The Weight of the Name and the Grammar of Justice Text: Leviticus 24:10-23
Introduction: The Unbearable Lightness of Blasphemy
We live in an age that treats God's name like a throw pillow. It is tossed about casually, used as punctuation for surprise or disgust, and generally regarded as public property with no owner. To our modern, secular sensibilities, blasphemy is, at worst, a breach of etiquette, and at best, a sign of sophisticated liberation from ancient taboos. The idea that words spoken against God could be a capital crime is not just offensive; it is unintelligible. It is like trying to explain calculus to a golden retriever.
And this is precisely why a passage like this one in Leviticus is a bucket of ice water to the face of our drowsy generation. It forces a confrontation with the most fundamental question of existence: is God the center of reality, or are we? If God is merely a concept, a projection of our own psychological needs, then blasphemy is meaningless. But if God is the self-existent, triune Creator of all things, the one in whom we live and move and have our being, then His name is the central, load-bearing pillar of the cosmos. To attack His name is not to graffiti a derelict building; it is to plant a bomb at the foundation of reality itself. It is cosmic treason.
This passage is not some obscure, embarrassing text that we should politely ignore. It is a foundational lesson in the grammar of justice. It teaches us about the holiness of God, the nature of sin, the basis for civil law, and the principle of impartial, proportional justice. Our culture is rotting from the head down because it has rejected every principle laid out in this chapter. It has rejected God's authority, embraced partiality as a virtue, and replaced proportional justice with a toxic mixture of sentimentalism and vengeful rage. To understand this passage is to understand what has gone wrong with the world, and what must be done to set it right.
The Text
Now the son of an Israelite woman, whose father was an Egyptian, went out among the sons of Israel; and the Israelite woman’s son and a man of Israel struggled with each other in the camp. And the son of the Israelite woman blasphemed the Name and cursed. So they brought him to Moses. (Now his mother’s name was Shelomith, the daughter of Dibri, of the tribe of Dan.) And they put him in custody so that the command of Yahweh might be made clear to them.
Then Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying, “Bring the one who has cursed outside the camp, and let all who heard him lay their hands on his head; then let all the congregation stone him. And you shall speak to the sons of Israel, saying, ‘If anyone curses his God, then he will bear his sin. Moreover, the one who blasphemes the name of Yahweh shall surely be put to death; all the congregation shall certainly stone him. The sojourner as well as the native, when he blasphemes the Name, shall be put to death.
‘If a man strikes down the life of any human being, he shall surely be put to death. And the one who strikes down the life of an animal shall make restitution for it, life for life. If a man injures his neighbor, just as he has done, so it shall be done to him: fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; just as he has injured a man, so it shall be inflicted on him. Thus the one who strikes down an animal shall make restitution for it, but the one who strikes down a man shall be put to death. There shall be one standard of judgment for you; it shall be for the sojourner as well as the native, for I am Yahweh your God.’ ” Then Moses spoke to the sons of Israel, and they brought the one who had cursed outside the camp and stoned him with stones. Thus the sons of Israel did, just as Yahweh had commanded Moses.
(Leviticus 24:10-23 LSB)
A Hybrid and a Quarrel (vv. 10-12)
The incident that prompts this revelation of law begins with a fight, as so many legal precedents do. But the details are not incidental.
"Now the son of an Israelite woman, whose father was an Egyptian, went out among the sons of Israel; and the Israelite woman’s son and a man of Israel struggled with each other in the camp. And the son of the Israelite woman blasphemed the Name and cursed." (Leviticus 24:10-11)
We are told immediately that the offender has a mixed identity. His mother is an Israelite, but his father is an Egyptian. He is part of the "mixed multitude" that came out of Egypt. This is not to say that mixed heritage is inherently sinful, but it does highlight a potential for divided loyalties. When the pressure of a conflict arose, his ultimate allegiance, or lack thereof, came to the surface. In the heat of a struggle, he did not just curse the man he was fighting; he went straight to the top. He "blasphemed the Name."
The phrase "the Name," ha-Shem, is a reverential substitute for the covenant name of God, Yahweh. This was not a slip of the tongue. This was a high-handed, defiant assault on the character, authority, and majesty of the God of Israel. It was a verbal declaration of war against the King of the camp.
The response of the Israelites is a model of judicial restraint. "So they brought him to Moses... And they put him in custody so that the command of Yahweh might be made clear to them" (vv. 11-12). They did not form a lynch mob. They did not act on their outrage. They recognized the gravity of the offense and understood that they needed a clear, divine standard for how to proceed. A society governed by law, and not by passions, will always seek the mind of the lawgiver before acting.
The Gravity of the Name (vv. 13-16)
God's response is swift and unambiguous. He establishes both the specific procedure for this case and the general law for all future cases.
"Then Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying, 'Bring the one who has cursed outside the camp, and let all who heard him lay their hands on his head; then let all the congregation stone him.'" (Leviticus 24:13-14)
Each part of this procedure is packed with meaning. First, the blasphemer is taken "outside the camp." Sin is a pollutant. High-handed rebellion against God defiles the covenant community, and it must be purged to maintain the holiness of the people among whom God dwells. Second, the witnesses, "all who heard him," must lay their hands on his head. This is not a magical transfer of guilt. It is a formal, public act of testimony. They are solemnly identifying the man and attesting to his crime. This also places the responsibility squarely on the witnesses; if they are found to be lying, they will face the penalty the accused was facing. It is a powerful deterrent against false accusations. Third, "all the congregation" is to carry out the execution. This is not the work of a secret police force. It is a corporate act of the community, publicly affirming their allegiance to Yahweh and their agreement with the justice of His law.
Then God broadens the principle. "Moreover, the one who blasphemes the name of Yahweh shall surely be put to death... The sojourner as well as the native, when he blasphemes the Name, shall be put to death" (v. 16). This is crucial. God's standard of justice is not a tribal custom. It is a universal principle. It applies to the "sojourner," the resident alien, just as it does to the native-born Israelite. Why? Because Yahweh is not just the God of Israel; He is the God of the whole earth. His moral law is binding on all men. This establishes the principle of equal protection, or rather, equal accountability, under the law.
The Grammar of Justice: Lex Talionis (vv. 17-22)
God does not leave the law against blasphemy floating in isolation. He immediately embeds it within the wider context of His system of justice, the principle of lex talionis, or the law of retribution.
"fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; just as he has injured a man, so it shall be inflicted on him." (Leviticus 24:20)
Our sentimental age hears "an eye for an eye" and recoils, thinking it a mandate for barbaric personal revenge. It is the exact opposite. This principle was given to civil magistrates to limit punishment. It establishes the standard of proportionality. The punishment must fit the crime, no more and no less. You cannot take a life for an eye, or an eye for a tooth. This principle is the foundation of all sane justice, and it protects citizens from both the tyranny of excessive punishment and the foolishness of inadequate punishment.
The passage also makes a critical distinction. "the one who strikes down the life of an animal shall make restitution for it, life for life... but the one who strikes down a man shall be put to death" (vv. 18, 21). A man is made in the image of God; a cow is not. Therefore, to kill a man requires the forfeiture of the killer's life. To kill an animal requires economic restitution. This distinction is the bedrock of human dignity. When a society loses this, it begins to treat people like animals and animals like people.
And the section concludes by reiterating the foundational principle of impartiality: "There shall be one standard of judgment for you; it shall be for the sojourner as well as the native, for I am Yahweh your God" (v. 22). God's justice is blind to ethnicity, social status, and country of origin. There is one law because there is one Lawgiver, whose character is the source of the law.
Conclusion: The Blasphemer on the Cross
The final verse tells us that Israel obeyed. They carried out the sentence just as God commanded. So what are we to do with this? Do we form a posse and go looking for blasphemers? No. To think that is to fundamentally misunderstand how God's law works in the light of the cross of Jesus Christ.
First, we must unapologetically affirm that this law is holy, just, and good. Blasphemy against the living God is a capital offense. Sin is that serious. To water this down is to diminish the holiness of God and the grace of the gospel. If the disease is just a sniffle, then the cure is just a cough drop. But if the disease is cosmic treason, then the cure must be a cosmic redemption.
Second, we must see that the ultimate blasphemy trial in history was the trial of Jesus Christ. The Son of God, who is the perfect expression of the Name, stood before a corrupt religious council and was condemned for blasphemy because He told them who He was (Matthew 26:63-66). The only innocent man who ever lived was executed under a false charge of the very crime described in our text. The true blasphemers executed the Holy One as a blasphemer.
Third, on that cross, Jesus absorbed the full penalty for our blasphemy. He took the stones that we deserved. God's justice, revealed here in Leviticus, was not set aside at Calvary; it was perfectly fulfilled. Christ bore our sin. He was taken outside the camp, and the hands of our sin were laid upon His head. He received the full measure of the curse so that we might receive the full measure of grace.
This means our primary weapon against blasphemy today is not the magistrate's sword but the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. We preach the gospel. We proclaim the name of Jesus Christ, calling all men, native and sojourner, to repent and find forgiveness in that Name. But this does not make us indifferent to the pursuit of public justice. We still labor for a civil order that acknowledges the Lordship of Christ. We still insist that all societies have blasphemy laws; they simply protect different gods. Our society, for example, will punish you severely for blaspheming its sacred dogmas on sexuality or race. All we ask is that they get the right God. And we work toward that end not by demanding that a corrupt and blasphemous state start stoning people, but by demanding that the state itself first bow the knee to Christ, the King of kings.