Leviticus 18:29, commentary and pictures

Whoever commits any of these abominations shall be cut off from among their people. The abominations are sexual sins, especially incest such as marrying a sister or daughter with other licentious immorality, and they include witchcraft, dealings with familiar spirits and sun-worship as defiling heathen practices. They state a moral principle binding on all nations and not merely Jewish or ceremonial law, for the Gentile Canaanites committed these acts and the land vomited out its former inhabitants. In that dispensation the cutting off was enforced with the penalty of death, placing these acts under the moral law by which all are shown to be sinners and liable to death as the wages of sin. That ancient witchcraft rested on belief in the soul's consciousness after death through necromancy and claimed communion with the dead, and it is the same in practice as modern Spiritualism, which is no purer and remains dangerous and ruinous.

Words and Historical Setting

The abominations forbidden in the chapter are sexual sins, especially incest such as a man marrying his sister or daughter, along with other licentious immorality. They are not merely Jewish pollutions or ceremonial restrictions but express a moral principle binding on all nations. This is shown because the Gentile Canaanites committed these acts, and for them God cast them out of the land and the land vomited out its former inhabitants.

The same abominations include witchcraft and dealings with familiar spirits, bound up with heathen darkness as defiling practices that bring cutting off from among the people. The immoral practices of the nations driven out before Israel are presented alongside the witchcraft condemned in Deuteronomy, with corrupt morals associated with those forbidden arts. Sun-worship also stands among the abominations God's people were to shun.

The pagan nations in Canaan were given four hundred years of hope until their iniquity was full. Their removal from the Holy Land after that probation was a blessing to future generations. The cutting off of those who practiced the abominations named in the chapter shows the evil those practices brought upon the nations that lived in Canaan.

Penalty and Doctrinal Meaning

Whoever commits any of these abominations shall be cut off from among the people. Those who practiced the abominations named in the chapter were cut off from their people, and the warning was fulfilled in the pagan nations driven from the Holy Land after four hundred years of hope when their iniquity was full, their removal being a blessing to future generations and showing the evil those practices brought upon the nations that lived in Canaan. The prohibitions against sexual relations between near relatives were not merely Jewish or ceremonial, for the acts were abominations among the Gentiles and because of them the Canaanites were cast out of the land. The law treats these practices, including witchcraft, as dangerous and ruinous grave offenses with serious consequences.

In that dispensation all of God's commandments were enforced with the penalty of death, and this cutting off is evidence that the penalty applied to violations of the commandments generally. These acts are placed under the moral law's standard of sin by which people are shown to be sinners and liable to death as sin's wages, for incestuous acts such as a man marrying his sister or daughter are abominations and not merely Jewish pollutions, since the land vomited out its former inhabitants because of such practices. This warning belongs within Leviticus's teaching on the exceeding sinfulness of sin. Absalom's sexual relations with his father's concubines made him liable to death under this law, as one of four crimes for which his life had been forfeited and for which justice had long been due when death came.

Under the Sinaitic covenant any course that tended to make Israel like the surrounding heathen nations was visited with swift retribution by being cut off from among the people. The cutting off was part of a local covenant regulating the social relations of the house of Israel to keep them a separate and distinct race, hedged about against corrupting heathen influences learned in Egypt. It was to prevent mingling, intermarriage and blending the blood of aliens with their own offspring, and to prevent gaining a desire to be like alien nations, so that the pedigree of Christ as the Seed of Abraham would not be clouded. The penalty proves the Sinaitic covenant was a temporary, national affair. The law is context for excluding from Israel's assembly the offspring of unions that violated the prohibitions of affinity, and does not teach that a child born out of wedlock cannot be saved.

Witchcraft and Present Warning

The nations driven out before Israel were marked by abominable licentiousness alongside witchcraft and dealings with familiar spirits condemned elsewhere in the law. Their abominations were defiling practices that corrupted those nations, and the warning that everyone committing them shall be cut off from among the people applies to witchcraft and related forbidden practices. God prohibited those practices because they were dangerous and ruinous, treating them as grave offenses carrying serious consequences.

That witchcraft was bound up with heathen darkness and licentious conduct, sharing the corrupt morals of the nations driven out before Israel. It rested on belief in the soul's consciousness after death, expressed through necromancy, enchantment, and claimed communion with the dead. The immoral practices associated with ancient witchcraft centered especially on offenses against the seventh commandment.

Ancient witchcraft included the same practices as modern Spiritualism, which is no purer, and the identification of those practices as abominations punishable by cutting off shows the evil they brought upon the peoples of Canaan. The chapter therefore illustrates the dangers associated with Spiritualism. The condemned practices are connected with vices found in the cities of the present day, as well as in the Cities of the Plains, Pompeii and Herculaneum, and the world before the Flood.