CHAPTER 18

(1490 B.C.)

INCEST FORBIDDEN

¹And the LORD spoke unto Moses, saying,

²Speak unto the Children of Israel, and say unto them, I am the LORD your God. (In this Chapter, we will have revealed to us the Character of God, and the character of man. We will see that the character of man is desperately evil. This is the condition of man without God, and, as is painfully obvious, none are excluded.)

³After the doings of the land of Egypt, wherein you dwelt, shall you not do: and after the doings of the land of Canaan, where I will bring you, shall you not do: neither shall you walk in their ordinances. (The expositors say, It was not, by any means, the judgment of an Israelite in opposition to the judgment of an Egyptian or of a Canaanite; but it was the Judgment of God above all. Egypt might have her practices and her opinions, and so might Canaan; but Israel was to have the opinions and practices laid down in the Word of God, even as we shall see in the next two Verses.)

⁴You shall do My Judgments, and keep My Ordinances, to walk therein: I am the LORD your God (the Word of the Lord must always be the criteria for all things).

⁵You shall therefore keep My Statutes, and My Judgments: which if a man do, he shall live in them: I am the LORD. (Our life and living must always be based strictly upon the Word. And as we learn the Word, we will find that the short phrase, Jesus Christ and Him Crucified, is the story of the Word, meaning that the Cross is the provision for all, and the only provision for all.)

⁶None of you shall approach to any who is near of kin to him, to uncover their nakedness: I am the LORD (incest is forbidden).

⁷The nakedness of your father, or the nakedness of your mother, shall you not uncover: she is your mother; you shall not uncover her nakedness.

⁸The nakedness of your fathers wife shall you not uncover: it is your fathers nakedness.

⁹The nakedness of your sister, the daughter of your father, or daughter of your mother, whether she be born at home, or born abroad, even their nakedness you shall not uncover.

¹⁰The nakedness of your sons daughter, or of your daughters daughter, even their nakedness you shall not uncover: for theirs is your own nakedness.

¹¹The nakedness of your fathers wifes daughter, begotten of your father, she is your sister, you shall not uncover her nakedness.

¹²You shall not uncover the nakedness of your fathers sister: she is your fathers near kinswoman.

¹³You shall not uncover the nakedness of your mothers sister: for she is your mothers near kinswoman.

¹⁴You shall not uncover the nakedness of your fathers brother, you shall not approach to his wife: she is your aunt.

¹⁵You shall not uncover the nakedness of your daughter-in-law: she is your sons wife; you shall not uncover her nakedness.

¹⁶You shall not uncover the nakedness of your brothers wife: it is your brothers nakedness.

¹⁷You shall not uncover the nakedness of a woman and her daughter, neither shall you take her sons daughter, or her daughters daughter, to uncover her nakedness; for they are her near kinswomen: it is wickedness.

¹⁸Neither shall you take a wife to her sister, to vex her, to uncover her nakedness, beside the other in her life time. (The word nakedness refers to sexual intercourse, whether in the bonds of incestuous marriage, which marriage would be sinful, or outside of the bonds of marriage, which would be fornication. Concerning these things, Pulpit says,Verses 6 through 19 contain the law of incest, or the prohibited degrees of marriage. The positive law of marriage, as implanted in the human heart, would be simply that any man of full age might marry any woman of full age, provided that both parties were willing. But this liberty is at once controlled by a number of restrictions, the main purpose of which is to prevent incest, which, however much one nation may come to be indifferent to one form of it, and other to another, is yet abhorrent to the feelings and principles of mankind. The Hebrew restrictive law is contained in one Verse, None of you shall approach to any who is near of kin to him, to uncover their nakedness: I am the LORD.

In fact, all these Verses are simply an amplification and an explanation of the words, near of kin to him.)

IMMORALITY

¹⁹Also you shall not approach unto a woman to uncover her nakedness, as long as she is put apart for her uncleanness (refers to a womans monthly period).

²⁰Moreover you shall not lie carnally with your neighbours wife, to defile yourself with her (the prohibition against adultery).

²¹And you shall not let any of your seed pass through the fire to Molech (this was the so-called deity associated with Ammon, which was a neighbor of Israel [I Ki. 11:7]; this idol was called the abomination of the Ammonites, and was associated with the sacrifice of children in the fire [Lev. 20:2-5; II Ki. 17:31; 23:10; Jer. 32:35]; Molech is also sometimes called Milcom), neither shall you profane the Name of your God: I am the LORD. (The idea is that under no circumstances were children to be offered up to Idols in sacrifice, which was the abominable habit of the heathen, and actually world-wide in scope.)

²²You shall not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination (proclaims the terrible sin of the abomination of homosexuality; whatever man says, God says it is an abomination; God help America to see the awfulness of homosexual marriages).

²³Neither shall you lie with any beast to defile yourself therewith: neither shall any woman stand before a beast to lie down thereto: it is confusion. (Concerning this sin, Ellicott says: The necessity for the prohibition of this shocking crime, for which the Mosaic Law enacts the penalty of death [Lev. 20:15-16; Ex. 22:18], will appear all the more important when it is borne in mind that this degrading practice actually formed a part of the religious worship of the Egyptians in connection with the goat deities. In other words, the Israelites were very familiar with this perversion, having lived in Egypt for so long.

It is said that the disease of syphilis originated with men cohabiting with sheep.)

WARNINGS

²⁴Defile not ye yourselves in any of these things: for in all these the nations are defiled which I cast out before you:

²⁵And the land is defiled: therefore I do visit the iniquity thereof upon it, and the land itself vomits out her inhabitants. (From the creation, the Earth itself shared in the punishment of mans guilt [Gen. 3:17], and, at the restitution of all things, she is to participate in mans restoration [Rom. 8:19-22]. The physical condition of the land, therefore, at least after a measure, depends on the moral conduct of man. Thats the reason that most nations cannot feed themselves. And what little true Christianity there is in America is the reason for the abundant harvests; however, we are fastly losing what little Christianity we presently have, and that points to a dire future.)

²⁶You shall therefore keep My Statutes and My Judgments, and shall not commit any of these abominations (obey the Word of the Lord); neither any of your own nation, nor any stranger who sojourns among you (dont allow the heathen to practice their abominations in the land of Israel; God help America in the opening of her arms to the abominable religion of Islam):

²⁷(For all these abominations have the men of the land done, which were before you, and the land is defiled;) (in other words, thats the reason Im going to dispel the Canaanites who presently occupy the land of Canaan, and give it to you).

²⁸That the land spue not you out also, when you defile it, as it spued out the nations that were before you (in other words, if you ignore My Word, I will vomit you out, even though you are My chosen people, just as I vomited out the heathen; and thats exactly what happened).

²⁹For whosoever shall commit any of these abominations, even the souls who commit them shall be cut off from among their people (the warning is given).

³⁰Therefore shall you keep My Ordinance, that you commit not any one of these abominable customs, which were committed before you, and that you defile not yourselves therein: I am the LORD your God. (The last phrase lends a weight to these Commandments that is beyond compare. His Word better be heeded, now as well as then.)