Lev. 20 Israelites must not offer their children to Molech on pain of death, Lev. 20:1–3; which if not inflicted by the magistrate, shall be by God himself, Lev. 20:4–5. The same against running after soothsayers, Lev. 20:6; against cursers of parents, Lev. 20:9; against adulterer, Lev.

Here follow the punishments of the crimes forbidden in the former chapters. The strangers; not only such as were proselytes, but all others, these being gross immoralities, and such as the precepts of Noah reached to, and such as the laws of nature and nations obliged them to.

I will set my face against that man, i.e. deal with him as an enemy, and make him a monument of my justice, either by punishing him immediately and eminently, when the magistrate cannot or will not do it, or by adding to his corporal punishments my curse upon his soul and name. See Lev. 17:10.

i.e. Wink at his fault, and forbear to accuse and punish him. Compare Acts 17:30.

Against his family, i.e. either, 1. His posterity, whom God threatened to punish for their father’s idolatry, Ex. 20:0. Or, 2. His people, as that word is used, Jer. 8:3, Mic. 2:3, to wit, the people of that land, who by their connivance make themselves guilty of his sin, Lev. 20:4. Or, 3.

To go a whoring after them; to seek knowledge, or counsel, or help from them.

i.e. Who separated you from all nations, and from their impurities and idolatries, to be a peculiar people to myself, and therefore I will not suffer you to follow their examples. Or, who really sanctify you, and give you my grace to do what I require, i.e. to keep my statutes.

For, or, surely, as that particle, chi, is oft used, as Job 8:6, Job 20:20. So there needs no dispute about the connexion, or what this is a reason of. Curseth; which is not meant of every perverse expression, but of bitter reproaches or imprecations. Or his mother; Heb.

By perverting the order which God hath appointed, and mixing the blood which God would have separated, and making the same offspring both his own immediate child and his grandchild, they have wrought confusion.

Except the one party was forced by the other. See Deut. 22:25.

It is wickedness, i.e. abominable and extraordinary wickedness, as the singularity of the punishment showeth. Both he and they; either, or both or all of them, if they consented to it.

Partly, for the prevention of monstrous births; partly, to blot out the memory of so loathsome a crime; and partly, that by so severe a punishment of that creature which was only a passive instrument to man’s sin, men might be assured that a more dreadful punishment than corporal death was reserved…

Seeing is here understood, either, 1. Properly, and so God would cut off the occasions of further filthiness. Or rather, 2. Improperly, for touching her or lying with her; for, 1. The sense of seeing is oft put for other senses, as for hearing, Gen. 42:1, compared with Acts 7:12, Ex. 20:18, Rev.

If a man shall lie with a woman, wittingly and willingly. See on Lev. 15:24, Lev. 18:19. Her sisters, i.e. her monthly infirmity. Her fountain, or her issue.

i.e. Either shall be speedily cut off ere they can have a child by that incestuous conjunction, that the remembrance of the fact may be blotted out: or, if this seem a less crime than most of the former incestuous mixtures, because the relation is more remote, and therefore the magistrate shall…

Except in the case allowed by God, Deut. 25:5. An unclean thing; an abominable thing, like the uncleanness of a menstruous woman, which is oft expressed by this word: Heb. a separation or removing, i.e.

By my special grace and favour vouchsafed to you above all people, in glorious and miraculous works wrought for you and among you, and in ordinances and other singular privileges and blessings imparted to you, all which calls for your special love and service.

i.e. As things which by my sentence I have made unclean, and which you must avoid as such.