would be what we normally would call incest.

People having sexual relations with someone who's too closely related to them. Now, the behaviors that are mentioned are always referring to sexual behavior, although different terms are used throughout the section. The term that is most frequently used and is used really all the way from verse six through verse 19, you find it.

It's the expression that a person should not uncover the nakedness of certain persons, uncovering the nakedness. Now, this is a Hebraism that simply means to have sex with them. I guess it is assumed that people do not get naked together unless they're going to have sex.

And so uncovering the nakedness of a person, and it's usually the wording is addressed to a man with reference to uncovering the nakedness of a woman. You know, his sister, his stepmother, his aunt or someone else is what is in view here. But it's considered that the man is initiating a sexual relationship with a woman, which begins with uncovering her nakedness.

And that phrase, you should not uncover the nakedness of and then fill in the blank, is the really the formula for most of the verses in this section. But there are other words or phrases that are synonymous to it. For example, the phrase to take a woman.

Which probably suggests marrying her. Although maybe not, it could just mean taking her to your bed, I suppose. But this is forbidding both marriage and extramarital relations with such women.

But taking a woman is mentioned in verse 17, for example, in 18, where it says you should not uncover the nakedness of a woman and her daughter, nor shall you take her son's daughter or her daughter's daughter. Take and uncovering the nakedness are two of the same thing. Also, verse 18, nor shall you take a woman as a rival to her sister to uncover her nakedness while the other is alive.

So we see that taking a woman and uncovering her nakedness are synonyms here. Also, the term approach a woman is used similarly. In verse six, it says you should not approach anyone who is near a pen.

And in verse 14, it says you should not uncover the nakedness of your father's brother. You shall not approach his wife. She is your aunt.

Also, verse 19, we have the word approach. You shall not approach a woman to uncover her nakedness as long as she is in her customary impurity. So the expression to uncover the nakedness, to take a woman, to approach a woman, and also in a couple of places to lie with or to lie carnally with.

In verse 20, it says more of you should not lie carnally with your neighbor's wife. And in verse 22, you should not lie with a male as with a woman. Obviously, lying with somebody is also a euphemism for having sex with them.

And then there's in one case the reference to mate with, and this is with reference to human and animal relations. In verse 23, it says you should not mate with any beast. So here we have throughout this section, it's all about sexual intercourse, but different phrases are used and they are definitely used interchangeably with each other.

You can see that they are interchangeable in some cases, also, like in chapter 20, when these things come up again. Chapter 20, verse 11, says the man who lies with his father's wife has uncovered his father's nakedness. So lying with and uncovering the nakedness are the same thing.

Also, in chapter 20, verses 16 and 17, it says if a woman approaches any beast, there's the word approach. Then it says, and if a man takes his sister, verse 17, and sees her nakedness, these are these terms are and also at the end of verse 17, he has uncovered his sister's nakedness. These phrases are used interchangeably.

I say that because it might not be obvious in every case, whether he's talking about a different kind of action. Is it just they're naked in this case, but in this other case, they're lying together. And in another case, they're mating or they are lying carnally with or approaching a woman or just taking a woman, just marrying or what's it mean? These terms are all used kind of all interchangeably.

So it is talking about sexual relations and it's talking about sexual relations in or outside of marriage. That is to to commit any of these things outside of marriage is fornication. And it would be wrong also to marry somebody within that that close relational proximity.

So verse one says, then Yahweh said to Moses or he spoke to Moses saying, speak to the children of Israel and say to them, I am Yahweh, your God, according to the doings of the land of Egypt where you dwelt. You shall not do. And according to the doings of the land of Canaan, where I'm bringing you, you shall not do, nor shall you walk in their ordinances.

Now, here they stand in the wilderness between Egypt and Canaan. Egypt is where they came from. Canaan is where they're going to.

Both lands are have cultures and societies that are pagan and have their own corruption of sexual behavior. And he's saying, I don't want you to copy the Egyptian behavior that you saw before. I don't want you to copy the behavior you're going to see when you go into the land.

I want you to have your own standards based on me. I am the Lord, your God, and therefore your morality has got to be based on me and me being your God. And this is a very important thing to point out, because many times when Christians are trying to persuade others to be sexually moral.

Let's say when a parent is trying to teach their daughter to avoid sleeping with the guy on dates. Or we might be trying to persuade non-Christians to avoid homosexuality or some other immoral thing. Often we make all the wrong arguments.

We say you shouldn't do this because, A, you know, you might get pregnant, you might get AIDS, you might get some other venereal disease. You might get yourself hurt emotionally. You know, there's all these different ways we appeal to their self-interest and say you shall not misbehave sexually because you could hurt yourself in these various ways.

But God doesn't say that. God says you don't do it because I am the Lord. It's not with reference to you and your own interests that you remain sexually moral.

It is because Yahweh is your God. It's his interest and it's his character that is considered here. Likewise, when Paul urges Christians to be sexually moral in 1 Corinthians 6, he makes the same argument and not another.

In 1 Corinthians 6, Paul said in verse 13, in following food for the stomach and the stomach for foods that God will destroy both it and them. Which simply means that what you eat is a temporal matter. It's not eternal in its significance.

Now, the body, the human body, is not for sexual immorality. But for the Lord and the Lord is for the body and God both raised up the Lord and will also raise up us by his power. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a harlot? Certainly not.

Or do you not know that he who is joined to a harlot is one body with her for the two? He says she'll become one flesh, but he was joined with Christ is one spirit with him. Flea sexual immorality, every sin that a man does is outside the body. But he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body.

Now, this doesn't mean get himself into physical trouble. It means he sins against his body, which is the Lord's. And against the temple of the Holy Spirit, because he says, or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God and you're not your own for your body at a price, therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's.

So Paul says Christians need to avoid the immorality of their culture, which in the case of the Corinthians, they were living in a very sexually immoral Greek culture, more than most Greek cities. And he says, the reason you don't do what they do is because you have a Lord, because you're holy, because your body is a temple, because your body is for the Lord and because you're part of the body of Christ. And if you join your body to that of a harlot, you're joining Christ to a harlot.

These are all the incentives that Paul gives notice. He doesn't say. And you might get a neural disease and you might get beat up by the girl's ex-husband or anything like that.

Basically, the argument is God with reference to God. You choose to remain within the perimeters of what he says should be done. He says in verse four of chapter 18, you shall observe my judgments and keep my ordinances to walk in them.

I am Yahweh, your God. That's what he keeps saying. You shall therefore keep my statutes and my judgments, which are if a man does, he shall live by them.

I am Yahweh. Now, that's the introduction to this section. Then he starts giving the actual rules.

None of you shall approach anyone who is near of kin to him to uncover his nakedness. I am Yahweh. Now, I said that in this matter of uncovering one's nakedness, what is in view is a man approaching a female.

But here it almost sounds like it's a man approaching a man. It says none of you shall approach anyone who is near of kin to him to uncover his nakedness. Near of kin to the man approaching to uncover the nakedness of the person who is said to be him, his nakedness.

But this is not talking about homosexuality, although that does come up in verse 22. Well, what this is referring to is the fact that if you sleep with your father's wife, you have uncovered your father's nakedness. If you sleep with your uncle's wife, you have uncovered your uncle's nakedness.

If you sleep with your brother's wife, you have uncovered your brother's nakedness. The idea is the man and his wife are one flesh. You uncover the nakedness of your stepmom.

You've uncovered the nakedness of your dad. And so it's always until you get to verse 22 and verse 23, which talk about unnatural relationships, homosexual and bestiality. Until you get there, it's really talking about men approaching women.

But sometimes if you approach a woman, especially if she's another person's wife, then you are uncovering the nakedness of that man whose body she is. So that's why we have both male pronouns in this particular case. You should not approach anyone who is near of kin to him.

None of you shall to uncover his nakedness. I am Yahweh, the nakedness of your father or the nakedness of your mother. You shall not uncover.

She is your mother. You should not uncover her nakedness, the nakedness of your father's wife. You shall not uncover.

It is your father's nakedness. You see. The nakedness of his wife is his nakedness, and that's what you uncover if you uncover his wife's nakedness, the nakedness of your sister, the daughter of your father or the daughter of your mother, whether born at home or elsewhere.

Their nakedness, you shall not uncover the reason for the daughter of your father or the daughter of your mother, because it's not a sister might be a half sister. Now, interestingly, this would have condemned Abraham's marriage to Sarah because she was the daughter of his father. And later on, there's a rule given that you cannot uncover the nakedness of your father's sister.

In verse 12, that would have condemned Moses' own parents because Amram and Jacob were nephew and aunt. And so we can see that these laws didn't come out of Moses' own head. You know, we know that Moses is the author of this, but he would never have written them out of his own sympathies so as to condemn his own parents, make himself illegitimate.

You see, a marriage between a nephew and an aunt after this law was going to be an illegitimate marriage and the children would be children of fornication. Now, Moses' parents were not forbidden to do that because the law had not yet been given, therefore, their marriage was not illegitimate and Moses was not illegitimate, but this law would make him illegitimate afterwards. And it would even make Isaac illegitimate because he was the son of Abram and Sarah, who were brother and half-sister.

And so, I mean, the fact that these particular laws are included and could have been left out, for example, marriage between first cousins is not mentioned, although it is often considered to be not entirely safe genetically to marry first cousins. For some reason, first cousins are not mentioned in this list. So some things could be left out.

You'd think that Moses would leave out any cases that would condemn Abraham and Isaac or Moses and his family, but he actually includes them, showing that these laws are originally from God, not from Moses. Now, of course, the previous marriages that had violated these norms were not condemned because the law had never been given. Adam and Eve's children all had to marry brothers and sisters.

There was really no one else around. And and yet that was not wrong. It was not wrong for Abraham to marry his half-sister.

It was not wrong for Jacob to have two wives who are both sisters of each other, although that is that's considered to be wrong. In verse 18, you can't take a woman as a rival to her sister. Amram and Jacob, the parents of Moses, were not wrong to marry each other because the law was not given.

But now that's given, Israel is supposed to observe these standards. The fact that the law had to be given to them to make them a holy people means that these standards were not observed other places. And we can see that they weren't observed other places, because even in Israel's history, even Moses' own family, they were not observed before the law was given.

So the law is really narrowing sexual behavior to a certain perimeters that other societies did not observe and that even the Israelites had not observed until this time. And this narrowness is to set them apart in their behavior from other nations who did not observe these things. So, verse 10, the nakedness of your son's daughter or your daughter's, that is your granddaughter, their nakedness you shall not uncover for theirs is your own nakedness.

That's interesting. The nakedness of your father's wife's daughter, that'd be your stepsister, begotten by your father. That'd be your half-sister then, in that case.

She is your sister, you shall not uncover her nakedness. Now, that seems to be covered in verse 9, so I'm not sure why that comes out separate. Verse 12, you shall not uncover the nakedness of your father's sister.

Again, that would be something that had been violated by Moses' own parents. She is near of kin to your father. You shall not uncover the nakedness of your mother's sister, for she is near of kin to your mother.

You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father's brother, which means that would be your father's brother's wife. We're talking about aunts here. Your dad's sister, your mom's sister, or your father's brother's wife, all of those are your aunt.

And so, it says you shall not approach his wife, she is your aunt. That would be uncovering your father's brother's nakedness. Verse 15, you shall not uncover the nakedness of your daughter-in-law, she is your son's wife.

You shall not uncover her nakedness. You shall not uncover the nakedness of your brother's wife, it is your brother's nakedness. You shall not uncover the nakedness of a woman and her daughter, nor shall you take her son's daughter or her daughter's daughter.

In other words, you can't marry a woman and her daughter, and you can't marry a woman and her granddaughter simultaneously. Now, obviously, this presupposes that there might be multiple lives of one man, but it's saying if there are, you can't have two of them be sisters or two of them be mother and daughter or mother and granddaughter. These things are.

These things are forbidden. Verse 18, you should not take a woman as a rival to her sister to uncover her nakedness while the other is alive. Also, you should not approach a woman to uncover her nakedness as long as she is in her customary impurity.

That's, of course, her menstrual period. Moreover, you shall not lie carnally with your neighbor's wife to defile yourself with her and you shall not let any of your descendants pass through the fire to Moloch, which again moves from direct reference to sexual immorality, although it is related because the worship of Moloch, although it refers here to causing your children to pass through the fire. That means that Moloch was a statue of the chief god of the Ammonites, also called Milcom in the Bible.

Milcom and Moloch are the same. It was represented as a statue, a big bronze statue of an archaeologist that found this. I believe it had a goat's head, but a human body and the human arms were extended forward at the elbow with the palms up.

And this is a hollow statue. They built a fire inside of it until it glowed red-hot. Then they put live babies in the hands of the red-hot statue and they burn alive.

Now this was obviously something that you'd think the screaming child would play on the sympathies of the worshippers and kind of ruin the whole experience for them, but no worries. They had a band there. And so as soon as they put the baby in the arms of the burning statue, the band would play loud music to drown out the cries of the baby and the people would have a sexual orgy in front of the statue.

That's how the pagans worshipped. And you wonder why God said to wipe out the Canaanites? This was their way of worshipping their god. It's called causing your sons to pass through the fire, to Moloch.

That's a term that's used frequently in the Old Testament. Here it's forbidden. It is not directly related to sexual immorality, although, of course, the whole ritual of worship of Moloch did involve an orgy.

So it comes up here as well. Then verse 22, you shall not lie with a male as with a woman. It is an abomination.

Now it's pretty straightforward. You know, there are people who say that the homosexuality is forbidden in the Old Testament and in the New Testament, is that ritual homosexuality that was conducted in the pagan temples, where there were boy prostitutes and female prostitutes that were used in the worship of pagan gods. Or they say, this is referring to the Roman custom, not here, but in the New Testament it forbids homosexuality, is referring to the practice of the Romans, of men to have a boy on the side, a boy mistress, as it were, and obviously exploitation of a child.

And so many times those who are trying to justify homosexuality and still not sound like they're against the Bible will say that, well, when you read about homosexuality in the Bible, it's not really talking about committed, loving, long-term monogamous relationships between people of the same sex. It's talking about some abusive behaviors, largely of boys in biblical times. Well, the Bible could have said that if it meant that.

But what it says is, you should not lie with a male as with a woman. Now, notice what has been forbidden is something that would not be forbidden with a woman. For a man to lie with a woman in a certain way under legitimate circumstances is not wrong, but it's always wrong to do the same thing with between males.

It does not say boys, it says males. The reason, of course, for this law, I believe, as well as the next one in verse 23, you should not mate with any beast to defile yourself with it, nor shall any woman stand before a beast to mate with it. It is perversion.

You'd think they wouldn't have to be told that, wouldn't you? But that just tells you how the morals of the pagans were, that God would have said, now, don't do that. I would have never thought of doing that. Well, some people did think of doing that and did practice it, and therefore it has to be forbidden to make sure that they know that that's not OK.

But you see, both of those cases, it is my understanding that when God made sexual relations between human beings, it's primarily for the purpose of offspring. When God said it's not good for man to be alone, he didn't make him another man to be a friend because it would still not be good. What would not be good? They couldn't have kids.

Men cannot have kids with other men. And what God made humanity for is to be fruitful and fill the earth. It's not good for men to be alone because you can't do that alone.

In fact, you can't do that with an animal and you can't do that with another man. He can only do that with a helper that is comparable to him. As the Bible says, a help who is suited for him, a woman who is of the same species, but of a different gender, who has the complementary equipment anatomically to that which a man has.

And of course, if people wonder, you know, why did God make men and women different? It's not real hard to figure out, even if we didn't have the Bible. You look at a man, you look at a woman, they're kind of the same in most respects. They got two eyes in the same place, nose, mouth, basic body shape, a few differences in the body shape.

But some women's bodies look about the same as a man's and some men's look about the same as a woman's. However, the differences that exist are the distinctives are all in the area of one activity, and that is reproduction. Women have internal organs that are that men don't have that are just for the purpose of reproduction.

Men have external and internal organs that women don't have that are just for that purpose, too. That's the difference between the anatomy of man and woman. They're mostly the same.

They have mostly all the same equipment, except for those that are related to reproduction. So it should be obvious that the reason God didn't make two men, but he made a man and woman, he made the variation was so that there could be sexual reproduction. And the production of offspring is that was what God had in mind when he created sex at all.

Now, in Malachi chapter two, I brought this up before, but we're now talking about sexual morality. Need to understand. What it's about in Malachi to God is taking certain Israelites to task because they've divorced their wives and it is said that they have been treacherous in doing so, they've dealt treacherously with their wives.

And in verse 15 says, but did he that is God, did God not make them one? He's referring to Genesis 224 when God said the two should become one flesh. Didn't God create marriage? Didn't God make man and woman one? Having the remnant of the spirit and why one? Why would God do that? Why did God make a man and a woman and bring them together as one flesh? He seeks godly offspring. That's the answer to the question.

God made a man and he made a woman because he was hoping for godly offspring. That's what he made sex for. Now, sex is also pleasurable, but God made it pleasurable so it wouldn't be neglected.

If it wasn't pleasurable, we probably wouldn't do it. I mean, some people would do it. Some people want children who would have sex even if it wasn't pleasurable just because they know that's how they have children.

But there's people who aren't interested in having children, but but they are interested in pleasure. And so they are drawn to sexual intercourse by the pleasure of it so that they will so that it will have its proper function of reproduction. I mean, that is what it was made for.

It's a mistake to say, therefore, sex should always result in reproduction. For one thing, it can't. If a woman's already pregnant or a woman's past her age of fertility or any number of other possibilities, if somebody has a medical condition that makes them barren, the Bible does not say that sex cannot be enjoyed between a husband and wife in places where there can be no reproduction.

But that's those things are a result of a fallen world in a perfect world, there wouldn't be such barrenness. God intended ideally that sexual reproduction would be productive of babies, and that's what he made all that equipment for. That's why it is so difficult to make it not happen.

That's why people, even in the ultra modern world with all our technology, find it difficult to come up with a real surefire form of birth control. All kinds of technological devices have been come up with now, but they all fail from time to time. I had a friend who had four siblings and she said her dad once when they were all together, he said, you were the condom, you were the diaphragm, you were the pill, you were withdrawal.

He'd practiced all the different available forms of birth control and they got pregnant anyway. That's the thing. Each one was born while a different form of birth control was being used.

It seems like we should learn a lesson about that. We can put a man on the moon, but we can't guarantee that sex won't produce a baby. I even heard a case on the radio where a woman had her tubes tied and a man had a vasectomy and they got pregnant anyway.

I mean, that's kind of the most the most guaranteed way not to have kids. But a husband had a vasectomy, his wife had her tubes tied and they got pregnant on the radio because it sort of defied the odds by one chance in 10 million or something like that. Well, it does seem like sex has a very strong tendency to produce babies.

It can be prevented in some cases, but not with 100 percent perfection. And therefore, when God says that he made the man one because he sought godly offspring and when he brought the woman to the man and said, be fruitful, multiply and fill the earth, we should realize that although sex is a pleasurable activity, it was made for reproduction. Its purpose was for reproduction, just like eating is a pleasurable activity, but its purpose is not for pleasure.

The purpose of eating is to nourish your body. There are things that are necessary for our good, which we might neglect if they weren't enjoyable. So God made them enjoyable.

The trouble is that people will sometimes take food and divorce it from that concept of nourishment and they'll just eat and eat and eat long after the point where they've had enough nourishment or delete the kinds of things that don't nourish them, that are just tasty. And this is kind of a misuse of what food was for. I'm not saying you can't ever eat something that's just good, just, you know, just tasty.

But we have to realize that if that's how we understand food in general. If we approach the whole subject of eating as it's just all about pleasure. I don't particularly want the food to get into my digestive system.

Well, then we we go and we stick our finger down our throat and vomit in the toilet so we can fill ourselves up with more food because it's all about the pleasure of eating. And it's just as much a strange divorce to divorce sex from the idea of reproduction in general. When people have sex with other people of the same sex or with beasts, it's obvious that they're not the least bit interested in reproduction because they know that that can't happen in those cases.

So why are they doing it? Well, apparently those kind of people have some kind of twisted sense of pleasure they get out and what they're thinking of sex is for pleasure. And that is why in our modern world, Christians have lost the ability to argue sensibly against things like homosexuality. And eventually, when people who practice bestiality want to legalize their marriages, too, we will also have lost our arguments against that.

We can just say it's perverted. Everyone knows it's perverted. But we would have said that about homosexual marriage 30 years ago.

Now, not everyone does know it's perverted. Not everyone knows all the same things at one given time that everyone knew at another time. And everyone knows today that bestiality is perverted.

But will they know that 50 years from now? I don't know if they will or not. The argument against those things is God's argument. But see, Christians, they themselves have made the cultural mistake of just thinking sex is just really for pleasure.

Having kids, that's optional. Well, I don't think that's what God had in mind. It's like saying eating food, that's just for pleasure.

Nourishment is optional. That's not the most reasonable way to look at God's creation. But once we've decided that sex is for pleasure primarily, then we've lost all reasons except for just the bare command of God that it shouldn't be done.

But as far as any rational reasons, why? Why shouldn't a man who would have more pleasure with another man be allowed to do that? After all, you heterosexual men, you get to have your wives and have pleasure with them. But this man doesn't have pleasure with women. He wants it with a man.

Why? Why? Why deny him of his pleasure? Or the man who wants to do it with an animal? Why deny him of his pleasure if that turns him on? Because sex isn't there just for your pleasure and just for turning you on. Sex is there for marriage. It's there for a relationship that is a lifelong bond which produces enriers and nurtures children.

That's what God made sex for. And these other marriages that are forbidden between a man and a close relative, in many cases, the concern is also with children because it's dangerous to reproduce with somebody who's too closely related to you because of genetic problems. There's a very high incidence, especially of mental retardation, among the offspring of people who are too closely related.

Certain inbred communities like the gypsies have a high percentage of mental retardation and so forth among them because they're inbred as families. They marry close relatives and so forth. And God saw that coming.

And so, again, it's in many cases because of the concern about reproduction that these marriages are to be avoided, but not entirely. Certainly, in all the cases where it's sleeping with your neighbor's wife, your father's wife, your uncle's wife or your brother's wife, I suppose it might even be thought even if your father or your brother or your uncle are deceased. I don't know.

I'm not sure if that's I don't think that's what is in mind, but rather while they're still married, this is adultery. Now, you might think that God should have just said all sleeping with anybody who's not your wife is forbidden. And he does.

That is forbidden. But he talks about these specific cases because in some cases a person might choose to marry somebody like this. And that is not permitted.

Now, in summary of that, in verse 24, it says, Do not defile yourselves with any of these things. For by all these the nations are defiled, which I am casting out before you, meaning the Canaanites. For the land is defiled, therefore, I visit the punishment of its iniquity upon it.

And the land vomits out its inhabitants. This is a very graphic picture of God expelling the Canaanites from the land and God is visiting the judgment upon it. And that judgment is coming through the Israelites coming to invade and to conquer and to exterminate them.

That's the judgment of God. I'm visiting the punishment of its iniquity on it. And this expulsion of them from their land is said to be like the land is so nauseated by the behavior.

It's like vomiting them out. You shall therefore keep my statutes and my judgments and shall not commit any of these abominations, either any of you or your own nation of your own nation or any stranger who sojourns among you. For all these abominations, the men of the land have done who were before you, and thus the land is defiled.

Lest the land vomit you out also when you defile it as it vomited out the nations that were before you. Now, this tells us something very important that many Christians do not understand about Israel and the land. God made promises to Abraham and his offspring that they would have the land of Canaan, the land of Israel.

Forever, however, that is conditional. They could have the land forever, assuming they stay true to the covenant. Now, some might say, but God didn't mention that all the time.

Sometimes he only mentioned that it was theirs forever. He doesn't mention any conditions. Well, so what? Sometimes he does mention the conditions.

So sometimes he does. Sometimes he doesn't mention the conditions. Does the fact that he mentions no conditions in one place mean that the times he does mention the conditions, we shouldn't take it seriously? The conditions obviously are telling us more than than the times when none are mentioned.

And Jeremiah chapter 18 actually says that whenever God makes such promises, they're always conditional, whether he mentions it or not at the time. In Jeremiah 18, verse five, the word of the Lord came to me saying, oh, house of Israel, can I not do with you as I did with this potter? Let me read further down, verse seven. The instant I speak concerning a nation and concerning its kingdom to pluck it up and to pull it down and destroy it.

Let's say, like he said he would do to Nineveh when Jonah said in 40 days, Nineveh will perish. No conditions were stated, by the way. Jonah just said in 40 days, Nineveh will perish.

He says, when I say I'm going to do that, it says, verse eight, if that nation against whom I've spoken turns from its evil like Nineveh did. I will repent of the disaster that I thought to bring upon it as I won't do it. I said I would do it.

I didn't even say to them in that case that there were conditions. I just said I'm going to destroy you. But if they repent, I won't.

I don't have to state the conditions, the conditions are always present. And then he says the other. And verse nine, the instant I speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom to build and to plant it.

Well, as far as I know, there's only one nation that God ever said that about Israel. If that nation does evil in my sight so that it does not obey my voice, then I will repent concerning the good which I said I would benefit it. This is a generic statement.

Whenever I say I'm going to judge a nation for its wickedness, I'll change my mind if they repent of the wickedness. Whenever I say I'm going to bless a nation, I'll change my mind if they turn against me and disobey me. This is my common rule.

I may not mention it every time. I don't have to state the conditions every time I make the promise or the threat. The conditions are implied.

And so also with the land of Canaan, God did not give Israel an unconditional land grant to Canaan any more than he gave the Canaanites an unconditional land grant. They were allowed to be there until they were so disgusting that God had the land vomit them out. But he says, if you do the same thing, I'll have the land vomit you out, too.

You don't have any claim to it unconditionally any more than they did. And this is where Christians really make a huge mistake thinking that Israel today or at any time has an unconditional claim to the land, even if they violate God's covenant. That's never been true.

It was not true in the Old Testament. It's not true now. And God says that also elsewhere in Deuteronomy 28.

From verse 15 on, he talks about all the curses he'll bring on Israel if they violate his covenant. And among the curses he mentions, I'll drive you out of the land that I've given you. And so the land can vomit out Israelites just like it can vomit out Canaanites.

Verse 29, for whoever commits any of these abominations, the persons who commit them shall be cut off from among their people. Now, this is the only verse that actually states a penalty for these things, although Chapter 20 is going to go through some of them again, list them, and it's going to assign penalties to them specifically here in Chapter 15. We mainly just have a catalog of the forbidden relations without specifying the penalty, although the penalty is stated generically in verse 29.

People be cut off from among their people. We'll consider what that means when we get to Chapter 20. Therefore, you should keep my ordinance so that you may not commit any of these abominations, abominable customs which they committed before you and that you do not defile yourselves by them.

I am Yahweh, your God. Now, Chapter 19 has miscellaneous moral laws of holiness, and a lot of them, of course, a repetition of things we read previously elsewhere. The Lord spoke to Moses saying, speak to all the congregation of the children of Israel and say to them, you shall be holy for I, Yahweh, your God, am holy.

And then he talks about in verse 3, to honor their parents and to keep Sabbath. That's not new. That's in the Ten Commandments.

In verse 4, he told them not to turn to idols or make images. That's also in the Ten Commandments. Verses 5 through 8 actually talk about the peace offerings, which we've studied already.

Basically, all it is saying there is that the meat of the peace offering should be in the same day or the next day that it's sacrificed, but not the third day. You can't eat it after the third day. That's verses 5 through 8. Verses 9 and 10 are the laws about gleaning for the poor.

When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not wholly reap the corners of your field, nor shall you gather the gleanings of your harvest. And you shall not glean your vineyard, nor shall you gather every grape of your vineyard. You shall leave them for the poor and the stranger.

I am Yahweh, your God. So when you have a harvest of your grain or a gathering of the grapes from your vineyard, you're supposed to deliberately leave some of it behind. And as you're gathering it, if it falls on the ground, you don't go pick it up.

That's gleaning. Gleaning is the second harvest. The first harvest is where you go through and just gather everything.

Gleaning would be a second harvest where grain that was missed the first time, grapes that were missed the first time, some that fall on the ground. And that's left for the poor to come and glean from. I had a friend who was part of a religion that didn't believe in materialism at all.

They didn't believe Christians should own anything. And they shouldn't have jobs. They shouldn't own anything.

And so obviously they slept under bridges and they ate from dumpsters behind markets and so forth. You know, markets throw out whole flats of eggs because one egg has a broken shell. They throw out a whole bunch of good ones.

They throw out whole big chunks of 40 pound chunks of cheese because there's a little bit of mold growing on one end. They throw out food that's a little overdue. And so this man in the community he was in used to go and eat largely out of food that was discarded, decent food, but it was discarded in dumpsters.

And he referred to that as urban gleaning. And that's not a bad word for it. Actually, there are a lot of things that are discarded by the general public and they're still quite edible.

I don't recommend eating out of dumpsters. But the truth of the matter is that he told me all kinds of he boasted of all the wonderful things he found in dumpsters from time to time. And but he called it urban gleaning.

And he and that definitely is what it is. It's when it's when the majority of the population has taken all that they want. There's still some good food left over for the poor.

And it was left in the fields or in the vineyards for them to take. Verses 11 through 13 essentially are just saying, don't lie, don't swear falsely, don't defraud your neighbor. In other words, be honest, sort of an amplification on the command not to bear false witness against your neighbor, although general lying, which is not just bearing false witnesses, is mentioned and forbidden in these verses.

At the end of verse 13, it says, the wages of him who is hired shall not remain with you all night until morning. The average laborer in those days was dirt poor and a man would work and get paid at the end of the day. He needed that pay at the end of the day because he had to buy food to eat that night.

And they didn't have really any food stored in their house, so they're too poor. So they had to buy their food fresh and eat it at the end of their workday. And therefore, it's saying pay the wages on time.

Don't keep them overnight from your worker. And this would mean essentially obviously pay your obligations on time. You got laborers, you got an electric company, you got a landlord, you owe them money on a certain date, pay them on time.

Don't hold it till later. Verse 14, you should not curse the deaf nor put a stumbling block before the blind. You shall fear the Lord your God.

I am the Lord. This is just mischievous. This is just being, this is just taking advantage of the disabled.

That's forbidden. Verse 15, you shall do no injustice in judgment. You should not be partial to the poor nor honor the person of the mighty.

But in righteousness, you shall judge your neighbor that is there to be blind in their justice, not showing partiality to the rich who can bribe them and not showing partiality to the poor just out of sympathy. The man who has the just cause is the man the courts are supposed to vindicate, regardless whether he's a rich man or poor man. Should be blind to his circumstances other than the matter of the matter of the wrong under consideration.

You should not go about as a tailbearer among your people, nor shall you take a stand against the life of your neighbor. I am Yahweh. So that'd be very false witness, slander, gossip.

A tailbearer is an old word for a gossip. Verse 17 and 18, you shall not hate your brother in your heart. You should surely rebuke your neighbor and not bear the sin, bear sin because of him.

You should not take vengeance nor bear any grudge against the children of your people. But you shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am Yahweh.

This is the statement you shall love your neighbor as yourself is the verse that is quoted eight times in the New Testament. It's obviously one of the most often quoted verses in the in the New Testament. It is quoted by Jesus, is quoted by Paul, is quoted by James.

Jesus quotes it in Matthew 22, 39 and says it's the second great commandment after the first one, which is to love the Lord, your God, with all your heart and all your soul, not your mind and all your strength. So Jesus calls it the second great commandment in Matthew 22, 39. James chapter two and verse eight quotes it as being what he calls the royal law or the law of the king.

Royal means of the king. So it's the royal law. You should love your neighbors.

You love yourself. It's an important law. Now, in Jesus' day, the rabbis had come to say you should love your neighbor and hate your enemy.

And Jesus points out that that's what the rabbis said over in Matthew chapter five. He says, you've heard that it was said to those of old time, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. That's Matthew 5, 43.

But Jesus said, I say to you, you should love your enemies. Now, love your neighbor is commanded. You notice there's no hate your enemy here.

And therefore, the Pharisees or the rabbis had actually come up with that as an alternative. Well, you got to love your neighbor, but you don't have to love your enemies. You got to hate them.

But the Old Testament actually says you should love your enemy. It teaches that in Exodus, it teaches it in Proverbs, teaches it other places. So it was wrong for the rabbis to say, hate your enemy.

As a matter of fact. In verses 33 through 34 of this passage of this chapter, it says, if a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not mistreat him, but the stranger who dwells among you shall be to you as one born among you and you shall love him as yourself. For you were strangers in the land of Egypt and I'm the Lord, your God.

So the stranger who does when you're supposed to love him as you love yourself, not just your ordinary Jewish neighbor and brother. Now, when a scribe asked Jesus about this, when about loving your neighbors, yourself in Luke, chapter 10 and verse 29, the scribe said, well, or the lawyer said, well, who's my neighbor? And he is basing it on this verse, I see from the scriptures, I have an obligation to love my neighbor, but not everybody's my neighbor. So I'm not obligated to love everybody.

So would you tell me, please, who my neighbor is so I'll know who I'm obligated to love. And from that question came Jesus answer in the story of the Good Samaritan. And obviously, the Good Samaritan story tells us that there was a man who was a Jew and a man who was a Samaritan.

And the Jew was in trouble and the Samaritan helped him, showed love to him. And Jesus said, which of those men was the neighbor then to the man who fell among the thieves? And the point here is that the Samaritan was not only of a foreign country and a different religion than the Jews, but they were actually nationalities that were hostile toward each other. So Jesus gives the example of someone who he refers to as a neighbor who who observed this neighborly obligation of love for a neighbor who was not a near neighbor, lived in another country, had a different religion, different than Israel's religion, and it was a nation where the two ethnic groups were hostile to each other.

They were racially there was racial tension between the Jews and the Samaritans, and so what Jesus is saying is your neighbor is just about anybody, regardless how distant he is from you and your beliefs and your geography and your even in your sympathies. Anybody who has need that you can help is your neighbor. And so, said Jesus, now in verse 17 here, when you say you should not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall surely rebuke him, it means you shouldn't nurse a grudge silently.

You shouldn't in your heart maintain some kind of hatred toward someone. Instead, you should bring it out. You should rebuke him.

Jesus said that, too, didn't he? In Luke, chapter 17, verse one, he said, Take heed yourselves, if your brother sins against you, rebuke him, if he repents, forgive him. So instead of being holding a grudge and being bitter toward your brother when he sends against you, just to rebuke him, don't nurture ill feelings in your heart. You're supposed to love your neighbor.

Don't don't allow something that he has done to keep you from loving him. Rather, bring it out in the open, get it cleared up to not bear sin in your heart because of him. You shall not take vengeance nor bear any grudge against the children of your people.

OK, because you're supposed to love him as you love yourself. Verse 19, you should keep my statutes. You shall not let your livestock breed with another kind.

You shall not sow in your field with mixed seed. You shall not nor shall a garment of mixed linen and wool come upon you. Now, there's three things here.

Hybridization of animals, mixing different kinds of animals in breeding, mixing cloth, two different kinds of cloth, and having more than one kind of grain in the same field. Now, we violate those all the time. Many of the plants and animals that we have that we produce agriculturally are hybrids.

And many of the garments we wear are a mixture of fabrics. Is this wrong? I believe that this is ceremonially symbolic. And I believe all that it is really saying is that you should not mix unlike things, that you should recognize the distinctions that God has made.

And it's not so much that the particular mixing that is mentioned is morally wrong, but rather it stands for mixing things that are not morally the same. You shouldn't have a mixture of righteousness and unrighteousness or cleanness or uncleanness or unlike things, unlike character or unlike spiritual qualities. You should be consistent throughout, like a garment that's all linen or all wool without something else unlike it mixed in.

I don't believe that these are moral issues. I believe that these are symbolic of God saying, do not mix those things that are not like each other in the spiritual sense. It's sort of like when Paul said, what fellowship has light with darkness? What concord has Christ with Belial? What agreement has the temple of God with idols? These are things that are unlike each other.

You don't mix them. It's in that context. It is do not be yoked together from believers.

I think that this these rules here have to do with that concept symbolically depicted by these particular examples. Whoever lies carnally with a woman who is betrothed as a concubine to another man and who is not at all been redeemed or given her freedom for this. There should be scourging, but they shall not be put to death because she was not free and he shall bring his trespass offering to the Lord, to the door of the tabernacle of meeting a ram as a trespass offering.

The priest shall make atonement for him with the ram of the trespass offering before the Lord for his sin, which he has done and his sin, the sin which he has done shall be forgiven him. Now, there were laws about sleeping with a woman who was not married or betrothed. And there are other laws of sleeping alone who was married or betrothed a woman who is not married or betrothed.

If a man slept with her in other she's uncommitted, she's unconnected to any man. Well, by sleeping with her, he connects her to himself and therefore they were required to marry unless her father absolutely forbade it. In the case of a woman who was already connected to another man by betrothal or marriage, either one, if you slept with her, you'd be put to death because that was adultery.

That was in that was uncovering your neighbor's nakedness, sleeping with his wife. But here's a third case that's kind of in between. The woman is betrothed.

She's not married, but she's betrothed. But she's not a free woman. She's a slave woman.

Many times people would marry their slave women and a slave wife was called a concubine. And so she was betrothed to be concubine. She was not a free woman.

Now, if a man slept with her, it was a sin. He has to offer a trespass, I think, because he did the wrong thing. But it's not the same sin as if she was a betrothed free woman for some reason.

Apparently, because although she is betrothed to become a sexual partner and perhaps a mother of children to the man that she's betrothed to, he hasn't freed her. So she's still more like a piece of property to him. She's a slave.

She's not like a free wife who's got privileges and so forth. And so this would be considered to be a slightly less serious sin than if she was a free woman who's betrothed, because the penalty would be death in that case. In this case, it's scourging.

They got to be scourged, it's whipped. And he'd have to offer a sacrifice for the sin he committed. Verse 23, when you come into the land and have planted all kinds of trees for food, when you then you should count their fruit as uncircumcised, you can't eat it, it's unclean to you.

Three years, it should be as uncircumcised to you, it should not be eaten. But in the fourth year, all its fruit should be holy, a praise to the Lord. And in the fifth year, you may eat of its fruit that it may yield to you its increase.

I am Yahweh your God. So you plant a new tree. The first three years you let the fruit just ripen and drop and rot on the ground.

You don't eat it. The fourth year, then you take the fruit and you offer that to the Lord. Take the tabernacle.

It's the priests. It's holy to the Lord. The fifth year and from then on, you can eat it yourself.

So the idea is when you plant a new fruit tree, you can't eat the fruit until the fifth year. You shall not eat anything with the blood, nor shall you practice divination or soothsaying. Now, it's interesting that the occult will be mentioned along with eating blood, probably because in the occult rites, many times they did ingest blood as part of their occult arts.

But the occult is forbidden here, as well as in verse 27. I think this is verse I should say, as verse 31. Where it says, give no regard to mediums and familiar spirits, do not seek after them to be defiled by them.

I am Yahweh your God. Now, verse 27 says you shall not shave around the sides of your head. You should not disfigure the edges of your beard.

You shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor tattoo any marks on you. I am Yahweh. This probably refers to customs that the pagans were doing and by telling the Jews not to do it, they were supposed to be avoiding the practices of pagans because Israel was holy.

Whether there's some kind of moral issue here that should be continued to be observed is questionable. It is marring the body and the body is made in the image of God. It is interesting that strange haircuts and strange beard cuts are included as to be avoided.

And in all likelihood, the pagan priests and the occultists had their own particular way they shaped their beards. We're going to find later that the Jewish priests are forbidden to cut the corners of their beards. Apparently, maybe the pagan priests had their beards cut into a long pointed shape, cutting off the corners, the edges.

And it may be that the main concern here is to avoid copying the heathen and the occultists since occultism was mentioned just beforehand. Prostitution is forbidden in verse 29. Keeping the Sabbath and reverencing the sanctuary is commanded in verse 30.

As I mentioned, verse 31 forbids the occult, mediums and familiar spirits. Familiar spirits are demons. Don't seek after those.

That means don't try to contact the dead through a medium. Verse 32, you shall rise before the gray headed and honor the presence of an old man. So standing up in the presence of an older man is a way to culturally show respect to age and to honor age and fear the Lord.

Honor old people and God. We read verses 33 and 34 about the stranger who dwells with you. You have to love him as you love yourself because you were strangers in Egypt.

Verses 35 and 36 say you shall do no injustice in judgment, as we saw also in verse 15. But it says in measurement of length, weight or volume, you shall have just balances, just weights, a just ephah and a just kin. I am Yahweh, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt.

Now, this just balances and these just measurements simply refers to the fact that in the marketplace, many times people cheated each other by having false weights for their scale. You would buy things largely by weight and pay by weight. They didn't have coinage in many cases, so they had to weigh out a certain amount of silver for a purchase.

And they might be weighing out a certain amount of grain on the other side of the scale. So there, but they have to weigh out, they have to determine the amount of the commodity that's being bought and the amount of the money. And you'd use weights, you'd have a balance and you put the commodity or the money on one side.

You put a weight on the other side to show what weight it is. But sometimes merchants had false weights underneath. They had the wrong amount.

It's sort of like the custom that we used to hear about of the butcher in the market putting his finger on the scale. Well, while the customer is looking at the dial, you know, he's pushing the scale down to make it look like he's giving him more meat than he is. There's an old Norman Rockwell painting about that.

I don't know if you've seen that. It's a great one where a woman binds the meat at a butcher shop and the butcher has his hand on. They're both looking up at the dial.

The butcher surreptitiously has his hand, his finger pushing down the scale. And the woman has her finger underneath, pushing up the scale. And they're both looking at the dial so they don't see each other's fingers.

But it's a famous painting of Norman Rockwell's. I remember in Mad Magazine, one of those Don Martin cartoons, a woman was buying some meat from a butcher and she said, don't try to cheat me. I see your finger there on the scale.

And the guy looked at his finger had been severed. It was there on the scale with the foot. He was missing a finger.

His finger was on the scale. But anyway, the idea of putting the finger on the scale to cheat the customer is sort of the same as having the false weight for the same purpose. And it's talking about a fair marketplace, an honest marketplace, not cheating people in business.

Therefore, you shall observe all my statutes and all my judgments and perform them. I am the only. Now we're going to quit just about here.

But I want to real quickly talk about Chapter 20, which about which I can speak very quickly, because it goes over sins that have already been mentioned in the previous two chapters. And all it does is do what the others did not. And that is assign specific penalties.

Virtually always the penalty is death. He talks about giving your children to Moloch in chapter in verses two through five. And it basically says the person who does that should be stoned with stone in verse two.

So they're put to death by stoning. In verse six, it's those who consult mediums and familiar spirits. We saw that already forbidden earlier.

And that person be cut off from his people now cut off from his people sometimes is used as synonymous with kill. For example, in verse two, that person who worships Moloch says she'll surely be put to death. But it also says of him in verse three that he'll be cut off from his people, cut off from his people, always meant to be excommunicated and sometimes meant to be put to death, too.

It's hard to know whether the death penalty was always incurred. For example, one thing we'll find is that if someone sleeps with a woman on her period, he's to be cut off from his people. They've all thought.

But I don't really know that that is a death penalty offense. Actually, earlier we were told that a man who sleeps with a woman who's on her period is unclean for seven days. So it's not that he's cut off for seven days.

So it's not always the same cutting off. In verse nine, it says that if a person curses his parents, they'll be put to death. That was also stated back in Exodus 21, 17.

Verse 10, adultery is punishable by death. That also has been mentioned on other occasions. Verse 11, a man who sleeps with his father's wife specifically is put to death.

In verse 11, there was a case of that in Corinth, in the Church of Corinth. In First Corinthians five, the church was wrongfully tolerating a man who was sleeping with his father's wife. The very thing that's here forbidden and said to be a capital crime.

Verse 12, a man who sleeps with his daughter-in-law should be put to death. There was a case of this that came to light at a Christian college just a few years ago. The president of the college was found to have been having an affair with his daughter-in-law, his son's wife, for many, many years.

And it came to light that's a death penalty under the law. Verse 13, homosexual sex is punishable by death. If a man lies with a male as he lies with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination.

They should surely be put to death. Their blood shall be upon them. Likewise, if a man marries, verse 14, a mother and a woman and her mother.

That's not only forbidden, that they'll be burned with fire for that. That's a put to death offense also. And bestiality is also in verses 15 and 16, whether it's a male or a man or a woman who mates with an animal, they'll be put to death.

Their blood is upon them. Verse 17, a man who takes his sister, his father's daughter or his mother's daughter and sees her nakedness and she sees his nakedness, it's a wicked thing. They shall be cut off in the sight of their people.

He has uncovered his sister's nakedness. He shall bear his guilt. Cut off may mean killed here, but it's not entirely clear.

Because, as I say, the next verse says, if a man sleeps with a menstruating woman, they'll be cut off from their people. And yet elsewhere, that was just an offense that would require seven days of uncleanness. But that uncleanness is being cut off from the people for that period of time.

Verse 19, you shall not uncover the nakedness of your mother's sister or your father's sister. We've already heard about that. But we're told that the person who does that or who lies with his uncle's wife has uncovered his uncle's nakedness.

It says they shall bear their sin. They shall die childless. It doesn't just say they'll die as if it's a death penalty.

It's more like it sounds like it's saying they'll be barren. They may die a natural death later on, but they'll die without children. This would seemingly suggest that lying with his uncle's wife would mean his dead uncle, because if he lay with his uncle's wife, otherwise it'd be like any other kind of adultery to be put to death for that.

But here, apparently, if if a man marries, probably what's in view is a man marries his uncle, his dead uncle's wife, that's that's not OK. And and God will see that they don't have any children. You shall therefore keep all my statutes and all my judgments and perform them.

This is the close of the section that the land where I'm bringing you to dwell may not vomit you out and you shall not walk in the statutes of the nation which I'm casting out before you. For they commit all these things and therefore I abhor them. But I have said to you, you shall inherit their land and I will give it to you to possess a land flowing with milk and honey.

I am Yahweh, your God, who has separated you from the peoples. You shall therefore distinguish between a clean beast and the unclean between unclean birds and clean. You shall not make yourselves abominable by beast or by bird or by anything living.

Any living thing that creeps on the ground, which I have separated from you as unclean and you should be holy to me, for I, the Lord, am holy. I have separated you from the peoples that you should be mine. And then it gives one more instance of forbidding the occult in verse 27, a man or a woman who is a medium or has a familiar spiritual surely be put to death.

They shall stone them with stones. Now, that is the medium themselves should be put to death earlier. It's a person who consults the medium in verse six will be cut off from his people.

So there's a difference in the medium and the person who consults with the medium herself or himself is to be killed. The person who consults them is cut off from the people, perhaps merely by excommunication. I'm not sure.

And that brings us into that section. Took a little long on it, but that's there's a lot of different kinds of details to discuss. The main thing I'd point out is that this death penalty that is incurred is not for Christians to execute.

It's not our job to go out and kill witches, to kill mediums, to kill homosexuals, to kill adulterers and so forth. But these these penalties do show that these sins that we might consider to be, you know, maybe some of them not so bad. Some of them seem really perverted and others just seem not so not so bad yet.

They are all in the sight of God worthy of death and therefore that provides incentive. Even if we don't live in a land where we would be put to death for doing them to recognize these moral things are very serious to God enough to forfeit your right to live. If you commit them.

All right, we'll stop there.