Commentary - Leviticus 20:10-16

Bird's-eye view

In this section of Leviticus, God lays down the foundational laws for sexual purity within the covenant community of Israel. This is not an arbitrary list of taboos; it is a description of the kind of holiness required of a people who dwell in the presence of a holy God. The chapter functions as the penal code corresponding to the prohibitions laid out in chapter 18. God is not just saying "don't do this"; He is attaching the ultimate civil sanction to these violations, demonstrating their gravity. These are not merely personal sins but high crimes against the covenant nation. The sins listed here, adultery, various forms of incest, homosexuality, and bestiality, are all profound corruptions of God's created order for sexuality. They represent a fundamental assault on the family, which is the basic building block of society. By commanding the death penalty, God is teaching His people that these sins are a form of societal and spiritual poison that must be purged from the land lest the land itself vomit them out.

The central theme is that life is in the blood, and the shedding of blood in capital punishment is the just response to sins that defile the lifeblood of the nation. These laws are a stark reminder that sin has consequences, not just in the next life, but in this one. And for the Christian, they are a terrifying and glorious pointer to the cross. The law, with its righteous death penalties, shows us the magnitude of our sin and drives us to the one who bore the death penalty for us. Christ died for adulterers, for homosexuals, for every kind of sexual deviant, so that in Him, we might be washed, sanctified, and justified.

Outline

Context In Leviticus

Leviticus 20 is the judicial counterpart to Leviticus 18. In chapter 18, God lists the forbidden sexual relationships and practices, concluding with a warning that the Canaanites were being driven out of the land for these very abominations. Now, in chapter 20, God attaches the specific civil penalties to these crimes. This chapter is part of the "Holiness Code" (chapters 17-26), a section of Leviticus that details how Israel is to live as a holy nation, set apart for Yahweh. The context is covenantal. God has redeemed Israel from Egypt and is about to bring them into the Promised Land. Their ability to remain in the land is conditioned on their covenant faithfulness, and sexual purity is a non-negotiable aspect of that faithfulness. These are not just laws for personal morality; they are the terms of the national treaty between Israel and her divine King. Failure to enforce these laws would result in the entire nation being polluted and, ultimately, exiled, just like the Canaanites before them.

Key Issues

The Bloodguiltiness of a Polluted Land

A recurring phrase in this passage is that "their bloodguiltiness is upon them." This is legal language. It means that the responsibility for their own execution rests squarely on their own heads. They have committed a capital crime, and the sentence is just. The community, by carrying out the execution, is not incurring bloodguilt itself; rather, it is purging bloodguilt from the community. God had established a fundamental principle: when blood is shed unjustly, the land is polluted, and the land cannot be cleansed except by the blood of the one who shed it (Num 35:33). These sexual sins are treated as a form of spiritual bloodshed. They attack the life of the family and the nation at its source. Adultery, incest, and homosexuality are not victimless crimes. The victim is the entire social fabric.

Therefore, when the magistrate puts the offender to death, he is acting as God's minister of vengeance to cleanse the land. He is performing a kind of social surgery, cutting out a cancer before it metastasizes. If the community fails to do this, then the bloodguilt of the original offender spreads to the whole nation. The land itself, personified, will no longer tolerate the pollution and will "vomit out" its inhabitants. This is what happened to the Canaanites, and it is what God warns will happen to Israel if they follow the same path. The stakes are nothing less than national life or death.

Verse by Verse Commentary

10 ‘If there is a man who commits adultery with another man’s wife, one who commits adultery with his friend’s wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.

The law begins with adultery, the foundational violation of the marriage covenant. Notice the emphasis: it is an offense against "another man," against a "friend." Adultery is not just a private sin between two individuals; it is theft, treachery, and a profound disruption of social order. It attacks the basic cell of society, the family. The law specifies that both parties are to be executed. This establishes the principle of equal accountability before the law. The woman is not seen as a passive victim or a piece of property; she is a moral agent who is equally culpable in the covenant-breaking act. The death penalty here underscores how seriously God takes the marriage bond. In His economy, a vow made before Him is a sacred thing, and to violate it is to invite the ultimate sanction.

11 If there is a man who lies with his father’s wife, he has uncovered his father’s nakedness; both of them shall surely be put to death. Their bloodguiltiness is upon them.

This prohibition deals with a specific and grievous form of incest. Lying with one's stepmother is described as uncovering the father's nakedness. This is because in marriage, husband and wife become "one flesh." To have relations with your father's wife is a profound act of disrespect and usurpation. It is an attack on the father's authority and honor, a sin that echoes the rebellion of Reuben (Gen 35:22) and Absalom (2 Sam 16:21-22). Again, both parties are to be executed. The phrase "their bloodguiltiness is upon them" makes it clear that they are fully responsible for their own fate. They have committed an act so contrary to nature and the created order that they have forfeited their right to live within the covenant community.

12 If there is a man who lies with his daughter-in-law, both of them shall surely be put to death; they have committed perversion. Their bloodguiltiness is upon them.

The next case is incest with a daughter-in-law. This act is labeled a "perversion," the Hebrew word tebel, which implies a confusion of roles and a violation of the natural order. A daughter-in-law is to be honored as a daughter. To have sexual relations with her is to mix and confuse the lines of family authority and affection. It turns a relationship of honor into one of shame and defilement. As with the previous cases, the penalty is death for both, and the responsibility is their own. The law is building a strong wall of protection around the nuclear and extended family, making it clear that these relationships are sacred and must not be sexually corrupted.

13 If there is a man who lies with a male as those who lie with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death. Their bloodguiltiness is upon them.

Here we have the explicit prohibition of homosexual acts. The text is unambiguous. A man lying with another man in a sexual way is declared an "abomination," a toebah. This is one of the strongest words of condemnation in the Old Testament, often used for idolatry and other grave sins. Why such a strong condemnation? Because homosexuality is a fundamental repudiation of God's creative design. God created mankind male and female, and ordained that the two should become one flesh (Gen 1:27; 2:24). This male-female complementarity is not incidental; it is at the very heart of what it means to be human and to bear God's image. Homosexuality rejects this created order and attempts to build a union on a foundation of sameness, which is sterile and contrary to nature. The death penalty signifies that this act is not just a personal choice but a public assault on the very definition of humanity as God created it.

14 If there is a man who marries a woman and her mother, it is lewdness; both he and they shall be burned with fire so that there will be no lewdness in your midst.

This law addresses another form of incest, taking both a woman and her mother as wives. This is condemned as "lewdness," or zimmah, a word that denotes a wicked, depraved plan. The penalty here is unique in this section: death by fire. While the exact method is debated, the severity is not. This particular sin is seen as so heinous that it requires a more dramatic form of execution, perhaps because it creates such an inextricable and perverse tangle of family relations. The purpose of the severe penalty is stated explicitly: "so that there will be no lewdness in your midst." Capital punishment has a deterrent effect; it is meant to purge evil from the community and to teach the people to fear God and His law.

15 If there is a man who lies with an animal, he shall surely be put to death; you shall also kill the animal.

The law now moves to the outer boundary of sexual depravity: bestiality. This is the ultimate confusion of categories, erasing the line that God drew between mankind, made in His image, and the beasts of the field. It is a profound degradation of the man, who lowers himself to the level of an irrational creature. The penalty is death for the man, but also for the animal. Why the animal? The animal is not morally culpable, of course. But the animal has become a party to the defilement, a living monument to the man's sin. By killing the animal, the community removes every trace of the perversion from the land. It is a way of saying that this act is so foul that everything associated with it must be destroyed.

16 If there is a woman who approaches any animal to mate with it, you shall kill the woman and the animal; they shall surely be put to death. Their bloodguiltiness is upon them.

The law concludes this section by making it clear that the prohibition against bestiality applies equally to women. A woman who engages in such an act is just as guilty as a man. She, along with the animal, is to be put to death. The phrase "their bloodguiltiness is upon them" is repeated, sealing the principle of personal responsibility. This equal application of the law to men and women is a consistent feature of the Mosaic code and stands in stark contrast to the pagan cultures surrounding Israel, which often held women to a different and lesser standard. In God's law, both men and women are created in His image, and both are held to the same high standard of holiness.

Application

It is common for modern readers, even Christians, to recoil from a passage like this. The death penalty for sexual sin seems harsh, barbaric, and entirely out of step with our modern sensibilities. But we must not read the Bible as though we are its judges. The Bible is our judge. This passage teaches us, first and foremost, how holy God is and how seriously He takes sin, particularly sins that defile His created order for sex and family.

Our culture has rejected every one of these standards. We celebrate adultery in our movies, we have normalized homosexuality to the point of making it a protected class, and we are well on our way to blurring all the other lines. We have told ourselves that these are victimless crimes, matters of personal choice and private consent. God says they are abominations that pollute a land and bring down national judgment. We should not be surprised, then, at the chaos and confusion we see all around us. We are reaping what we have sown.

So what is the Christian response? It is not to start lobbying for the immediate implementation of the Levitical code. We live under a new covenant, and the civil laws of ancient Israel are not directly binding on modern secular nations. But the moral principles underlying these laws are timeless. They reveal God's unchanging hatred for sin and His design for human flourishing. Our task is to preach the law in all its severity to show sinners their desperate condition. The law, with its righteous death penalties, is a schoolmaster that drives us to Christ (Gal 3:24). Every one of us is guilty of sexual sin in thought, word, or deed, and we all stand under God's sentence of death. Our only hope is that another has paid that penalty for us. Jesus Christ, the holy one of God, went to the cross and bore the curse for adulterers, fornicators, and homosexuals. He took the "bloodguiltiness" upon Himself. Therefore, the gospel we proclaim is one of radical grace. "And such were some of you," Paul says to the Corinthians after listing a similar catalog of sins, "but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God" (1 Cor 6:11). That is the only hope for our polluted land, and the only hope for our polluted hearts.