PENAL SANCTIONS
Lev 20:1-27
In no age or community has it been found sufficient, to secure
obedience, that one should appeal to the conscience of men, or
depend, as a sufficient motive, upon the natural painful
consequences of violated law. Wherever there is civil and criminal
law, there, in all cases, human government, whether in its lowest or
in its most highly developed forms, has found it necessary to
declare penalties for various crimes. It is the peculiar interest of
this chapter that it gives us certain important sections of the
penal code of a people whose government was theocratic, whose only
King was the Most Holy and Righteous God. In view of the manifold
difficulties which are inseparable from the enactment and
enforcement of a just and equitable penal code, it must be to every
man who believes that Israel, in that period of its history, was, in
the most literal sense, a theocracy, a matter of the highest civil
and governmental interest to observe what penalties for crime were
ordained by infinite wisdom, goodness, and righteousness as the law
of that nation.
This penal code (Lev 20:1-21) is given in two sections. Of these,
the first (Lev 20:1-6) relates to those who give of their seed to
Molech, or who are accessory to such crime by their concealment of
the fact; and also to those who consult wizards or familiar spirits.
Under this last head also comes Lev 20:27, which appears to have
become misplaced, as it follows the formal conclusion of the
chapter, and by its subject-the penalty for the wizard, or him who
claims to have a familiar spirit-evidently belongs immediately after
Lev 20:6.
The second section (Lev 20:9-21) enumerates, first (Lev 20:9-16),
other cases for which capital punishment was ordered: and then (Lev
20:17-21) certain offences for which a lesser penalty is prescribed.
These two sections are separated (Lev 20:7-8) by a command, in view
of these penalties, to sanctification of life, and obedience to the
Lord, as the God who has redeemed and consecrated Israel to be a
nation to Himself.
These penal sections are followed (Lev 20:22-26) by a general
conclusion to the whole law of holiness, as contained in these three
chapters, as also to the law concerning clean and unclean meats
(chapter 11); which would thus appear to have been originally
connected more closely than now with these chapters. This closing
part of the section consists of an exhortation and argument against
disobedience, in walking after the wicked customs of the Canaanitish
nations; enforced by the declaration that their impending expulsion
was brought about by God in punishment for their practice of these
crimes; and, also, by the reminder that God in His special grace had
separated them to be a holy nation to Himself, and that He was about
to give them the good land of Canaan as their possession.
It is perhaps hardly necessary to observe that the law of this
chapter does not profess to give the penal code of Israel with
completeness. Murder, for example, is not mentioned here, though
death is expressly denounced against it elsewhere. {Num 35:31} So,
again, in the Book of Exodus {Exo 21:15} death is declared as the
penalty for smiting father or mother. Indeed, the chapter itself
contains evidence that it is essentially a selection of certain
parts of a more extended code, which has been nowhere preserved in
its entirety.
In this chapter death is ordained as the penalty for the following
crimes: viz., giving of one’s seed to Molech (Lev 20:2-5);
professing to be a wizard, or to have dealings with the spirits of
the dead (Lev 20:27); adultery, incest with a mother or step-mother,
a daughter-in-law or mother-in-law (Lev 20:10-12, Lev 20:14); and
sodomy and bestiality (Lev 20:13). In a single case-that of incest
with a wife’s mother-it is added (Lev 20:14) that both the guilty
parties shall be burnt with fire; i.e., after the usual infliction
of death by stoning. Of him who becomes accessory by concealment to
the crime of sacrifice to Molech, it is said (Lev 20:5) that God
Himself will set His face against that man, and will cut off both
the man himself and his family. The same phraseology is used (Lev
20:6) of those who consult familiar spirits: and the cutting off is
also threatened, Lev 20:18. The law concerning incest with a full-
or half-sister requires (ver. 17) that this excision shall be "in
the sight of the children of their people"; i.e., that the sentence
shall be executed in the most public way, thus to affix the more
certainly, to the crime the stigma of an indelible ignominy and
disgrace. A lesser grade of penalty is attached to an alliance with
the wife of an uncle or of a brother; in the latter case (Lev 20:21)
that they shall be childless, in the former (Lev 20:20), that they
shall die childless; that is, though they have children, they shall
all be prematurely cut off; none shall outlive their parents. To
incest with an aunt by blood no specific penalty is affixed; it is
only said that "they shall bear their iniquity," i.e., God will hold
them guilty.
The chapter, directly or indirectly, casts no little light on some
most fundamental and practical questions regarding the
administration of justice in dealing with criminals.
We may learn here what, in the mind of the King of kings, is the
primary object of the punishment of criminals against society.
Certainly there is no hint in this code of law that these penalties
were specially intended for the reformation of the offender. Were
this so, we should not find the death penalty applied with such
unsparing severity. This does not indeed mean that the reformation
of the criminal was a matter of no concern to the Lord; we know to
the contrary. But one cannot resist the conviction in reading this
chapter, as also other similar portions of the law, that in a
governmental point of view this was not the chief object of
punishment. Even where the penalty was not death, the reformation of
the guilty persons is in no way brought before us as an object of
the penal sentence. In the governmental aspect of the case, this is,
at least, so far in the background that it does not once come into
view.
In our day, however, an increasing number maintain that the death
penalty ought never to be inflicted, because, in the nature of the
case, it precludes the possibility of the criminal being reclaimed
and made a useful member of society; and so, out of regard to this
and other like humanitarian considerations, in not a few instances,
the death penalty, even for wilful murder, has been abrogated. It is
thus, to a Christian citizen, of very practical concern to observe
that in this theocratic penal code there is not so much as an
allusion to the reformation of the criminal, as one object which by
means of punishment it was intended to secure. Penalty was to be
inflicted, according to this code, without any apparent reference to
its bearing on this matter. The wisdom of the Omniscient King of
Israel, therefore, must certainly have contemplated in the
punishment of crime some object or objects of more weighty moment
than this.
What those objects were, it does not seem hard to discern. First and
supreme in the intention of this law is the satisfaction of outraged
justice and of the regal majesty of the supreme and holy God,
defiled; the vindication of the holiness of the Most High against
that wickedness of men which would set at nought the Holy One and
overturn that moral order which He has established. Again and again
the crime itself is given as the reason for the penalty, inasmuch as
by such iniquity in the midst of Israel the holy sanctuary of God
among them was profaned. We read, for example, "I will cut him off
because he hath defiled My sanctuary, and hath profaned My holy
name; they have wrought confusion," i.e., in the moral and physical
order of the family; "their blood shall be upon them"; "they have
committed abomination; they shall surely be put to death"; "it is a
shameful thing; they shall be cut off." Such are the expressions
which again and again ring through this chapter; and they teach with
unmistakable clearness that the prime object of the Divine King of
Israel in the punishment was, not the reformation of the individual
sinner, but the satisfaction of justice and the vindication of the
majesty of broken law. And if we have no more explicit statement of
the matter here, we yet have it elsewhere; as in Num 35:33, where we
are expressly told that the death penalty to be visited with
unrelenting severity on the murderer is of the nature of an
expiation. Very clear and solemn are the words, "Blood, it polluteth
the land: and no expiation can be made for the land for the blood
that is shed therein, but by the blood of him that shed it." But if
this is set forth as the fundamental reason for the infliction of
the punishment, it is not represented as the only object. If, as
regards the criminal himself, the punishment is a satisfaction and
expiation to justice for his crime, on the other hand, as regards
the people, the punishment is intended for their moral good and
purification. This is expressly stated, as in Lev 20:14 : "They
shall be burnt with fire, that there be no wickedness among you."
Both of these principles are of such a nature that they must be of
perpetual validity. The government or legislative power that loses
sight of either of them is certain to go wrong, and the people will
be sure, sooner or later, to suffer in morals by the error.
In the light we have now, it is easy to see what are the principles
according to which, in various cases, the punishments were measured
out. Evidently, in the first place, the penalty was determined, even
as equity demands, by the intrinsic heinousness of the crime. With
the possible exception of a single case, it is easy to see this. No
one will question the horrible iniquity of the sacrifice of innocent
children to Molech; or of incest with a mother, or of sodomy, or
bestiality. A second consideration which evidently had place, was
the danger involved in each crime to the moral and spiritual well
being of the community; and, we may add, in the third place, also
the degree to which the people were likely to be exposed to the
contagion of certain crimes prevalent in the nations immediately
about them.
But although these principles are manifestly so equitable and
benevolent as to be valid for all ages, Christendom seems to be
forgetting the fact. The modern penal codes vary as widely from the
Mosaic in respect of their great leniency, as those of a few
centuries ago in respect of their undiscriminating severity. In
particular, the past few generations have seen a great change with
regard to the infliction of capital punishment. Formerly, in
England, for example, death was inflicted, with intolerable
injustice, for a large number of comparatively trivial offences; the
death penalty is now restricted to high treason and killing with
malice aforethought; while in some parts of Christendom it is
already wholly abolished. In the Mosaic law, according to this
chapter and other parts of the law, it was much more extensively
inflicted, though, it may be noted in passing, always without
torture. In this chapter it is made the penalty for actual or
constructive idolatry, for sorcery, etc., for cursing father or
mother, for adultery, for the grosser degrees of incest, and for
sodomy and bestiality. To this list of capital offences the law
elsewhere adds, not only murder, but blasphemy, sabbath breaking,
unchastity in a betrothed woman when discovered after marriage,
rape, rebellion against a priest or judge, and man stealing,
As regards the crimes specified in this particular chapter, the
criminal law of modern Christendom does not inflict the penalty of
death in a single possible case here mentioned; and, to the mind of
many, the contrasted severity of the Mosaic code presents a grave
difficulty. And yet, if one believes, on the authority of the
teaching of Christ, that the theocratic government of Israel is not
a fable, but a historic fact, although he may still have much
difficulty in recognising the righteousness of this code, he will be
slow on this account either to renounce his faith in the Divine
authority of this chapter, or to impugn the justice of the holy King
of Israel in charging Him with undue severity; and will rather
patiently await some other solution of the problem, than the denial
of the essential equity of these laws. But there are several
considerations which, for many, will greatly lessen, if they do not
wholly remove, the difficulty which the case presents.
In the first place, as regards the punishment of idolatry with
death, we have to remember that, from a theocratic point of view,
idolatry was essentially high treason, the most formal repudiation
possible of the supreme authority of Israel’s King. If even in our
modern states, the gravity of the issues involved in high treason
has led men to believe that death is not too severe a penalty for an
offence aimed directly at the subversion of governmental order, how
much more must this be admitted when the government is not of
fallible man, but of the most holy and infallible God? And when,
besides this, we recall the atrocious cruelties and revolting
impurities which were inseparably associated with that idolatry, we
shall have still less difficulty in seeing that it was just that the
worshipper of Molech should die. And as decreeing the penalty of
death for sorcery and similar practices, it is probable that the
reason for this is to be found in the close connection of these with
the prevailing idolatry.
But it is in regard to crimes against the integrity and purity of
the family that we find the most impressive contrast between this
penal code and those of modern times. Although, unhappily, adultery
and, less commonly, incest, and even, rarely, the unnatural crimes
mentioned in this chapter, are not unknown in modern Christendom,
yet, while the law of Moses punished all these with death, modern
law treats them with comparative leniency, or even refuses to regard
some forms of these offences as crimes. What then? Shall we hasten
to the conclusion that we have advanced on Moses? that this law was
certainly unjust in its severity? or is it possible that modern law
is at fault, in that it has fallen below those standards of
righteousness which rule in the kingdom of God?
One would think that by any man who believes in the Divine origin of
the theocracy only one answer could be given. Assuredly, one cannot
suppose that God judged of a crime with undue severity; and if not,
is not then Christendom, as it were, summoned by this penal code of
the theocracy-after making all due allowance for different
conditions of society-to revise its estimate of the moral gravity of
these and other offences? In these days of continually progressive
relaxation of the laws regulating the relations of the sexes, this
seems indeed to be one of the chief lessons from this chapter of
Leviticus; namely, that in God’s sight sins against the seventh
commandment are not the comparative trifles which much over
charitable and easygoing morality imagines, but crimes of the first
order of heinousness. We do well to heed this fact, that not merely
unnatural crimes, such as sodomy, bestiality, and the grosser forms
of incest, but adultery, is by God ranked in the same category as
murder. Is it strange? For what are crimes of this kind but assaults
on the very being of the family? Where there is incest or adultery,
we may truly say the family is murdered; what murder is to the
individual, that, precisely, are crimes of this class to the family.
In the theocratic code these were, therefore, made punishable with
death; and, we venture to believe, with abundant reason. Is it
likely that God was too severe? or must we not rather fear that man,
ever lenient to prevailing sins, in our day has become falsely and
unmercifully merciful, kind with a most perilous and unholy
kindness?
Still harder will it be for most of us to understand why the death
penalty should have been also affixed to cursing or smiting a father
or a mother, an extreme form of rebellion against parental
authority. We must, no doubt, bear in mind, as in all these cases,
that a rough people like those just emancipated slaves, required a
severity of dealing which with finer natures would not be needed;
and, also, that the fact of Israel’s call to be a priestly nation
bearing salvation to mankind, made every disobedience among them the
graver crime, as tending to so disastrous issues, not for Israel
alone, but for the whole race of man which Israel was appointed to
bless. On an analogous principle we justify military authority in
shooting the sentry found asleep at his post. Still, while allowing
for all this, one can hardly escape the inference that, in the sight
of God, rebellion against parents must be a more serious offence
than many in our time have been wont to imagine. And the more that
we consider how truly basal to the order of government and of
society is both sexual purity and the maintenance of a spirit of
reverence and subordination to parents, the easier we shall find it
to recognise the fact that if in this penal code there is doubtless
great severity, it is yet the severity of governmental wisdom and
true paternal kindness on the part of the high King of Israel: who
governed that nation with intent, above all, that they might become
in the highest sense "a holy nation" in the midst of an ungodly
world, and so become the vehicle of blessing to others. And God thus
judged that was better that sinning individuals should die without
mercy, than that family government and family purity should perish,
and Israel, instead of being a blessing to the nations, should sink
with them into the mire of universal moral corruption.
And it is well to observe that this law, if severe, was most
equitable and impartial in its application. We have here, in no
instance, torture; the scourging which in one case is enjoined, is
limited elsewhere to the forty stripes save one. Neither have we
discrimination against any class, or either sex; nothing like that
detestable injustice of modern society which turns the fallen woman
into the street with pious scorn, while; it often receives the
betrayer and even the adulterer-in most cases the more guilty of the
two-into "the best society." Nothing have we here, again, which
could justifyby example the insistence of many, through a perverted
humanity, when a murderess is sentenced for her crime to the
scaffold, her sex should purchase a partial immunity from the
penalty of crime. The Levitical law is as impartial as its Author;
even if death be the penalty, the guilty one must die whether man or
woman.
Quite apart, then, from any question of detail, as to how far this
penal code ought to be applied under the different conditions of
modern society, this chapter of Leviticus assuredly stands as a most
impressive testimony from God against the humanitarianism of our
age. It is more and. more the fashion, in some parts of Christendom,
to pet criminals; to lionize murderers and adulterers, especially if
in high social station. We have even heard of bouquets and such like
sentimental attentions bestowed by ladies on blood-red criminals in
their cells awaiting the halter; and a maudlin pity quite too often
usurps among us the place of moral horror at crime and intense
sympathy with the holy justice and righteousness of God. But this
Divine government of old did not deal in flowers and perfumes; it
never indulged criminals, but punished them with an inexorable
righteousness. And yet this was not because Israel’s King was hard
and cruel. For it was this same law which with equal kindness and
equity kept a constant eye of fatherly care upon the poor and the
stranger, and commanded the Israelite that he love even the stranger
as himself. But, none the less, the Lord God who declared Himself as
merciful and gracious and of great kindness, also herein revealed
Himself, according to his word, as one who would "by no means clear
the guilty." This fact is luminously witnessed by this penal code;
and, let us note, it is witnessed by that penal law of God which is
revealed in nature also. For this too punishes without mercy the
drunkard, for example, or the licentious man, and never diminishes
one stroke because by the full execution of penalty the sinner must
suffer often so terribly. Which is just what we should expect to
find, if indeed the God of nature is the One who spake in Leviticus.
Finally, as already suggested, this chapter gives a most weighty
testimony against the modern tendency to a relaxation of the laws
which regulate the relations of the sexes. That such a tendency is a
fact is admitted by all; by some with gratulation, by others with
regret and grave concern. French law, for instance, has explicitly
legalized various alliances which in this law God explicitly
forbids, under heavy penal sanctions, as incestuous; German
legislation has moved about as far in the same direction; and the
same tendency is to be observed, more or less, in all the
English-speaking world. In some of the United States, especially,
the utmost laxity has been reached, in laws which, under the name of
divorce, legalise gross adultery, - laws which had been a disgrace
to pagan Rome. So it goes. Where God announces the death penalty,
man first apologises for the crime, then lightens the penalty, then
abolishes it, and at last formally legalises the crime. This modern
drift bodes no good; in the end it can only bring disaster alike to
the well being of the family and of the State. The maintenance of
the family in its integrity and purity is nothing less than
essential to the conservation of society and the stability of good
government.
To meet this growing evil, the Church needs to come back to the full
recognition of the principles which underlie this Levitical code;
especially of the fact that marriage and the family are not merely
civil arrangements, but Divine institutions; so that God has not
left it to the caprice of a majority to settle what shall be lawful
in these matters. Where God has declared certain alliances and
connections to be criminal, we shall permit or condone them at our
peril. God rules, whether modern majorities will it or not; and we
must adopt the moral standards of the kingdom of God in our
legislation. or we shall suffer. God has declared that not merely
the material well being of man, but holiness, is the moral end of
government and of life; and He will find ways to enforce His will in
this respect. "The nation that will not serve Him shall perish." All
this is not theology, merely, or ethics, but history. All history
witnesses that moral corruption and relaxed legislation, especially
in matters affecting the relations of the sexes, bring in their
train sure retribution, not in Hades, but here on earth. Let us not
miss of taking the lesson by imagining that this law was for Israel,
but not for other peoples. The contrary is affirmed in this very
chapter (Lev 20:23-24), where we are reminded that God visited His
heavy judgments upon the Canaanitish nations precisely for this very
thing, their doing of these things which are in this law of holiness
forbidden. Hence "the land spued them out." Our modern democracies,
English, American, French, German, or whatever they be, would do
well to pause in their progressive repudiation of the law of God in
many social questions, and heed. this solemn warning. For, despite
the unbelief of multitudes, the Holy One still governs the world,
and it is certain that He will never abdicate his throne of
righteousness to submit any of his laws to the sanction of a popular
vote.
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