THE LAW OF HOLINESS:
CHASTITY
Lev 18:1-30
CHAPTERS 18, 19, and 20, by a formal introduction {Lev 18:1-5}
and a formal closing, {Lev 20:22-26} are indicated as a distinct
section, very commonly known by the name, "the Law of Holiness." As
this phrase indicates, these chapters-unlike chapter 17, which as to
its contents has a character intermediate between the ceremonial and
moral law-consist substantially of moral prohibitions and
commandments throughout. Of the three, the first two contain the
prohibitions and precepts of the law; the third (chapter 20), the
penal sanctions by which many of these were to be enforced.
The section opens (Lev 18:1-2) with Jehovah’s assertion of His
absolute supremacy, and a reminder to Israel of the fact that He bad
entered into covenant relations with them: "I am the Lord your God."
With solemn emphasis the words are again repeated, Lev 18:4; and yet
again in Lev 18:5 : "I am the Lord." They would naturally call to
mind the scene at Sinai, with its august and appalling grandeur,
attesting amid earthquake and fire and tempest at once the being,
power, and unapproachable holiness of Him who then and there, with
those stupendous solemnities, in inexplicable condescension, took
Israel into covenant with Himself, to be to Himself "a kingdom of
priests and a holy nation." There could be no question as to the
right of the God thus revealed to impose law; no question as to the
peculiar obligation upon Israel to keep His law; no question as to
His intolerance of sin, and full power and determination, as the
Holy One, to enforce whatever He commanded. All these
thoughts-thoughts of eternal moment-would be called up in the mind
of every devout Israelite, as he heard or read this preface to the
law of holiness.
The prohibitions which we find in chapyrt 18 are not given as an
exhaustive code of laws upon the subjects traversed, but rather deal
with certain gross offences against the law of chastity, which, as
we know from other sources, were horribly common at that time among
the surrounding nations. To indulgence in these crimes, Israel, as
the later history sadly shows, would be especially liable; so
contagious are evil example and corrupt associations! Hence the
general scope of the chapter is announced in this form (Lev 18:3):
"After the doings of the land of Egypt, wherein ye dwelt, shall ye
not do: and after the doings of the land of Canaan, whither I bring
you, shall ye not do: neither shall ye walk in their statutes."
Instead of this, they were (Lev 18:4) to do God’s judgments, and
keep His statutes, to walk in them, bearing in mind whose they were.
And as a further motive it is added (Lev 18:5): "which if a man do,
he shall live in them"; that is, as the Chaldee paraphrast, Onkelos,
rightly interprets in the Targum, "with the life of eternity." Which
far-reaching promise is sealed by the repetition, for the third
time, of the words, "I am the Lord." That is enough; for what
Jehovah promises, that shall certainly be!
The law begins (Lev 18:6) with a general statement of the principle
which underlies all particular prohibitions of incest: "None of you
shall approach to any that is near of kin to him, to uncover their
nakedness"; and then, for the fourth time, are iterated the words,
"I am the Lord." The prohibitions which follow require little
special explanation. As just remarked, they are directed in
particular to those breaches of the law of chastity which were most
common with the Egyptians, from the midst of whom Israel had come;
and with the Canaanites, to whose land they were going. This
explains, for instance, the fulness of detail in the prohibition of
incestuous union with a sister or half-sister (Lev 18:9, Lev 18:11),
-an iniquity very common in Egypt, having the sanction of royal
custom from the days of the Pharaohs down to the time of the
Ptolemies. The unnatural alliance of a man with his mother
prohibited in Lev 18:8, of which Paul declared {1Co 5:1} that in his
day it did not exist among the Gentiles, was yet the distinguishing
infamy of the Medes and Persians for many centuries. Union with an
aunt, by blood or by marriage, prohibited in Lev 18:12-14, -a
connection less gross, and less severely to be punished than the
preceding, - seems to have been permitted even among the Israelites
themselveswhile in Egypt, as is plain from the case of Amram and
Jochebed. {Exo 6:20} To the law forbidding connection with a
brother’s wife (Lev 18:16), the later Deuteronomic law, {Deu
25:5-10} made an exception, permitting that a man might marry the
widow of his deceased brother, when the latter had died without
children, and "raise up seed unto his brother." In this, however,
the law but sanctioned a custom which-as we learn from the case of
Onan {Genesis 38} -had been observed long before the days of Moses,
both by the Hebrews and other ancient nations, and, indeed, even
limited and restricted its application; with good reason providing
for exemption of the surviving brother from this duty, in cases
where for any reason it might be repugnant or impracticable.
The case of a connection with both a woman and her daughter or
granddaughter is next mentioned (Lev 18:17); and, with special
emphasis, is declared to be "wickedness," or "enormity."
The prohibition (Lev 18:18) of marriage with a sister-in-law, as is
well known, has been, and still is, the occasion of much
controversy, into which it is not necessary here to enter at length.
But, whatever may be thought for other reasons as to the lawfulness
of such a union, it truly seems quite singular that this verse
should ever have been cited as prohibiting such an alliance. No
words could well be more explicit than those which we have here, in
limiting the application of the prohibition to the lifetime of the
wife: "Thou shalt not take a woman to her sister, to be a rival to
her, to uncover her nakedness, beside the other in her lifetime" (R.V).
The law therefore does not touch the question for which it is so
often cited, but was evidently only intended as a restriction on
prevalent polygamy. Polygamy is ever likely to produce jealousies
and heart burnings; but it is plain that this phase of the evil
would reach its most extreme and odious expression when the new and
rival wife was a sister to the one already married; when it would
practically annul sisterly love, and give rise to such painful and
peculiarly humiliating dissensions as we read of between the sisters
Leah and Rachel. The sense of the passage is so plain, that we are
told that this interpretation "stood its ground unchallenged from
the third century B.C. to the middle of the sixteenth century A.D."
Whatever opinion any may hold therefore as to the expediency, upon
other grounds, of this much debated alliance, this passage,
certainly, cannot be fairly cited as forbidding it; but is far more
naturally understood as by natural implication permitting the union,
after the decease of the first wife. The laws concerning incest
therefore terminate with Lev 18:17; and Lev 18:18, according to this
interpretation, must be regarded as a restriction upon polygamous
connections, as Lev 18:19 is upon the rights of marriage.
It seems somewhat surprising that the question should have been
raised, even theoretically, whether the Mosaic law, as regards the
degrees of affinity prohibited in marriage, is of permanent
authority. The reasons for these prohibitions, wherever given, are
as valid now as then; for the simple reason that they are grounded
fundamentally in a matter of fact, -namely, the nature of the
relation between husband and wife, whereby they become "one flesh,"
implied in such phraseology as we find in Lev 18:16; and also the
relation of blood between members of the same family, as in Lev
18:10, etc. Happily, however, whatever theory any may have held, the
Church in all ages has practically recognised every one of these
prohibitions, as binding on all persons; and has rather been
inclined to err, if at all, by extending, through inference and
analogy, the prohibited degrees even beyond the Mosaic code. So
much, however, by way of guarding against excess in such inferential
extensions of the law, we must certainly say: according to the law
itself, as further applied in Lev 21:1-4, and limited in Deu
25:5-10, relationship by marriage is not to be regarded as precisely
equivalent in degree of affinity to relationship by blood. We
cannot, for instance, conceive that, under any circumstances, the
prohibition of the marriage of brothers and sisters should have had
any exception; and yet, as we have seen, the marriage between
brother and sister-in-law is explicitly authorised, in the case of
the levirate marriage, and by implication allowed in other cases, by
the language of Lev 18:18 of this chapter.
But in these days, when there is such a manifest inclination in
Christendom, as especially in the United States and in France, to
ignore the law of God in regard to marriage and divorce, and
regulate these instead by a majority vote, it assuredly becomes
peculiarly imperative that, as Christians, we exercise a holy
jealousy for the honour of God and the sanctity of the family, and
ever refuse to allow a majority vote any authority in these matters,
where it contravenes the law of God. While we must observe caution
that in these things we lay no burden on the conscience of any,
which God has not first placed there, we must insist-all the more
strenuously because of the universal tendency to license-upon the
strict observance of all that is either explicitly taught or by
necessary implication involved in the teachings of God’s Word upon
this question. Nothing more fundamentally concerns the well being of
society than the relation of the man and the woman in the
constitution of the family; and while, unfortunately, in our modern
democratic communities, the Church may not be able always to control
and determine the civil law in these matters, she can at least
utterly refuse any compromise where the civil law ignores what God
has spoken; and with unwavering firmness deny her sanction, in any
way, to any connection between a man and a woman which is not
according, to the revealed will of God, as set before us in this
most holy, good, and beneficent law.
The chapter before us casts a light upon the moral condition of the
most cultivated heathen peoples in those days, among whom many of
the grossest of these incestuous connections, as already remarked,
were quite common, even among those of the highest station. There
are many in our day more or less affected with the present fashion
of admiration for the ancient (and modern) heathenisms, who would do
well to heed this light, that their blind enthusiasm might thereby
be somewhat tempered.
On the other hand, these laws show us, in a very striking contrast,
the estimate which God puts upon the maintenance of holiness,
purity, and chastity between man and woman; and His very jealous
regard for the sanctity of the family in all its various relations.
Even in the Old Testament we have hints of a reason for this, deeper
than mere expediency, -hints which receive a definite form in the
clearer teaching of the New Testament, which tells us that in the
Divine plan it is ordained that in these earthly relations man shall
be the shadow and image of God. If, as the Apostle tells, {Eph 3:15,
R.V} "every family in heaven and on earth" is named from the Father;
and if, as he again teaches, {Eph 5:29-32} the relation of husband
and wife is intended to be an earthly type and symbol of the
relation between the Lord Jesus Christ and His Church, which is His
Bride, -then we cannot wonder at the exceedingly strong emphasis
which marks these prohibitions. Everything must be excluded which
would be incompatible with this holy ideal of God for man; that not
only in the constitution of his person, but in these sacred
relations which belong to his very nature, as created male and
female, he should be the image of the invisible God.
Thus, he who is a father is ever to bear in mind that in his
fatherhood he is appointed to shadow forth the ineffable mystery of
the eternal relation of the only-begotten and most holy Son to this
everlasting Father. As husband, the man is to remember that since he
who is joined to his wife becomes with her "one flesh," therefore
this union becomes, in the Divine ordination, a type and pattern of
the yet more mysterious union of life between the Son of God and the
Church, which is His Bride. As brothers and sisters, again, the
children of God are to remember that brotherly love, in its purity
and unselfish devotion, is intended of God to be a living
illustration of the love of Him who has been made of God to be "the
firstborn among many brethren". {Rom 8:29} And thus, with the family
life pervaded through and through by these ideas, will license and
impurity be made impossible, and, as happily now in many a Christian
home, it will appear that the family, no less truly than the Church,
is appointed of God to be a sanctuary of purity in a world impure
and corrupt by wicked works, and, no less really than the Church, to
be an effective means of Divine grace, and of preparation for the
eternal life of the heavenly kingdom, when all of God’s "many sons"
shall have been brought to glory, the "many brethren" of the First
Begotten, to abide with Him in the Father’s house forever and ever.
After the prohibition of adultery in Lev 18:20, we have what at
first seems like a very abrupt introduction of a totally different
subject; for Lev 18:21 refers, not to the seventh, but to the
second, and, therewith also, to the sixth commandment. It reads:
"Thou shalt not give any of thy seed to make them pass through the
fire to Molech, neither shalt thou profane the name of thy God."
But the connection of thought is found in the historical relation of
the licentious practices prohibited in the preceding verses to
idolatry, of which this Molech worship is named as one of the most
hideous manifestations. Some, indeed, have supposed that this
frequently recurring phrase does not designate an actual sacrifice
of the children, but only their consecration to Molech by some kind
of fire baptism. But certainly such passages as 2Ki 17:31 Jer 7:31;
Jer 19:5, distinctly require us to understand an actual offering of
the children as "burnt offerings." They were not indeed burnt alive,
as a late and untrustworthy tradition has it, but were first slain,
as in the case of all burnt sacrifices, and then burnt. The
unnatural cruelty of the sacrifice, even as thus made, was such,
that both here and in Lev 20:3 it is described as in a special sense
a "profaning" of God’s holy name, -a profanation, in that it
represented Him, the Lord of love and fatherly mercy, as requiring
such a cruel and unnatural sacrifice of parental love, in the
immolation of innocent children.
The inconceivably unnatural crimes prohibited in Lev 18:22-23 were
in like manner essentially connected with idolatrous worship: the
former with the worship of Astarte or Ashtoreth; the latter with the
worship of the he-goat at Mendes in Egypt, as the symbol of the
generative power in nature. What a hideous perversion of the moral
sense was involved in these crimes, as thus connected with
idolatrous worship, is illustrated strikingly by the fact that men
and women, thus prostituted to the service of false gods, were
designated by the terms qadesh and qadeshah, " sacred," "holy"! No
wonder that the sacred writer brands these horrible crimes as, in a
peculiar and almost solitary sense, "abomination," "confusion."
In these days of ours, when it has become the fashion among a
certain class of cultured writers-who would still, in many
instances, apparently desire to be called Christian-to act as the
apologist of idolatrous, and, according to Holy Scripture, false
religions, the mention of these crimes in this connection may well
remind the reader of what such seem to forget, as they certainly
ignore; namely, that in all ages, in the modern heathenism no less
than in the ancient, idolatry and gross licentiousness ever go hand
in hand. Still, today, even in Her Majesty’s Indian Empire, is the
most horrible licentiousness practised as an office of religious
worship. Nor are such revolting perversions of the moral sense
confined to the "Maharajas" of the temples in Western India, who
figured in certain trials in Bombay a few years ago; for even the
modern "reformed" Hindooism, from which some hope so much, has not
always been able to shake itself free from the pollution of these
things, as witness the argument conducted in recent numbers of the
Arya Patrika of Lahore, to justify the infamous custom known as
Niyoga, practised to this day in India, e.g., by the Panday Brahmans
of Allahabad; -a practice which is sufficiently described as being
adultery arranged for, under certain conditions, by a wife or
husband, the one for the other. One would fain charitably hope, if
possible, that our modern apologists for Oriental idolatries are
unaccountably ignorant of what all history should have taught them
as to the inseparable connection between idolatry and
licentiousness. Both Egypt and Canaan, in the olden time, -as this
chapter with all contemporaneous history teaches, -and also India in
modern times, read us a very awful lesson on this subject. Not only
have these idolatries led too often to gross licentiousness of life,
but in their full development they have, again and again, in
audacious and blasphemous profanation of the most holy God, and
defiance even of the natural conscience, given to the most horrible
excesses of unbridled lust the supreme sanction of declaring them to
be religious obligations. Assuredly, in God’s sight, it cannot be a
trifling thing for any man, even through ignorance, to extol, or
even apologise for, religions with which such enormities are both
logically and historically connected. And so, in these stern
prohibitions, and their heavy penal sanctions, we may find a
profitable lesson for even the cultivated intellect of the
nineteenth century!
The chapter closes with reiterated charges against indulgence in any
of these abominations. Israel is told (Lev 18:25, Lev 18:28) that it
was because the Canaanites practised these enormities that God was
about to scourge them out of their land; -a judicial reason which,
one would think, should have some weight with those whose sympathies
are so drawn out with commiseration for the Canaanites, that they
find it impossible to believe that it can be true, as we are told in
the Pentateuch, that God ordered their extermination. Rather, in the
light of the facts, would we raise the opposite question: whether,
if God indeed be a holy and righteous Governor among the nations, He
could do anything else either in justice toward the Canaanites, or
in mercy toward those whom their horrible example would certainly in
like manner corrupt, than, in one way or another, effect the
extermination of such a people?
Israel is then solemnly warned (Lev 18:28) that if they,
notwithstanding, shall practise these crimes, God will not spare
them any more than He spared the Canaanites. No covenant of His with
them shall hinder the land from spueing them out in like manner. And
though the nation, as a whole, give not itself to these things, each
individual is warned (Lev 18:29), "Whosoever shall commit any of
these abominations, even the souls that do them shall be cut off
from among their people"; that is, shall be outlawed and shut out
from all participation in covenant mercies. And therewith this part
of the law of holiness closes, with those pregnant words, repeated
now in this chapter for the fifth time: "I am the Lord (Heb.
Jehovah) your God!"
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