Leviticus 18:30, commentary and pictures

God commands His people to keep His ordinance by refusing all the abominable customs practiced before them and by keeping themselves undefiled therein. Those customs defiled those who practiced them, so His wrath fell on the former inhabitants of Canaan and Palestine until the land vomited them out and they were driven from it. These prohibitions are moral principle binding on all nations and not merely ceremonial pollution or laws for Jews alone, since the same conduct was condemned among the Gentiles. They forbid sexual relations with close kin and give the degrees of relationship in which marriage is prohibited, showing that marrying a sister or daughter is sinful, though marriage between cousins is not forbidden by that list. Keeping this ordinance fences off dangerous and ruinous practices and protects from deception, spiritual ruin, and the evils that came on Canaan, requiring rejection of witchcraft and dealing with familiar spirits and of sun-worship, Baal worship, and heathen sacred times, while keeping the Sabbath distinguishes His people as worshipers of the Creator.

Command and Canaanite Judgment

The verse commands Israel to keep God's ordinance by committing none of the abominable customs committed before them and by not defiling themselves therein. It is a charge to God's people to keep His ordinances and to refuse the abominable customs practiced by the nations before them, because adopting them would defile them. It calls for keeping the ordinance and avoiding the forbidden practices that defile those who commit them. Swift retribution followed whatever course tended to make that nation like the nations surrounding it.

Those customs defiled those who committed them, and were not merely Jewish pollutions. Because of them God's wrath fell on the former inhabitants of the land of Palestine and Canaan, and they were driven from the land. The land vomited out its former inhabitants because of these abominations. The same conduct condemned among the Gentiles brought evil upon the nations that lived in Canaan.

The laws to which the verse belongs set Israel's conduct apart from the pagan abominations practiced by the nations driven from the land. Those nations had been given four hundred years of warning and hope before their iniquity brought judgment.

Universal Moral Prohibitions

The prohibitions are a moral principle binding on all nations and not laws concerning Jews alone. They are not merely ceremonial pollutions, for the same conduct was condemned among the Gentiles. Those practices defile those who commit them, and because of them God's wrath fell on the Canaanites and they were driven from the land. The land of Palestine vomited out its former inhabitants because of these abominations.

The chapter forbids sexual relations with close kin and gives the degrees of relationship in which marriage is prohibited. Marrying a sister or daughter is shown by it to be sinful. Marriage between cousins is not forbidden by that list.

Prohibited sexual unions include incestuous unions and marriages violating the laws of affinity. Such unions could produce offspring described as illegitimate in connection with Deuteronomy 23:2. That restriction concerned entry into Israel's assembly under its civil laws and did not decide a child's salvation. In that dispensation all God's commandments were enforced with the penalty of death. That penalty was later done away with, but its removal did not do away with the commandments themselves.

Israel was hedged about against corrupting heathen influences and kept a separate and distinct race. This was under a temporary, local, national Sinaitic covenant regulating its social relations. That covenant forbade mingling, intermarriage and blending of alien blood with Israel and prevented any desire to be like alien nations. Swift retribution followed whatever course tended to make that nation like the nations surrounding it. So the pedigree of Christ as the Seed of Abraham would not be clouded and all predicted tokens of Messiahship would center in Him.

Safeguard Against False Worship

Keeping God's ordinance fences off dangerous and ruinous practices and protects from deception, spiritual ruin, and the evil consequences that came upon the nations of Canaan. The ordinance is a safeguard against idolatry and related abominations, commanding not to adopt the corrupt customs practiced before them or to defile themselves by them. The nations displaced before Israel defiled themselves through those abominable customs, and the prohibition is a merciful guard against following them to the same defilement and ruin.

The warning applies to witchcraft and dealing with familiar spirits as sinful customs that defile those who practice them. They were among the abominable customs of the nations displaced before Israel and driven out of the land, belonging to their heathen darkness and licentiousness and corrupt worship. Witchcraft belonged to a setting resting on belief in consciousness after death. Its morals were corrupt, and the morals associated with ancient witchcraft are no purer than those of modern spiritualism.

The verse requires rejecting heathen sacred times and the abominable practices of sun-worship and its associated rites and Baal worship because they defile participants. Rejecting them and keeping the Sabbath distinguished Israel as worshipers of the Creator rather than the sun and guarded against mixing true worship with Baal worship. The ordinance is the Sabbath, a memorial of creation observed by God and given to His people, unlike ceremonial ordinances that were a type or shadow pointing to Christ.

No good can be received from respecting Christmas and Sunday, because Christmas is the ancient Saturnalia or Yule feast masquerading under a Christian name. It was the great annual festival for sun worship as Sunday was the weekly one, and observance purporting to honor Christ obscures His name and mission by mingling it with ancient heathen customs. When modern Israel make Sunday and Christmas days of visiting and cessation of ordinary labor they expose themselves and their families to continued temptation from which God would shield them, repeating how the pomp and pleasure of heathen festivals seduced Israel into sin. The immoral practices described belong to the widespread sin and corruption of the present generation, which large cities still commit.