Leviticus 18:23, commentary and pictures

Bestiality by either a man or a woman with an animal is forbidden as a defiling act, an abomination, and confusion. It stands among the explicit prohibitions on forbidden sexual relations in Leviticus 18:6-24, continued in Leviticus 20, including relations with close kin and incest. Those acts were actually practiced among the heathen peoples and the nations of Canaan, and the laws were given to set Israel apart from pagan customs and guard the Hebrew nation against adopting them. The prohibitions express a moral principle binding on all nations and not merely Jewish ceremonial pollutions, remaining in force because they rest on moral considerations and were known and binding before their proclamation at Sinai. The Canaanites were guilty before God and without excuse for practicing them, so God was just and not cruel in commanding their destruction, for such joining of the human family with brute creation is debased, causes humanity to degenerate, and violates the created order.

Words and Historical Setting

The prohibition addresses both a man lying with any beast to defile himself with it and a woman standing before a beast to lie down to it. The act is defiling to the one who does it, an abomination, and confusion. It belongs to the explicit prohibitions on forbidden sexual relations given in Leviticus 18:6-24 and continued in Leviticus 20. Those prohibitions include relations with close kin and incest, alongside other forbidden unions.

What is forbidden was actually practiced among the heathen peoples and the nations that lived in Canaan, and it shows the evils present there. The Canaanites were corrupt in adultery and unnatural crimes, not a peaceable good people. The laws of which this prohibition is part were given to set Israel apart from the pagan customs of the surrounding nations, described as abominations. They guarded the Hebrew nation against adopting those heathen practices.

The minuteness and frequent repetition of such instruction shows that God is particular about details of conduct.

Universal Moral Authority

The prohibitions in the chapter express a moral principle binding on all nations, not merely Jewish ceremonial pollutions. The acts defined there as abominations were not excused as national custom, for the land vomited out its former inhabitants because of those practices. That judgment confirms their seriousness and shows that God's law identifies sin and serves as the standard by which human acts are judged.

The prohibitions on sexual relationships in Leviticus 18:6-24 remain in force because they are all based on moral considerations, including the forbidding of sexual relations with animals. They specify God's commandments and laws known and binding before their proclamation at Sinai. Since sin that defiled the land is not counted where there is no law, the defilement and abomination of lying with a beast prove that God's law already existed.

The nations inhabiting Canaan practiced what that law condemned and were guilty before God. Their conduct shows they had not entirely lost knowledge of God's law and of the judgment due for violating it, and they were not without excuse. They were not a peaceable good people but were corrupt in adultery and unnatural crimes, including a man or a woman lying with a beast, which is confusion, and the command for their destruction was just and not cruel.

Joining the human family sexually with brute creation is debased and causes humanity to degenerate. Such conduct defiles and is called confusion, violating the created order with penalties inherent in the violation, a principle applied broadly to improper intimacy between people and beasts. The chapter's laws describe vices practiced in every large city, including the condemned sexual relations between humans and animals.

The prohibited marriage relationships set out in Leviticus 18 and 20, to which this prohibition belongs, do not forbid marriage between cousins. Those prohibitions identify defiling sexual unions, including sexual relations between a person and an animal, and bear on offspring of incestuous unions or marriages that violate the laws of affinity.