Leviticus 24:10 - Meaning and Application

We often find that bad behavior leads to good laws. Here we have the story of one unnamed Israelite with an Egyptian father and an Israelite mother, and of the good law that came from his sin. His mother belonged to the tribe of Dan (Leviticus 24:11), but neither he nor his father is named. Only the mother is named, because she was an Israelite.

This detail may help explain the quarrel he was in. The Jews said he tried to claim a place among the Danites through his mother’s line, but some from that tribe rightly resisted him because his father was an Egyptian. Another likely point is that mixed marriages often brought harmful results. When an Israelite woman married an idolatrous, hostile Egyptian, the child was likely to follow the worse example, and to learn blasphemy more easily from an Egyptian father than prayer and praise from an Israelite mother.

The trouble began with a fight. He quarreled with an Israelite man, and in that conflict he broke out into foul speech. The mixed crowd of Egyptians who left with Israel (Exodus 12:38) often caused trouble, and this was one way they did harm, by stirring up strife. If the church wants peace, it must also keep itself pure.

This story also warns us how far a small quarrel can go. When anger starts, we do not know what harm it may cause before it ends, or how much damage a little spark can make. Anger makes people forget both reason and religion. That is why we should not be quick to provoke others or to answer provocation. We should stop quarrels early, before they grow, because the start of strife is like the opening of a flood.

The sin itself was blasphemy and cursing (Leviticus 24:11). It seems the case came before the judges, who decided that he had no right to Israel’s privileges because his father was an Egyptian. Angry at that decision, he blasphemed the name of the Lord. To blaspheme the name is to blaspheme God himself, who is known by his name to us. God is not merely a name, of course, but his name is above every name. It is shameful that the holy name of Jehovah should be spoken against. Some Jews imagined that his sin was only speaking that sacred name aloud, but God himself never forbade his people to call on him by that name. More likely, he rejected God’s law and insulted the Lawgiver because he resented the judgment against him.

He also cursed, either God himself or the man he was fighting with. Curses that call down harm are the language of reckless anger and bitter hatred. He may even have cursed the judges who ruled against him. In that case, he was not only sinning, but also mocking the court and the legal process. So he added one sin to another.

The case was handled carefully. The witnesses or lower judges brought him and his unusual case to Moses (Leviticus 24:11), following the order set down earlier (Exodus 18:22). Moses did not make a quick decision. He kept the offender in custody until the Lord made his will known. Judges must think carefully. Those who decide cases must not act rashly, because judgment belongs to God (Deuteronomy 1:17), and every case will be reviewed before him. They wanted to know whether the man should be put to death by human authority or left to God’s judgment, and whether he should be stoned, as those were who cursed their parents (Judges 20:9), or receive a harsher penalty because his sin was even greater. Those who judge others should sincerely want to know the mind of the Lord, and should seek it by prayer and every proper means, because they judge for him and answer to him (2 Chronicles 19:6).

The righteous Judge of heaven and earth gave sentence: the whole community was to stone him (Leviticus 24:14). God could have struck him down at once from heaven, but he chose to honor the office of magistrates and use it to defend his glory in the world. He was to be brought outside the camp. That showed public hatred of the crime. The people were to cast him out like a corrupt branch, separating him from the camp as someone unclean and unfit to remain in Israel.

The whole congregation was to carry out the execution. This showed how strongly they were to defend the honor of God’s name. Every person should be ready to throw a stone at someone who blasphemes God, since insults against God touch all his people (Psalm 69:9). This also made the warning stronger. Anyone who had helped stone a blasphemer would afterward fear even the smallest thing that might lead toward blasphemy.

The execution also had a solemn act before it: the witnesses were to lay their hands on his head. The Jews said this was done only in the case of blasphemers, and that the words meant, “Your blood is on your own head. You alone brought this on yourself.” In other words, no blame was to fall on the law, the judges, the jury, or the witnesses. If he despised God, he alone must bear the guilt.

From this case God made a standing law about blasphemers (Leviticus 24:15-16). Civil rulers are guardians of both tables of the law. They must be just as concerned to defend God’s honor against those who speak against his being and rule as they are to protect public peace and safety from those who disturb it. This law is stated very strongly, as one that cannot be set aside: he must surely be put to death, and the people must certainly stone him. Some might think it harsh to punish a man for words, since words seem light and empty. But God shows that such words are not light when they come from a heart filled with hatred toward him, and they bring great guilt or deep grief to all who hear them.

This law also applies to the foreigner who lives among them, not only to the native-born Israelite.

God never gave a law that forced foreigners to be circumcised and accept the Jewish religion. People won by force would bring no honor to the God of Israel. But he did give a law to restrain foreigners from speaking evil of the God of Israel.

The man who was put to death for blasphemy is said to bear his own sin in the punishment. No sacrifice was appointed, with the sin placed on another head, so he himself had to bear it on his own head as a sacrifice to divine justice. His own tongue, in effect, brought ruin on him (Psalm 64:8), and the tongue of a blasphemer will fall hard on him.

There is also a repetition of other laws joined to this new law. Murder was to be punished with death (Leviticus 24:17, Leviticus 24:21), according to the old law from Noah’s time (Genesis 9:6), and even the law written in human nature (Genesis 4:10). Maiming, or causing serious bodily harm, was to be punished in the same way by the law of retaliation, meaning a fitting penalty for the harm done (Leviticus 24:19, Leviticus 24:20). This did not mean people could take revenge into their own hands. It meant they could appeal to the civil magistrate, who would see that the wrongdoer suffered and the injured person received proper satisfaction, according to the damage done.

We saw this law before (Exodus 22:4, Exodus 22:5). It fit better with that former order, which showed the strictness of the law and what sin deserves, than with the gospel age we live in, which shows God’s grace and the forgiveness of sins. That is why our Lord set this law aside (Matthew 5:38, Matthew 5:39), not to keep magistrates from carrying out public justice, but to keep all of us from returning personal injury and to teach us to forgive as we have been, and hope to be, forgiven.

Hurt done on purpose to a neighbor’s cattle was also to be paid back, with the loss made good (Leviticus 24:18, Leviticus 24:21). In this way, God’s law protected not only people’s lives, but also their property. Animals that belonged to no one, wild creatures by nature, could be killed. But animals that belonged to someone could not be taken that way. Does God care about oxen? Yes, for our sake he does.

Strangers, as well as native Israelites, were to share in the protection of this law, so they would not suffer wrong. They were also to be subject to its penalty if they did wrong. This may be one reason these laws are repeated here, to show how right it was that strangers, like Israelites, should be punished for blasphemy, since strangers, like Israelites, were punished for other crimes as well. There may be another reason too. God wanted to show what care he had taken for people’s safety by punishing those who harmed them. That should move rulers to guard his honor and punish those who blaspheme his name. If God takes care for their comfort, they ought to take care for his glory.

The blasphemer was then executed. Moses, as it were, signed the warrant for it. He spoke to the children of Israel to carry it out, and they did as the Lord commanded Moses (Leviticus 24:23). This teaches that death is the wages of sin, and that blasphemy in particular is a sin judges must punish. Yet if people who profane God’s name escape human punishment, the Lord our God will not let them escape his righteous judgment.

This blasphemer was the first man to die under the law of Moses. Stephen, the first to die for the gospel, died through the abuse of this law. The martyr and the criminal suffered the same death, but how great the difference between them!