Leviticus 20

Leviticus 20:1

C. Punishment for Gross Offenses (Chap. 20)This chapter gives the punishments for some of the offenses listed in chapters 18 and 19. The person who caused a child to go through the fire in an offering to Molech was to be stoned to death (vv. 1-3). If the people failed to kill him, God would destroy him and his family (vv. 4, 5). The death penalty was also pronounced against one who consulted mediums and familiar spirits (v. 6); one who cursed his father or his mother (v. 9); an adulterer and an adulteress (v. 10); one who committed incest with his father’s wife (v. 11) or daughter-in-law (v. 12); and a sodomite (v. 13). (Both parties were to be killed in these cases of unlawful intercourse.) In the case of a man having unlawful sexual intercourse with a mother and her daughter, all three offenders were to be burned (v. 14). Sexual perversion between humans and animals was a capital crime; both man and beast were to be slain (vv. 15, 16).

The death penalty (or, as some think, excommunication) was pronounced against intercourse with a sister or half-sister (v. 17) or with a menstruous woman (v. 18). Intercourse with an aunt called forth the judgment, “they shall bear their guilt,” but no details were given (v. 19). Some think it means that they would die childless, as in verse 20, where a man had intercourse with his uncle’s wife, and in verse 21, where the offense was with a sister-in-law. Verse 21 applied only as long as the brother was alive. If he died without leaving a son to carry on his name, his brother was commanded to marry the widow and name the first son after the deceased (Deu_25:5). Such unions were known as levirate marriages. The longing of God’s heart was to have a holy people, separated from the abominations of the Gentiles and enjoying the blessings of the Promised Land (vv. 22-26). Mediums and people with familiar spirits were to be exterminated by stoning (v. 27).