Commentary - Leviticus 20:27

Bird's-eye view

Leviticus 20 concludes a significant section of what is often called the Holiness Code, a series of laws defining how Israel was to be set apart for the Lord. This chapter is not a gentle list of suggestions; it is a stark enumeration of capital crimes within the covenant community. The central theme is that the people of God must be holy because God Himself is holy, and this holiness is not an abstract concept but a tangible reality that affects every area of life, including worship, sexuality, and social relations. The chapter outlines the severe consequences for those who would defile the land and the people by engaging in pagan practices. This particular verse, dealing with mediums and spiritists, serves as a capstone to the preceding prohibitions, making it clear that any attempt to consult powers other than Yahweh is a treasonous act of the highest order, striking at the very foundation of Israel's covenant relationship with their King.

The penalty prescribed, death by stoning, was a communal act, signifying that the entire nation was responsible for purging such evil from their midst. This was not about personal vengeance but about corporate purity. To tolerate those who trafficked with demonic powers was to invite God's judgment upon the whole land. In the grand sweep of redemption, this law points to the absolute spiritual warfare that exists between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of darkness. It establishes a non-negotiable boundary: God's people are to get their information, guidance, and help from Him alone. Any attempt to go to other sources is not just a mistake; it is a capital offense against the throne of Heaven.

Outline

Context In Leviticus

This verse comes at the end of a long list of prohibitions in Leviticus 18-20. God has just laid out laws concerning sexual purity, idolatry (specifically Molech worship), and various social responsibilities. Chapter 20 largely recapitulates the prohibitions of chapter 18 but adds the specific civil penalties. The immediate context is God's declaration that He has separated Israel from the other peoples to be His own (Lev 20:24-26). This separation requires them to distinguish between clean and unclean, and most importantly, between the worship of the true God and the occultic practices of the Canaanites they were dispossessing. The law against mediums and spiritists is therefore not an isolated command but the logical conclusion of this principle of separation. To consult the dead or demonic entities is to fundamentally betray Israel's unique calling and to seek fellowship with the very powers of darkness that God is judging through the conquest of Canaan.

Key Issues

Trafficking with Hell

We live in a thoroughly secularized age, which means we have two equal and opposite errors we can fall into when we read a text like this. The first is to dismiss it as ancient superstition, the crude beliefs of a primitive people who didn't know any better. The second, and far more dangerous for the church, is to treat it as a dead letter, a law that has no bearing on our sophisticated, modern lives. But the spiritual realm is just as real today as it was at the foot of Sinai. The demonic powers have not retired.

What this law identifies is the sin of seeking knowledge or power from forbidden, spiritual sources. A medium (one who has a "familiar spirit") is someone who claims to be a channel for the dead or for other spiritual entities. A spiritist is one who consults them. In biblical terms, this is not a harmless parlor game; it is high treason. It is going behind the back of the King to consult with His sworn enemies. It is an attempt to circumvent God's ordained means of revelation, His Word and His prophets, in order to gain illicit information. Whether through a Ouija board, a tarot card reading, or a modern psychic, the principle is the same. It is an act of profound unbelief, a declaration that God is not enough, and an opening of the door to demonic deception. God commands His people to be utterly separate from such practices because He is a jealous God, and He will not share His glory with demons.

Verse by Verse Commentary

27 ‘Now a man or a woman who is a medium or a spiritist...

The law begins with a broad scope, applying to both men and women. This is significant. In the economy of the covenant, spiritual responsibilities and spiritual crimes were not limited to one gender. Both men and women could be tempted to seek power or knowledge from the demonic realm, and both were held equally accountable before God's law. The specific terms here, medium and spiritist, refer to those who actively practice divination and necromancy. The Hebrew for medium literally refers to one who possesses an ’ob, a familiar spirit. This is someone who has entered into a compact, a working relationship, with a demonic entity. This is not about someone who is merely curious or deceived on a single occasion, but rather one who has made a profession of trafficking with the powers of darkness.

...shall surely be put to death.

The sentence is unambiguous and absolute. The Hebrew construction mot yumat means "dying he shall be made to die," which is the strongest possible way of stating the necessity of capital punishment. There are no exceptions, no lesser penalties. Why such severity? Because this sin strikes at the heart of the first and greatest commandment: "You shall have no other gods before me." To consult a medium is to enthrone another source of revelation, another source of power, another god. It is an act of cosmic rebellion. In the theocratic nation of Israel, where God was the civil king, this was not simply a religious error; it was an act of high treason, equivalent to collaborating with an enemy nation during a time of war. The very existence of the covenant nation depended on its exclusive loyalty to Yahweh.

They shall be stoned with stones.

The method of execution is specified as stoning. This was not a form of chaotic mob violence. It was a formal, judicial procedure carried out by the whole community. The witnesses to the crime were required to cast the first stones (Deut 17:7), ensuring that no one could bring a capital charge lightly. The participation of the community signified that the crime was an offense against them all. The presence of such a spiritual cancer threatened the health of the entire body politic, and so the entire body had to act to remove it. It was a graphic, public demonstration that the people of God would not tolerate any rival to Yahweh's throne in their midst.

Their bloodguiltiness is upon them.’ ”

This final clause is the legal justification for the sentence. It means that the responsibility for their own death rests squarely on the heads of the offenders. They have brought this upon themselves. The community, by carrying out the execution, is not incurring bloodguilt. Rather, it is cleansing itself of the guilt that would come from tolerating such a defiling practice. The law is just, the sentence is righteous, and the executed criminal has no one to blame but himself. This phrase closes the legal loop, declaring the justice of God's verdict and absolving the covenant community as they carry it out. It is a declaration that God's law is not arbitrary but is the very definition of justice.

Application

Now, how do we handle a text like this in the new covenant? The first thing to say is that the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ transformed our application of biblical law, but it did not abrogate the law's essential goodness or the principles behind it. We are not to form a posse and go stone the local psychic. The theocratic nation of Israel has been fulfilled in the transnational, spiritual kingdom of the church. The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but are mighty in the Spirit for pulling down strongholds (2 Cor 10:4).

But the principle remains with full force. Trafficking with the demonic is still a sin worthy of death. The difference is that the death penalty has already been carried out. For all those who are in Christ, the ultimate capital punishment for this sin, and for all our sins, was borne by Jesus on the cross. He became a curse for us, so that the curse of the law would not fall on us (Gal 3:13). He was, in effect, stoned by the wrath of God outside the city gate so that we might be cleansed and brought into the holy city.

Therefore, the application for us is twofold. First, we must take the spiritual battle with utter seriousness. Dabbling with the occult, horoscopes, fortune-telling, or any form of spiritualism is not a game. It is playing with hellfire. It is a detestable practice in the eyes of a holy God, and we must flee from it and have nothing to do with it. Second, our response to those caught in such things is not to pick up stones, but to preach the gospel. The only hope for a medium or a spiritist is the same hope for a liar, a thief, or an adulterer: repentance from sin and faith in the crucified and risen Lord Jesus. He is the one who took the death penalty we deserved, and He is the only one who can deliver anyone from the kingdom of darkness and transfer them into His own marvelous light.