Commentary - Leviticus 20:1-5

Bird's-eye view

Here in Leviticus 20, we are at the heart of what it means for Israel to be a holy nation. After the instructions for holy living in chapter 19, God now lays out the penalties for certain gross violations of that holiness. This is not an abstract list of rules; it is the establishment of a firewall against pagan corruption. The chapter opens with the most heinous of sins, the worship of Molech through child sacrifice. God establishes that this sin is so profoundly evil, so contrary to His nature and covenant, that it requires the ultimate penalty. Not only does the individual perpetrator face judgment, but the community that tolerates such a sin comes under divine wrath as well. This passage establishes a crucial principle: true worship and societal health are inextricably linked, and tolerance of foundational evil is not a virtue but a form of corporate suicide.

The Lord makes it clear that His law is not just for native born Israelites, but for any sojourner living among them. The holiness God requires is territorial. If you live in God's land, you live by God's rules. The central issue is the antithesis between the God who gives life, who blesses with seed, and the demonic idol who demands that seed back in blood. This is a direct, satanic inversion of the gospel. God gives His only Son for His people; Molech demands that the people give their sons to him. The response to this abomination must be swift, public, and decisive, lest the entire nation be defiled.

Outline

Context In Leviticus

Leviticus is the book of holiness. Its central declaration is "You shall be holy, for I the LORD your God am holy" (Lev. 19:2). Chapters 18 and 19 laid out the moral and ethical requirements for this holiness, covering everything from sexual purity to just business practices. Chapter 20 now functions as the judicial counterpart to those laws, specifying the sanctions for their violation. It is not enough to know the good; the community must also know what to do with the evil in its midst. This chapter, therefore, is a manual for purging evil, for maintaining the sanctity of the covenant community so that God might continue to dwell among them. The placement of Molech worship at the very top of this list of capital crimes signifies its supreme offense against the God of Israel.

Key Issues

Beginning: The God Who Gives vs. The God Who Takes

The fundamental conflict in Scripture is between two religions, two cities, and two seeds. The seed of the woman is at war with the seed of the serpent. And here, that conflict is displayed in its starkest form. The covenant promise to Abraham, the promise that runs through the entire Old Testament, was a promise of seed (Gen. 12:7, 15:5). God is the giver of children; they are a heritage from the Lord (Ps. 127:3). He commands His people to be fruitful and multiply, to fill the earth with covenant keeping offspring who will worship and serve Him.

Molech represents the satanic counterfeit. He is the anti-God, the devourer of children. Where God gives life, Molech demands death. Where God asks for the hearts of the fathers to be turned to their children, Molech demands the children's bodies for the fire. This is why the sin is so heinous. It is a direct assault on the character of God, the nature of the covenant, and the promise of the gospel. To give one's seed to Molech is to declare with your actions that you serve the god of death and not the God of life. It is the ultimate act of covenant treason.

Molech and the Inversion of the Gospel

The worship of Molech was a Canaanite practice that involved, in some form, the sacrifice of children. The phrase "gives any of his seed" is a chillingly sterile way to describe a father handing his child over to be burned. This practice is the absolute nadir of pagan religion. It is the worship of death itself. And it is a perfect inversion of the Christian gospel. In the gospel, God the Father gives His seed, His only begotten Son, as a sacrifice to save His people from their sins. In the cult of Molech, the human father gives his seed, his child, as a sacrifice to appease a demon. The gospel is about God sacrificing for man. Paganism, in its ultimate expression, is about man sacrificing his own children for nothing. This is why God's judgment is so severe; this sin is not just murder, it is a blasphemous parody of redemption.

The Territorial Nature of God's Law

Notice that the law applies not only to the "sons of Israel" but also to the "sojourners sojourning in Israel" (v. 2). This is a critical point that is often missed in our individualistic age. God's law is not merely a personal preference or an ethnic peculiarity. When God establishes a people in a land, His law becomes the law of that land. Holiness is territorial. This means that certain public behaviors are outlawed for everyone within the borders of the covenant nation, regardless of their personal beliefs. There is no religious pluralism when it comes to child sacrifice. A sojourner could not set up a Molech altar in his backyard and claim "religious freedom." Why? Because such an act defiles God's sanctuary and profanes His holy name (v. 3). The land itself belongs to God, and He sets the terms for living in it.

Corporate Responsibility and the Sin of Apathy

God's command is that "the people of the land shall stone him with stones" (v. 2). The punishment is a community act. This is not vigilante justice; it is the formal, judicial responsibility of the covenant community to purge evil from its midst. But God anticipates the temptation to look the other way. Verses 4 and 5 address the sin of complicity, of "turning a blind eye." If the people know this is happening and fail to execute justice, God does not simply shrug. He says, "then I Myself will set My face against that man and against his family." God's wrath extends from the perpetrator to those who enable him through their silence and inaction. Apathy in the face of grotesque evil is not neutrality; it is participation. When the people of God refuse to call evil evil, and refuse to deal with it, God Himself will deal with them.

Idolatry as Spiritual Adultery

The passage concludes by describing the network of Molech worshipers as "all those who play the harlot after him" (v. 5). The Bible consistently uses the metaphor of marriage to describe the covenant relationship between God and His people. God is the faithful husband; Israel is His bride. Therefore, idolatry is never presented as a mere intellectual error or a simple mistake. It is spiritual adultery. It is whoredom. It is taking the love and allegiance that belong to our covenant Lord and giving it to a worthless, demonic idol. This language is meant to shock us. It is meant to convey the deep sense of betrayal and relational treason that God feels when His people run after other gods. To worship Molech is to cheat on the God of Heaven.

Key Words

Karath, "To Cut Off"

The Hebrew word karath, translated as "cut him off," is a severe term of judgment. It means more than just death or excommunication. It signifies being cut off from the covenant people, excised from the line of promise, and losing one's place and inheritance in Israel. In a covenant context, it is the ultimate sanction. When God says He will "cut off" a man and his family (v. 3, 5), He is declaring that they are no longer part of His people. Their name is blotted out.

Zanah, "To Play the Harlot"

The word zanah is the common Hebrew verb for prostitution or fornication. Its use here in a religious context (v. 5) is foundational to the biblical understanding of idolatry. It frames the worship of other gods not as a matter of personal taste, but as a profound act of covenant unfaithfulness. The people of God are betrothed to Him, and turning to an idol is the spiritual equivalent of a wife selling her body to another man. This is why the prophets, particularly Hosea, would later develop this theme with such graphic power.

Context: Molech Worship

Molech, also known as Molek or Milcom, was a deity worshiped by the Ammonites and other Canaanite peoples. While the exact details of the rituals are debated, the Old Testament consistently associates his worship with "passing children through the fire" (2 Kings 23:10; Jer. 32:35). This was likely a horrific ritual of child sacrifice, intended to secure the favor of the deity. It was practiced in the Valley of Hinnom, just outside Jerusalem, which later became a symbol of hell itself (Gehenna). This was not a fringe practice; it was a mainstream part of the pagan worldview that surrounded Israel, and one that tragically, Israel itself would later adopt during its darkest periods of apostasy.

Application

We are not tempted to build a literal altar and sacrifice our children to a bronze idol named Molech. But the spirit of Molech is very much alive and well. Every time a society decides that children are an inconvenience to be disposed of for the sake of personal autonomy or economic advancement, Molech is smiling. The abortion industry is a modern, sanitized, state-funded cult of Molech. It demands our seed in exchange for the promise of a "better life."

And what of the people of God? Have we not, in many cases, turned a blind eye? When the church is silent on the slaughter of the unborn, when it refuses to discipline its members who participate in or advocate for this holocaust, when it values respectability and "not being political" over obedience to God's plain commands, it is guilty of the sin described in verse 4. We are the people of the land who are looking the other way. And the promise of God is that if we do not act, He will. He will set His face against a compromised church and a faithless people. The call of this text is to repent of our complicity, to call sin by its right name, and to reassert the Lordship of the God of Life over the demonic gods of death that plague our land.