Leviticus 20:1 - Meaning and Application

Moses is told here to repeat what he had already said to the Israelites in effect before (Leviticus 20:2). This was no pointless repetition. They needed to pay closer attention and see these matters as very serious because God kept pressing them on them. God speaks once, yes, twice, and when he commands something to be said again, we should be willing to hear it again, because it is safe for us (Philippians 3:1).

Three sins in these verses are threatened with death. The first is parents abusing their children by sacrificing them to Molech, a false god (Leviticus 20:2, 20:3). Among all forms of idolatry, this was one of the most shameful, because it trampled on every natural feeling and honor of human life. It showed that these gods were really demons, who wanted people’s ruin, and that the worshipers had lost both reason and natural love.

Abraham’s offering of Isaac could never support this cruel practice, much less start it, because Abraham’s act was commanded by God and then immediately stopped. Yet the power of the devil over disobedient people was so strong that this monstrous cruelty became common. Even the Israelites were in danger of being drawn into it, so this severe law was necessary. It was not enough to tell them they could spare their children, though the fruit of their body should never be offered for the sin of their soul. They also had to be told that the guilty person should die as a murderer, and the people of the land were to stone him with stones (Leviticus 20:2). Among the Jews, this was counted one of the harshest death penalties.

If children were sacrificed to the devil’s cruelty, then the parents were to be handed over to God’s justice. And if the act could not be proved, or if the magistrates refused to do their duty, God himself would deal with the matter: “I will set my face against that man” (Leviticus 20:3). Those who escape human punishment will still not escape God’s righteous judgment. They deceive themselves if they think sin will go unpunished. No one can escape when God sets his face against them, meaning he opposes them as an enemy and fights against them.

The seriousness of the crime is also shown by the special harm it did in Israel. It defiled the sanctuary and profaned God’s holy name, because God is jealous for both. Among the Gentiles, child sacrifice was murder and idolatry. But if Israelites did it, they added the further guilt of defiling the sanctuary, which they still attended, as if God’s temple and idols could be joined together. They also profaned God’s name, by which they were called, as though he approved of such conduct (Romans 2:23, 2:24).

Those who helped or encouraged this sin were to be cut off as well by God’s righteous hand. If neighbors hid the offender and would not testify against him, or if the magistrates ignored the crime and refused to judge it, feeling pity for the sinner more than hatred for the evil, God himself would deal with them too (Leviticus 20:4, 20:5). Ignoring idolatry is itself a sin known in heaven and will not go unpunished. God says, “I will set my face against that man” and even against his family. A master’s wickedness often brings ruin on the whole household, and the one who should guard the house becomes the one who breaks it apart. If rulers will not punish offenders, God will punish the rulers, because many others may follow sin when leaders simply allow it. When leaders’ sins are leading sins, their punishments should be public and warning examples.

The second sin is children abusing their parents by cursing them (Leviticus 20:9). If children spoke badly of their parents, wished harm on them, or treated them with contempt or spite, the judges were to punish it. This attacked both God’s honor and the peace of society, and the judges were responsible for guarding both. Proverbs says, “The eye that mocks a father, the ravens of the valley will pick it out” (Proverbs 30:17), which suggests that such wicked children were headed not only for death, but for a shameful death. Christ quotes and confirms this law (Matthew 15:4), because it breaks the fifth commandment just as murder breaks the sixth. The same law that calls parents to care tenderly for their children also calls children to respect their parents. Whoever insults their parents, the instruments of their own life, strikes at God himself, the maker of that life, who will not allow fatherly authority to be mocked and trampled on.

The third sin is people abusing themselves by consulting mediums, those who claim to have familiar spirits (Leviticus 20:6). In this way, a person lowers, dishonors, and deceives himself more than in almost any other sin. What greater folly is there than to go to a liar for truth and to an enemy for advice? That is what people do when they turn to those who use occult powers and know the depths of Satan. This is spiritual adultery just as idolatry is, because it gives the devil the honor that belongs to God alone. The jealous God will reject those who go after him in this way and will cut them off, since they have already cut themselves off from him.

In the middle of these specific laws comes a general command (Leviticus 20:7, 20:8). The first duty is holiness. “Sanctify yourselves and be holy” means that we must cleanse ourselves from sin, give ourselves to God’s service and honor, and shape our lives to his holy will and image. The second duty is obedience. “Keep my statutes” means that our whole conduct should show that we are holy, because a tree is known by its fruit. Yet we cannot keep God’s statutes as we should unless we first make ourselves holy. Make the tree good, and the fruit will be good.

The reasons given for this call to holiness are also strong. First, “I am the Lord your God,” so we should be holy in order to reflect the one whose people we are and to please him. Holiness fits his house and his household. Second, “I am the Lord who sanctifies you,” which means he is the one who makes his people holy.

God set them apart by special privileges, laws, and favors that marked them off from every other nation. In this way, he honored them as a people devoted to him. He gave them his word and his commands as means to make them holy, and he gave them his good Spirit to teach them. So they had a clear duty to be holy, or else they would receive God’s grace in vain.

God’s people are, and must be, people set apart. God has marked them out by his holy covenant, and they should show that difference in the way they live. His making us holy is a strong reason for us to make ourselves holy too, so that we follow the purpose of his grace and do not work against it. If the Lord is the one who makes us holy, then we can trust that the work will be completed, even if it is hard. This is like the thought in (2 Corinthians 5:5), “He who has prepared us for this very thing is God.” And God’s grace does not cancel our care and effort. It gives them their strongest support and encouragement. “Work out your own salvation,” because it is God who works in you.