There are different punishments mentioned in this chapter: death, “cutting off from the people” or childlessness. God is simply warning the Israelites that He will not tolerate these types of sins that are commonly committed in Canaan. He is throwing the Canaanites out because of these kinds of transgressions. He is educating the Israelites and doesn’t want them to commit the same sins that got the Canaanites kicked out of the land. God is telling them what is holy and what is unholy.
The mysterious deity-king Molekh appears in the Bible for the first time. Canaanites and later Israelites sacrificed their babies in fire to Molekh. What power did this worship hold then and does it unsuspectingly hold now?
As part of an excursus from our study of Luke 22 on Yeshua’s teachings to the 12 during and just after His last Pesakh (Passover) with them, we’re looking at John 13-17. There appears to be a number of parallels between John 14 and Num. 10:29-12:15 that seem to suggest that the “going” Yeshua is referring to would be into the grave and then to God’s throne, reserving the privilege to dwell with God for anyone in the wold who want it.
Lev. 19:19-34 may seem like a disjointed collection of rules about managing servants, textiles and crops. But when we see that these are used as symbols elsewhere for characteristics of people, we can learn God’s lessons that transcend culture and time.
Leviticus 19 is about God wanting us to be as holy as He is. If we couldn’t be holy as God is holy, God wouldn’t have told us to even try to be holy like Him. If it was utterly too difficult to do, He wouldn’t have told us to do it. This is not a random chapter, inserted out of the blue to dumbfound us. This isn’t merely a book of dos and don’ts.
The descendants of Israel had been in bondage in Egypt for 400 years. That’s not simply being slaves in Mitsraim (Egypt) but also being surrounded by Egyptian morals and cultural norms for all that time. After that long of a period of time, many were culturally Egyptian — assimilated — even though they were treated horribly by the Egyptians. And that is something that God caused to happen.
In this chapter, we have the first time that a pagan deity is specifically mentioned by name, but it’s a name with profound meaning.
Leviticus 17 is one of the most difficult chapters in that book to understand. One of the main phrases that people question in this chapter is the phrase “that man [person] shall be cut off from among his people.” This chapter is not about how people were to slaughter animals for their daily meal. It is about God’s instructions about sacrifices and how sacrifices were not to be made by the people themselves, but they were to be brought to the priests so the different sacrifices were performed properly under priestly supervision.