Leviticus 20:10 - Meaning and Application

Sins against the seventh commandment are here ordered to be punished very severely. These are sins that foolish people are most likely to laugh at, more than almost any others. But God wanted to show how serious their guilt is by making the punishment so severe, where lighter warnings would not have been enough.

Lying with another man's wife was made a capital crime. The adulterer and the adulteress, who both shared in the sin, were both to be put to death (Leviticus 20:10). Long before this, even in Job's day, this was already seen as a terrible crime, an offense the judges should punish (Job 31:11). It is a proud contempt of God’s law and a breaking of his covenant (Proverbs 2:17). It is also a lasting wrong against the husband who was harmed, and it corrupts the minds and consciences of both offenders as deeply as anything can.

This sin often comes from wild and uncontrolled lust, which pushes people toward it with great force. That is why it needs such a strong restraint. It also defiles a land and brings God’s judgments on it. It disturbs families and tends to destroy virtue and religion, so it is fitting for public justice to deal with it. Yet see John 8:3-11.

Incestuous relationships, whether within marriage or outside it, were also condemned. Some of these were to be punished with death, such as a man lying with his father's wife (Leviticus 20:11). Reuben, Jacob's son, would have been put to death for his crime if this law had already been in force (Genesis 35:22). This was also the sin of the man in the Corinthian church, for which he was to be handed over to Satan, that is, given over to the severe discipline of God's judgment and the church’s removal (1 Corinthians 5:1, 1 Corinthians 5:5). A man defiling his daughter-in-law, mother-in-law, or sister was also to be punished with death (Leviticus 20:12, Leviticus 20:14, Leviticus 20:17).

Other incest sins God would punish with the curse of barrenness, such as a man defiling his aunt or his brother's wife (Leviticus 20:19-21). They were to die childless. Those who do not keep within God’s rules for marriage lose the blessings that marriage should bring. As Hosea says, they commit whoredom and do not increase (Hosea 4:10). More than that, they shall bear their guilt. That means that even if they are not immediately cut off by God or by human justice, the guilt still remains on them and will be called for later. It cannot be removed by sacrifice or offering.

The unnatural sins of sodomy and bestiality, sins that should not even be named without horror, were also to be punished with death (Leviticus 20:13, Leviticus 20:15, Leviticus 20:16). Our own law also punishes them in the same way. Even the animal that was misused was to be killed along with the sinner, which brought greater public shame on the offender. In this way the crime was shown to be utterly hateful and abominable, and every reminder of it was to be taken away.

Even the improper use of marriage, if done presumptuously and in contempt of God's law, would expose the offenders to God's just judgment: they shall be cut off (Leviticus 20:18). For it is God's will that every man should know how to control his own body, and the wife is called the weaker vessel, with purity and honor, as becomes God's people.