1. And the Lord spake. The prohibition of this superstition was previously expounded in its proper place. God here commands the punishment to be inflicted, if any one should have polluted himself with it.

Nothing new occurs here, for the object of Moses was, by the enactment of penalties, to sanction the instruction lately given. By previously condemning incestuous marriages, he would cite the Israelites before God, in order that their consciences might abhor the crime, although he gave them nothing…

13. If a man also God had hitherto taught what was right, in order to restrain the people from sin, not only from fear of punishment, but for conscience’ sake.

Lev. 20:18. And if a man shall lie The enormity of the crime is seen by the severity of the punishment; and surely, when a man and woman abandon themselves to so disgraceful an act, it is plain that there are no remains of modesty in them.

22. Ye shall therefore keep all my statutes He now warns the Israelites, for the third time, not to imitate the Gentiles, and exhorts them to keep themselves within the limits of the Law.

Lev. 20:25. Ye shall therefore put difference. I have no doubt but that this sentence depends on the end of the foregoing verse; for although that verse contains a reason to deter them from incest, of which he had been speaking, still it refers also to the doctrine before us, and stands in the…